Zion was mostly a place to hang out and rest – and so we did. The first day we took the shuttle, there are no cares in Zion Canyon, to the lodge and got our lunch at the lodge under a huge cottonwood tree. The second day we ran from the end of the canyon (The Temple of Sinavawa down to the campground – about 8 miles (13km) – as our only preparation for the Bryce Canyon Half Marathon.

Bryce Canyon

In Bryce we started by doing our laundry, get a shower and find a good place to photograph the full moon raise over the Hoodoos in the evening. Bryce Canyon is an almost surreal place where there are stone piles (or actually Hoodoos) standing everywhere in the canyon.

In the evening we had dinner in the parking lot, it was a nice evening, but there was not much of sunset light over it and there were quite a bit of clouds.

With the compass, and information from the net about where the moon would rise, I did find a pretty nice spot to stand, but there were really too many clouds – I moved a bit and got a reasonable shot – but nothing to brag about. We stayed around to see if there would be any other good chances – but nothing came.

The next day we descended down into the canyon, through what is called Wall Street – and the “street” has some really amazing walls. The walk was maybe four miles down into “Queens Garden”. Felix walked most of it himself, but just after we had stopped for lunch, and it started to go up again, he opted for the backpack. Sabine took him up so I got the option of taking more pictures.

Bryce Canyon Half Marathon
 

In Bryce I had signed us up for the Half Marathon (21km/13miles) – an almost completely downhill race. Unfortunately I forgot the GPS logger on race day and while I do have a log from when we drove the same route the next day the tool I have does not allow me to show altitude vs. distance for you! Anyway – it dropped about 550 meter (or about 1850 feet) and it had only two, or three, small inclines. I guess that and some Cytomax (well mostly the downhill) made us both have respectable times. Sabine finished in 2:20 and I pushed Felix in 1:44. Not bad for a race starting in almost 2400 meter (8000 feet), that we didn’t train for.

 

After the race, at 10:30, we got a second breakfast at the lodge, and that day we just got a shower and some sleep (in the hammock), and beer. In the evening we went back to the lodge for some food, but honestly that was not a good idea. Felix was cranky and didn’t want to eat. The food was mediocre at best.

 

Next day we checked emails again (and the National Park General Store might I add) before we went on the road to Capitol Reef National Park.