Bryce: Fairyland Trail to Tower Bridge
My one demand as we concluded our trip with the drive from Escalante to Las Vegas was a brief stop at Bryce Canyon National Park. Julie’s was a Diet Dr. Pepper with good ice from a truck stop. Fair trade.
With just a morning slot available to us we opted for a hike we hadn’t done together: a 3.5-ish mile out-and-back to the Tower Bridge. We boondocked just outside the park to the north, and overnight lows were in the mid 20s. Not surprising at 9,000 feet elevation this time of year. So it was some brisk weather for our start down the cliff.
The white rocks can look almost translucent this time of day. The beautiful pink and white formations are on the younger end of the spectrum of the sedimentary strata in the Colorado plateau, being deposited about 55 million years ago. For reference this is likely about 10 million years after the dinosaur extinction event. These two formations together comprise the Claron Formation, with the lower pink layer being mostly river sediment and the upper white being large inland lake sediment.
While this hike stays out of the cliff-side with the high concentration of hoodoos, it does give great views back on the structures. We had the nice morning light making it even more spectacular.
The China Wall appears to have some watchful guarding eyes looking our direction.
This was our last hiking stop on this three week adventure! I’ve got a bit more to share on how we liked #vanlife, critters and varmints we saw, maybe more.