Today we experienced a first for our entire trip. We hiked a 5-mile loop without seeing a single person. Perhaps the more amazing thing is that it was the best hike so far of the trip, and that’s a tall order considering where we’ve been. Yesterday I was saying how not planning too much is a good thing and in our case, we just lucked out, but we made that luck possible.
Hiking near Red Canyon National Park
The trail I was talking about starts about 500′ west of the Red Canyon Visitor Center. It ends in a campground 1/2 mile from the visitor center. The trail starts out flat and wooded, today it was gorgeous, probably low 70’s when we started.
Start of the Trail Castle Bridge/Golden Wall/Buckhorn
The entire area has beautiful features but it’s one of those trails the longer you walk the better it seems to get.
One of the earlier views.
Unlike some of the other trails, we didn’t see much wildlife, but what we did see we were lucky enough that it posed for a portrait.
Our furry friend, after posing scurried off to find a place to hide.
After hiking the flat area for a while we came to some switchbacks. After our ascent, we were rewarded with sweeping views limited only by mountains in the way in the distance. Along the way there was ample shade to take little breaks.
Sweeping views of the area.
After enjoying the view for a while, we hiked over the summit, only to be completely blown away with beauty on the other side.
More amazing hoodoos.
The trail continued along with some spectacular descents and ascents. Most of the trails were single track and there wasn’t an inch of trail that didn’t have a great view at this point.
More amazing formations laced with trees.
Then we discovered that the initial summit was one of several amazing vistas as we reached the top of several other ridgelines.
I asked my wife to take my picture, I didn’t want to forget this magical vista.
The remainder of the hike was rich with scenery and eventually, we found ourselves in the aforementioned campground. That brought us to the bike trail that led us back to our car. While we were walking alongside the highway we saw many cars that were probably headed to Bryce. I wonder how many of them will experience this special hike that we discovered? I hope more after reading this.
Thinking about
A friend of mine posted something on Facebook that said:
If you could spend a day with me, what would we do?
I absolutely love this concept, because while I’ll spend many days with my family and close friends, there are others that it is probably impractical for it to happen. However impractical it is a fun exercise so I shared it also on my wall and loved the responses I got there. If you haven’t had the chance to share your vision of what we’d do please do so. What will be nice is to see how many of these can actually end up happening, wouldn’t that be amazing? Let’s all dream, reach out, and experience something cool.
Next up: Adventure Day 25 – Road trip and World Cup Final at a Rest Stop
