Bryce Canyon National Park
Personal Notes:
Bryce Canyon Pines Extended Stay
This page presents our personal notes on our 1997 visits to Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah.
Friday, August 1, 1997
We pulled the Dutchmen trailer down to the Bryce Canyon Pines RV Park. We initially went down for one week, with the intention of leaving the trailer there for two to three months, so that we could come down on weekends and use the trailer as a staging area for our hikes and in-depth exploration of the area. The cost was $225 per month. The RV park has a gas station, a small grocery store, pool table, laundry, and showers. There are lots of trees. We had Site C4. It was a large site, running east to west. We were able to place the refrigerator on the north side so that it was always in the shade. It's a great campground, with lots of room between sites and lots of shade.
Monday, August 4, 1997
We had a heavy, intermittent rain all night. We forgot to roll up the driver's side window before we turned in on Sunday. Needless to say the driver's side seat is soaked. But we stayed dry in the trailer. However, there is a "lake" outside of our door. It finally stopped raining about 8:00 a.m. and I went out into the ankle deep water wearing flip-flops. I used our folding trench shovel to cut a trench around the front of the trailer to let the water drain. One of the "neighbors" came over to supervise. Once my little canal was completed the water drained off quickly. The only "damage" we had was that our door mat got soaked and our new folding chairs got filled with floating bark.
It rained on and off all morning. We finally decided to drive down to Zion, just for something to do. We made a loop out of it and came back through Cedar Breaks National Monument.
We spotted a deer near Bryce Canyon Lodge and a wild turkey out in the meadow.
We drove into Bryce National Park to have dinner at the lodge. They were booked solid until 8:45 p.m. So we drove back to Ruby's Inn. It was also packed. So then we drove back toward camp and stopped at Foster's Steakhouse, but left soon after we were seated because the waitress seemed to serve everyone but us. (We're usually pretty passive about this sort of thing, but this was an unusual case. She just seemed to ignore us, as if we weren't even there.) We ended up at the Bryce Pines Restaurant.
Tuesday, August 5, 1997
We drove down to Red Canyon and hiked the Cassidy Trail, then drove the dirt road past Tropic Reservoir and along that road for about twenty-two miles. There are some wonderful open meadows in that area, and you get to see the forested backside of Bryce Canyon National Park. It was mostly sunny and warm today, with a light breeze.
