Navajo Loop & Queen's Garden in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, UT

Part 4 of our Bryce Canyon Road Trip (View Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 5, Part 6)

There are a couple places in the Southwest that we’ve visited that have made us say “Holy moly, is this place for real?” Like Antelope Canyon, the Grand Canyon, the Chiricahuas, Monument Valley, Sedona, Zion… now we can add Bryce Canyon National Park to that list!

Scenic byway to get into the park.

For our time spent in this surreal park, we chose to hike 2 trails, the Navajo Loop & Queen’s Garden. These 2 trails, from what we read, are considered the best way to see Bryce Canyon as it takes you up close to the national park’s significant view points. We ended up missing the trailhead because we ventured onto the Rim Trail and hiked a mile into it before realizing what we were doing and had to back track… so we had a warm up hike before our real hike. Here are views from our warm up hike:

View enlarged – Holy moly, is this place for real???!

Navajo Loop starts at Sunset Point. One of the first significant view points on the Navajo Loop……

…is Thor’s Hammer

View enlarged – Can you spot the 3 Gossips next to Thor’s Hammer?

The melting snow made for a pretty messy hike.

After The Gossips & Thor’s Hammer is “Wall Street” however, we could not get into “Wall Street” because it was closed down by the Occupy Wall Street protestors. Just kidding. It was closed due to falling rocks.

I can’t take him anywhere!

Two Bridges

Venturing into the Queen’s Garden.

The Queen –can you spot her?

This might help:

View enlarged

The last leg of the hike back up was strenuous… many recommend doing this hike in reverse so you descend the difficult part instead of ascend. But my husband and I tend to run on the masochistic side of life (see our hike to the top of Flat Iron) & hiked up. It was breathtaking. Literally & figuratively:

View enlarged – The breathtaking view. Bryce Canyon has one of the highest concentrations of hoodoos on the planet.