Hoodoos 10 May 1999, Monday Started: Green River, Utah Reached: Mount Carmel Junction, Utah Miles: 342 (2949 cumulative) Route: Utah - Salina, Panguitch, Bryce Canyon NP Highways: I70, US89 Soon after we left Green River, the road started climbing the mountains. There was hardly any Monday morning rush traffic! The steep climb again slowed down the car to 50 mph. Initially we could see snow-peaks in the distance. Later the snow covered slopes were right next to the road. We saw Mount Hilgard (11460 Ft) in the distance. On one of the curves in the mountains, we saw an overturned Chevy Astro. There were some German tourists in that van. They had stayed at the same motel and left a few minutes before us. We were mighty glad our car could not any faster! There were lots of internation tourists in Utah. Most notably, from Germany. At one of the visitor center in Utah, we saw a chart indicating how many tourists had visited that center. We quickly marked our country, India, on the chart! Not many Indians venture in this weird land, I guess! There was salt on the road to prevent icy conditions. The car got coated with the red soil yesterday and today we had a coat of salt! We went through a mountain pass at about 8000 ft altitude. The road then went downhill near Salina. After Salina, we took US89 to Panguitch. The road was very winding as it went through a number of small villages. From the road we could see snow-capped Rock Candy Mountain. The mountains here were greener than the other places in Utah, but also had snow on the summits. US89 is along the Sevier river, which has light green colored water. We could see some farms with cows grazing peacefully. At a couple of places, we even saw a "cow-crossing" sign. We saw some white-tail deers standing in the Sevier river gazing at us as we whizzed past. In the sky we could see the smoke from jet engines criss-crossing. Though I had seen them almost daily before, suddenly they looked so ugly and out-of-place! As we neared Bryce canyon NP, we again entered the red-soil country. The road passes through "Red Canyon" in Dixie National forest before entering Bryce Canyon. The name suits! The sand here was much more loose than that in Arches NP. We had a dry river bed on one side of the road. The bed was yellow and the banks were red in color. The hills looked like heaps on loose sand. As we entered Bryce Canyon NP, the road was lined with conifers: spruce, fir, and pine. We were seeing so many trees after a really long time! Between the thick forest of conifers we could see snow on the slope next to the road. The lowest point in Bryce Canyon is at 6600 ft altitude! We took the scenic road in the park, and went right till the end. There we did a small hike along Bristlecone trail. The views were amazing! We saw lots of hoodoos. Hoodoos are red-yellow pillars of rock that are standing some 100 ft above the red soil. There was some snow on Bristlecone trail, but not a whole lot. We then drove back up the scenic road, stopping at all the scenic spots. We saw the Natural Bridge, which is actually a huge arch. It looks like a bridge connecting two hills. Towards the end of the road, we took a detour to Bryce Point. From here, the valley has a whole amphitheater of hoodoos. Its like a huge army of hoodoos waiting for orders in the valley below. We parked at Sunset point, and took the rim trail to Sunrise point. It was a flat and easy trail along the canyon rim. From there, we descended to Queen's Garden via Queen's trail, walked through the hoodoos and came back up via Navajo trail. As the trail descended to the hoodoos, we could see them more closely. This place is a giant ant-hill! The color of the rocks is the same, too. The part of Navajo trail we took was through a number of switchbacks. It went through some really narrow canyons and had steep ascents. Only after reaching the top we realized that we missed the part of the trail that overlook Thor's hammer. But at this point we had no energy left to visit it. We just saw it from a distance. Ebenezer Bryce, who first managed the park and had a herd of cows, described this place as "a hell of a place to lose a cow". There is not overstatement! That evening we stayed at Mount Carmel Junction. The real town is Mount Carmel, but the "junction" is the junction of US89 and CO9, hence has motels and restaurants.