Day Trip to Bryce Canyon National Park

After breakfast this morning, we put Tinker in the car along with his pillow (from an old sofa), blankie, favorite toy Bear and a bag with his bowls, food for lunch, treats and water. Then we left the campground at 9:00 and headed east on UT-9 through Zion National Park. 

We drove through the Zion-Mt. Carmel Tunnel which is 1.1 miles long. It is currently closed to RVs because a rock slide on the west side of the tunnel took out part of the road.

At Mount Carmel Junction we got onto US-89 North and drove for 43 miles. US-89 went through a valley where all you saw were snow-covered fields

and later on the scenery changed completely.

Then we got onto UT-12 for 14 miles. We turned south from UT-12 onto UT-63 South to the entrance to Bryce Canyon National Park.

We were able to drive out to mile 6 on the park road. They had had 2-3 feet of snow and were working to
clear the 18 miles of the park road.

We were able to go to the Swamp Canyon Butte

then drove down to view Bryce Point

and then down to Sunset Point.

We didn't get to see Inspiration Point because the parking lot was full and there were several cars waiting. We did stop at the Visitor Center and bought a couple of coffee mugs and a Christmas tree ornament.

Then when we left we saw this long line of vehicles waiting to enter Bryce Canyon National Park - we timed it right this morning, there was not line when we got there.

We retraced our route back west and stopped at Ruby's Canyon Diner for lunch. Mike ordered the Bratwurst with fries and I had the 7" pepperoni pizza. 

We arrived back at the campground about 3:30 this afternoon. We took about 285 photos today and whittled them down to about 220. The hardest part was deciding which photos to include in our photo album.