Bryce Canyon, Utah

6-28-21: Reluctantly leaving Cedar Breaks, it was a short drive to the RV park outside of Bryce Canyon. Having been unable to secure a spot in the actual park campground I had made reservations at a private RV park about 20 miles outside the Park. Upon arriving I was told by the nice office folks that the previous campers were still in my spot and were nowhere to be found. She had been frantically trying to contact them since check out time with no luck. In the meantime she kindly offered me a temporary spot to park until it could all be sorted out.

I dropped the trailer and headed to explore Bryce Canyon City and the park entrance. Coming off my great experience at Zion I was hoping that I could again beat the crowds by biking into the park. I was happy to find that there is a paved multi-use path that literally runs almost the entirety of Hwy 12 into town and on into the park, so if you are ambitious you could do a 40+ mile loop to the park and back! After checking out town I stopped by the park visitor center and picked up a map and decided that the large free parking lot at the visitor center would be my launching point for the morning.

There are 2 neat tunnels on Hwy 12 which are cool photo ops.

Upon returning to camp the previous campers were there frantically packing up, they had gotten their check out days confused and thought they had one more day. Very nice folks, a large family with 5 kids! They apologized profusely and even tried to give me money for the hassle. With no real schedule, I was happy to tell them to chill and pack safely knowing that kharma was on my side. I did have a quick talk with the Dad about his unique rig, have you ever seen a SIX door truck? check this out:

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That is a big boy, full size F-350 with an extra row of seating! He said a company in Oklahoma builds them custom. Pretty cool and I guess one of the few options if you need to seat 7 and tow a trailer.

Finally settled into my spot, here is the view from camp:

Sticking to my early morning beat the crowds routine, I was parked at the visitor center and unloaded by 8:30am, unlike Zion there is no separate entrance for bicycles but there was no traffic so I just rode up to the booth and then jumped back on the bike path.

Zipping along on the empty bike path I quickly arrived at the first overlook, Sunrise Point and the view did not dissapoint!

The bike path runs about 5 miles and stops at Bryce Point, I wanted to see a bit more so I continued on the main road to Paria View. The following day I drove the entire length of the canyon and stopped at all the overlooks for photo.

Having 4 days and 3 nights in the area I was also able to explore the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument and visit a cool RV park in Escalante where you can stay in a vintage Airstream or their cabins and watch a drive in movie from their classic cars, pretty cool and a fun choice if you are in the area, check out Yonder Escalante.

I also got in a mountain bike ride on some forest service roads in the Casto Canyon where I got caught in a downpour, it reminded me of the Charlie Brown rain cloud that used to follow him in the comic strip, it was literally just one cloud right over and following me! It gave me the opportunity to have my own little mini mud-fest. Let me just say, Utah mud is something else, it just loaded up the tires and then it was super slippery going. I was riding on a ridge line trying to get out of the downpour and lightning struck the ridge line about 500 yards away across a small valley from me, I have never heard thunder so loud in my life! My pedal speed increased dramatically. Having survived and returned to civilization It took nearly $10 at the car wash to get the bike cleaned off and I’m still finding mud on my gear and in the truck. Much respect Utah Mud… 😝

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I really enjoyed the visit and took quite a few photos, click on the park sign below for the whole album.

Next stop is Moab, UT for Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.