After our experience at the north rim of the Grand Canyon, we were a little nervous about our visit to Bryce. We expected snow, but I scoured the national park website for any closures and didn’t see anything noted. At this point we’ve accepted that the weather will not be in our favor, and we’re going to have to suck it up and endure a little cold to see the places we want to see.

Looking at the forecast, we expected it to be in the 30s when we arrived at Bryce Canyon National Park, but the windchill could put it as low as the 20s. So we were layered up and bundled up. When we got out of the truck, we were pleasantly surprised to find that there was no wind and the sun was shining bright, leaving us pretty comfortable. I wanted to stop at Sunrise Point and Sunset Point overlooks, and expected to have to park and make both stops as quick as possible. Instead, we arrived at Sunrise Point and it was such an enjoyable hike that we just kept going around the rim of the amphitheater, taking in the beautiful snow-covered hoodoos. The trails were a little icy but our hiking shoes made the trek.

The sun is so low on the horizon (because it’s winter) that the orange hoodoos had a lovely glow to them.

We spotted Thor’s Hammer, which I thought would be much harder to find.

The whole amphitheater of hoodoos is pretty incredible, there is such a variety of formations and colors. We had a great time exploring there. We also heard a huge variety of languages and accents – there were tons of international visitors around us!

Unfortunately, we were moments too late to hear some rangers talk about how much Bryce Canyon has changed over the years, since the hoodoos are the product of erosion and it’s an ongoing process. However, we experienced it firsthand when trying to recreate my family’s old slides from a 1970 road trip.

For the life of me, I could not quite figure out the angle of any of their photographs. There are so many spots to take a photo from, and the formations have changed quite a bit.

This is the closest I came, and I only think that because of the sliver of rock in the foreground at the bottom left of each photo. Otherwise the hoodoos look vastly different.

When it came to slides like the one below, I didn’t have a chance of ever finding the right hoodoos. What a fun challenge though!

After that, it was time to take a break for lunch and to let the kid run around and expend some energy. Temps in the 30s-40s and Atlas only wanted to stick his hands in dirty puddles of water. Toddlers, man.

We ended up spending so much time at the amphitheater that we had to be really picky about how we spent the rest of our day. When we stopped at the Natural Bridge we had to have a frank conversation about what else we had time for: we could either drive the rest of the way to the southern-most point of the park, or we could backtrack and do the hike at Mossy Cave. We’ll have to save the rest of the scenic drive for next time!

The Natural Bridge was gorgeous, and while it’s hard to get a sense of scale here, it was much bigger than I expected.

One of the most difficult parts of these National Parks is that they tend to be a lot of car time, driving from landmark to landmark. We feel pretty bad about how much time the kid spends in his car seat, not able to see anything. So when we get out and he wants to run, it’s hard to say no.

We parked at the Mossy Cave trailhead and put Atlas in his backpack carrier, then hit the trail. The waterfall was…essentially non-existent. There was a little ice at the top of the falls but it certainly didn’t match up to the views I was expecting. Also, this late in the day, amongst the mountains, we didn’t have much daylight left for seeing sights.

Then the mossy cave itself was also not terribly exciting. It’s not really a cave, more of an overhang. It was full of moss and icicles.

The one part we really enjoyed was hiking amongst some hoodoos. It’s nice to be able to view them from afar, but we also like getting up close to these cool rock formations.

By the time we started the drive back to our RV, we were over an hour later than we planned. It was just so much fun exploring today! And seeing everything covered in snow added an extra element of interest that most people don’t get to see. We really had a great time.