Nature's mighty sculptors

Cannonville, UT – It was a pretty chilly night last night, and we knew our propane supply was run-ning low. The person qualified to operate the LP filling station was not available when we pulled in to the RV park, although we had phoned ahead to ensure we could fill up on arrival. We had to rely on the electric furnace, but it works with a heat pump that is less efficient if the temperature dips below 38F. Still, we did stay warm till morning, when we pulled in our slides and stowed everything to drive the 50 feet to the LP filling station. Then we had to return to our site and set up all over again! The joys of RVing!

With that task attended to, we headed out to visit Bryce Canyon, about 12 miles from our park.  It was sunny with big puffy clouds in the sky and the air was clear, although cool.  We stopped at the visitor center for a bit of orientation before heading in. We arrived just in time for a short film about Bryce.

We learned that the canyon is really a plateau, part of a huge uprising of land covering Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico in prehistoric times. The ebb and flow of water and the pressure of different layers of sand and rock over the centuries resulted in rock formations that are still evolving today.

The national park is a long tract of land with about 20 miles of road from north to south and a rise of 1,200 feet of elevation. At this time of year, people use their per-sonal vehicles in the park, but in the busy season, shuttle buses reduce the traffic somewhat.

It’s hard to put into words the breathtaking vistas we saw today.  Even photos fail to impart the sense of grandeur and massive scope of the turrets, crevices, colours, sculpted ridges, hoodoos, cliffs and overlooks we stopped at.  Snow laced the tops of many of the textured forma-tions today, adding white to the many colours of strata before us. 

I was glad of the scarf I’d tied around my neck this morning and my layered clothing as the wind whistled about at the high altitudes.  Both Val and I had to catch our breath a few times, an effect of being at eight or nine thousand feet of elevation.  We took one of the trails down into the canyon at Sunset Point, a steep descent that zig-zagged past rust-coloured walls, grooved by centuries of rains and snows.  Of course, that meant we had to climb up again, hence the pounding heart and panting! We were not alone; we could hear other visitors huffing and puffing as well. But it was well worth it.

At each site along the route, different for-mations awaited. One had a huge stone arch.  Another had turrets like a fairy castle. A third presented a pa-norama that stretched below us to a distant horizon of blue moun-tains where high clouds sifted down wisps of snow. We were en-chanted.

“Life Elevated” is the motto on many Utah licence plates. We know exactly what that means.