May 19, 2021

Cruising Through Bryce Canyon

With our Cannonville KOA home base, we are fortunate to be just miles away from the entrance to Bryce Canyon National Park. As with many of the other National Parks in the area, the Corgis aren’t allowed on the hiking trails so we’ve found alternatives nearby (see other posts), but luckily within Bryce they made one exception to the rule that happens to be along the most scenic part of the park (we’ll get to that in a minute)!

After passing through the entrance ($35 fee but included with our National Parks pass) Bryce Canyon offers a nice scenic drive that weaves through the park to many popular lookout points. The first ones that you pass are Sunrise Point and Sunset Point – these are the most popular and most awe inspiring locations of the park so we saved those for last. As you cruise though the park, it was noticeably different from our recent drives through Arches and Colorado National Monument in the way that it was rather forested right up to the canyon walls. This made for a very unique contrast of landscapes. Some of the highlights of the drive are stops at Natural Bridge (actually an arch not a bridge) and Rainbow Point near the end of the drive.

Once completing the drive and looping back around, we then stopped at Sunrise Point which also has a general store and visitor center. There is a nice paved trail (along with some offshoot trails) that takes you from Sunrise Point to Sunset Point. The Corgis were allowed on this path and it was a little over a mile down and back. This whole trail winds around the natural amphitheater of Bryce Canyon with endless hoodoos, red rock formations, and layered rock views. Being there in May along with the fact that we entered the park later in the afternoon after a brief rain, there were limited crowds. It was great to slowly trek down the path and take in the amazing views!