Destination Experience Compassion Conference: Day 6

So after a long day of driving the day before to get us back into south-western Utah, we packed up our lunches and headed over to Bryce Canyon National Park.

I think it is great that many of the National Parks have a camera stand near the entrance sign. Makes it so much easier to get a group photo using the self-timer on your camea rather than waiting or relying on other people to take your picture.

We stopped in at the Visitor's Center to pick up the Junior Ranger booklet for Kelsey. Since we had time before the ranger talk we were going to attend, we stopped at one of the points along the rim for our first glance at the canyon. Just absolutely amazing! We were blessed with an overcast day which made for even more dramatic colors.

Almost doesn't even look real!

Another rare photo of all four of us!

This little guy was quite popular with all the photographers

For part of the Junior Ranger badge, Kelsey had to listen to a ranger talk. This one was on geology.

After lunch, we decided to hike down into the canyon on one of the easier loops. Kelsey was a little concerned. Last year, when we were at the Grand Canyon, one of the rangers scared her about getting too close to the rim. We encouraged her along and she ended up loving the hike!

Certainly not as deep as the Grand Canyon, but it made for a great hike for our family

Look at that smiling face!

Down in the canyon

Time to climb up out of the canyon

So many different rock formations!

The climb up out of the canyon seemed to take longer than the hike down, but then there were so many photo opportunities along the way!

Getting closer to the top

Yay! We made it!

We still had to walk along the rim to get back to our car, so just a few more photos along the way.

Every now and then we saw a spark of lightning, but I couldn't catch it with my camera.

It was now starting to rain so we drove out to the end of the park. Along the rim of the canyon, there are many stop points to view and take pictures. Some of these points are also the beginning of hiking loops down into the canyon. Because of the rain, and the fact that we already hiked over 3 miles that day, we just tried dodging the rain drops and get pictures along the way.

Yellow wildflowers growing along the rim of the canyon

An arch!

One last amazing view

Great job Kelsey doing all that work for the Junior Ranger badge!

After a pizza dinner in a little town by the campground, we headed back for a early night to bed. Tomorrow morning would be an early one to start our long drive back home. Good night Utah!