Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Hoodoo Gurus

After last night's rain the day dawned clear and bright, vindicating our decision to stay near Bryce Canyon, Utah and hope for clear weather.

We lost no tme getting underway as the forecast was for more rain later today.

Bryce Canyon is a 15 mile trip in and out on the same road, so we decided to head for the end of the road to Rainbow Point, the highest point in the National Park, and work our way out, stopping at all the other overlooks along the way. This was a serendipitous decision, because the views became more impressive with every stop.

Although called a canyon, the spectacular rock formations are actually all on an escarpment that looks out over a wide valley, and the viewpoints are all on the top of the ridgeline. The cliffs have eroded unevenly, leaving thousands of towers - called Hoodoos. Trying to describe this is beyond words - the photos speak more eloquently...



















If you've seen as many Hoodoos as we have, you'd be a Hoodoo Guru, too.

We came across some interesting wildlife in the park.





From Bryce Canyon we turned back through Tropic and continued through Escalante to Boulder. The road took us through some spectacular country. At one point the road we were on ran along a mountain ridge with steep drop offs on either side.

We stopped in Boulder for a coffee, only to be told the shop was closed, but there was a good coffee shop in Torrey. We rode on and suddenly found our selves climbing into thick black clouds. As the rain started we dressed into our wet weather gear (surrounded by aspens in their autumn colours), again, just before the rain really hit us..
We continued climbing and the weather closed in even more. Our speed dropped as visibility in the fog decreased. We finally crossed the highest point and began descending. We soon dropped out of the clouds and visibility improved. Even though conditions were better we deceided that to stop overnight in Torrey, and booked into the first motel we saw.

No comments:

Post a Comment