Bryce Yourself!

My long-awaited journey into "Fairyland Canyon" at Bryce Canyon National Park had come! The weather seemed a bit fickle with some strange, but interesting clouds. It was also seasonably cold for the high desert of Utah.

The trails were in excellent shape but, I wasn't, after months of sitting in front of a computer. I knew I was in for a lot of body punishment but, didn't know just how much I would be inflicting on my lazy old bones. The hoodoos were quite plentiful and wonderful, and the light improved as the day went on.

Dropping down into the canyons meant I would have to eventually repay the "gravity debt" by climbing back up. As a windy and dry cold front approached, interesting lenticular clouds began forming but, those were not to be my subjects, as the hoodoos deserved all my camera's attention.

It is an extremely harsh environment for plants and trees, with growing seasons sometimes being merely a few weeks out of each year. Some of the pines, firs and junipers live for many hundreds of years, finding their niches in such a unique ecosystem.

I happened upon a partially-burned snag with a very interesting spiral pattern to the wood. I used the macro function to zoom in and capture this very arsty shot. Right now, this is my favorite shot of the trip.

The hike was filled with impossible rock formations and all kinds of nice reds and whites to go along with the greens of trees and the blue skies.