Queens Garden Trail Hike - Hike Into Bryce Canyon

This post will take you into the canyon at Bryce.  You can see a lot of the park in a half of a day when you do your own deriving.  Once May comes and you need to take the shuttle to see the same things may take a whole day.

After touring the park from the rim Friday afternoon on 3/25/16 (Day 82), it was a hike down Queens Garden Trail to Queen Victoria down from the rim.

Please! Please! Do not hike with poor gripping shoes.  Hiking shoes low or high are best due to the steep angle of the trail and loose gravel.  One woman had flat shoes with closed toes and heal straps and she got down but had a lot of difficulty getting back up.

The picture above is from the rim edge.  If you like horse rides this is also the location near the lodge where you take horse rides into the canyon.

Here I'm looking out to where I'm going down into the canyon.  I'm already some distance below the rim.

Looking over at the rock formations called hoodoos.

Well down into the canyon and it's a different world down here than just seeing the park from the rim.

I met a young woman from Detroit at the RTR in Quartzsite and she primarily likes to take pictures of dead or decaying things and since meeting her when I see things like this line dead tree above I now look to take the picture.

There are so many opportunities to take a great pucture.  Almost every turn is another great view.  Although this was 3 to 4 pm and on the east slope we had great light for the hike with lots of other people.

Because of the popularity of this area of the rim and this and a couple other trails I parked at a parking lot that was at a little distance near the lodge.

Above is the actual hike and at the top a trip to the restrooms before defending making this nearly 3 miles and 500 ft elevation change.  

Remember that this is between 8 & 9 thousand ft elevation and I was acclimated to the elevation.  So if you are not prepared you may feel out of breath.  Even though it was cool ales ways bring at least 1 Ltr of water for a 3 mile trip. 

I'm down in the canyon here and it was sunny and warm.  As soon as I got back at the rim I got chilled quickly.

Can you believe how blue the sky is.

Brent

macaloney@hotmail.com