national parks
national parks in the usa: bryce canyon
There are almost 60 National Parks in the USA and one of our travel goals would be to see each of them. We have barely touched the surface with what we have seen. It would be great if we could grow a “national parks series” in our blog to cover them all one day 🙂
One of the ones we have visited is Bryce Canyon National Park. And we absolutely loved what we saw and would go back to the area in a heartbeat!
Bryce Canyon, located in southwest of Utah and named after a Mormon pioneer, was listed as a national park in 1928. According to the National Park Service website, it is small in comparison to other national parks. Smaller or not, it is a sight that you will have to see for yourself to believe.
As we stand at the rim and look down… all we can see are these unusual, red rocky “spires”, known as hoodoos. There are thousands of them. We have never seen anything like it before. It literally made us “ooh” and “ahh” as we snap our photos.
The area is said to be filled with wildlife but much to our disappointment, we didn’t see any except maybe a bird that looked like a raven in flight.
From Sunset Point, there is a trail that winds down so we could walk amongst the rocks. Standing beside rocks this size, we felt so small and insignificant. It was rather daunting to walk down and then look back at the rim. It just seemed like we were in really deep.
The sun and colour of the rocks make for some serious glare, so be sure to have sunglasses with you. We were here in October but the weather was as perfect as any summer we could imagine.
Then to end the day, we were granted skies like this…. Ahhhh…. how can we simply NOT love this place?
It is because places like this exist, we just realise how much we love nature and just want to keep seeing more!
Have you visited Bryce Canyon National Park?
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grand canyon: is it really grand?
Before seeing the Grand Canyon, we really had no expectation and without sounding sarcastic… “How grand can it really be?”
In our original post about this trip, we described that the Grand Canyon is magnificently enormous. And honestly after seeing it with our own eyes, we can confirm that it really is GRAND.
According to UNESCO*, the national park contains more than 2,600 documented prehistoric ruins, untouched until about 1860s. There are 5 life and vegetation zones within the canyon, with over 1,000 species of identified plants.
The Grand Canyon is a gorge, carved out by the Colorado River, millions of years ago. It is approximately 1.5km deep and 450 km long. And honestly, looking out at it, the canyon seems to go on forever! Great times to witness the canyon are during sunrise and sunset when the colours of the canyon change before your eyes.
Words can simply not describe what we could see. Photographs doesn’t do it justice. Witnessing the natural beauty in front of us reminded us what a wonderful world that we live in!
There are times when places are “talked up” and don’t really live to their name or reputation. But here at the Grand Canyon, we certainly were not disappointed! Go see it for yourself, if you haven’t already!
Unfortunately, we didn’t go on a helicopter ride over the canyon, as what we have heard is only gushing reviews about seeing it that way.
wise monkeys abroad 