As part of our road trip on Saturday, we first went to Cedar Breaks National Monument, then headed towards Bryce Canyon. Before we ever made it into the park, we checked out a couple of locations on UT-12 first: Red Canyon and Mossy Cave.
Red Canyon
Red Canyon is a 3-4 mile area on UT-12 with scenic turnouts every 1/2 mile. You could spend a lot of time here!
Mossy Cave
Mossy Cave is technically part of Bryce Canyon, but is only reachable from a parking lot outside of the Bryce Canyon entrance. Go approximately 3.7 miles past the entrance on UT-12 – this is almost halfway between the park entrance and the town of Tropic. While the cave itself is nothing special (to me), the views along the trail and the waterfall along the way are pretty spectacular.
After seeing such a view, we knew we’d find more photo and video opportunities along the trail.
After crossing two bridges, we arrived at a point where we could see the waterfalls from a distance.
On our way back to the Jeep, we found an amazing view we missed on the way to the waterfall.
We packed up to head to Bryce Canyon about this time, because it was starting to rain. The rain clouds are clearly visible in these last two pictures.
Bryce Canyon
It was around 6 p.m. when we entered the park, so we decided to eat dinner at the Bryce Canyon Lodge restaurant. Still raining, so we told ourselves that if it was still raining when we finished, we’d head home because sunset would not be worth it. Fortunately for us, the rain stopped and the cloud cover wasn’t too bad.
We headed for Rainbow Point, which is the last viewpoint and 15 miles from the Bryce Canyon Lodge. After scoping out the view, we set up at the railing and waited for golden hour to arrive. Just prior to golden hour, the clouds parted and the sun shone briefly.
A few minutes later, the golden hour light arrived. Due to the path construction at Rainbow Point, I could not get a view of sunset, but the golden hour light was spectacular.
Since sunset was our plan, we definitely got what we wanted out of Bryce Canyon on this trip. We’ll head back next weekend and aim for sunrise.
