Bryce Canyon National Park February 12, 2020

Updated: Sep 30, 2020

Bryce Canyon National Park was a great place for outdoor photography and affordable family travel. — Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah - the 8th park we enjoyed on our mini-tour of US National Parks in the Southwest.

Stop number eight on our National Parks tour brought us to Bryce Canyon.

We almost skipped this Utah National Park due to the snowy weather, but decided to suck it up and take a short visit. Since there was so much snow on the ground we weren't able to access any of the out of park free campsites so we had to pay to camp in the park. The $30 per night non-tent site rate was steep for our "affordable family vacations" budget. Especially since all the sites were mostly snowed in and there are no amenities in the winter. We managed to find the one site that had a picnic table dug out and a bit of dry ground. At least we had the place to ourselves. We didn't arrive until pretty late in the day so our first day there we just hunkered down at camp. The kids bundled up in their snow gear and played until they were too wet and cold to stay outside. Then we warmed up inside the camper with some dinner. Once it was dark outside we piled out of the trailer for some night photography at this #InternationalDarkSkyPark.

This was the darkest park yet and the star gazing was once again incredible.

The next morning we were ready to explore. What did we find? HOODOOS! Who knew?!

These rock formations have a pretty silly name, but that doesn't take away how impressive they are. We went to a small trail to look at the HooDoos from above, but when we saw the Navajo Loop trail we had to give it a try. This snow covered and icy, fairly steep switchback trail took you down to the bottom. It looked like a pretty fun challenge so we decided to go for it.

Very slowly we worked our way down, watching small but steady rock slides along the way.

We had never actually seen a rock slide before. It made us a little nervous at first, but mostly it was super cool to watch and listen to. For the most part, it was just sand and small rocks coming down. The largest baseball size rocks bouncing down sent us trekking on our way. We saw "Wall Street" and the "two bridges". Eventually, we had to turn back because the last part of the loop was closed.

The journey down was challenging and spectacular while the journey back up was a bit more difficult and a bit less spectacular.

The girls really struggled with the steep and slippery hike back up, but they managed and I was very proud of them. I wanted to do one more short hike that day to see an icicle cavern, but everyone else was wiped out so I lost. With a high of 45 degrees Fahrenheit and a low of a mere 14 degrees Fahrenheit we decided that we weren't up for another snowy night at the Bryce Canyon campground so we hit the road towards what we were hoping would be warmer weather.

I'm glad that we decided not to skip the HooDoos where we found amazing #NightPhotography and awesome #HikingAdventures!