This has to be one of my favorite places, we enjoyed it so much we are planning a return trip in October. We only spent a couple of days here and realized there was so much to do and we didn't have enough time to do everything. We stayed at
Ruby's Inn RV Park & Campground just outside the entrance to Bryce. Well subscribed so make reservations early. There are essentially 2 camping areas, the older section has back in and pull through sites, well covered with trees and the sites vary in size which may make parking for the bigger rigs a challenge depending on the site.
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| Older campground section |
They have a newer, big rig section towards the back with plenty of long and wide sites. Not a lot of trees so you get good satellite coverage. Although it is more expensive and pretty basic it was quiet and we liked staying in this section.
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| Newer big rig section |
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| Our site, plenty of room |
The big draw for us coming here was an epic Utah mountain biking trail in Red Canyon which is just outside of Bryce called
Thunder Mountain Trail. It is a challenging bike ride especially since we were not able to do the ride with a shuttle. The actual trail is 8.1 miles but to do it as a loop with no shuttle makes the ride 16 miles.
A gradual climb 5.5 miles on a paved bike path that parallels HWY 12 and then a Forest Road for 2.1 miles to Coyote Hollow, the Thunder mountain trail starts here and you ride the trail back to the car. The trail really isn't all downhill there is about 690ft of climbing and 1681ft of descent with some technical, rocky switchbacks that can be easily walked. It is definitely a ride worth the drive here.
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| Thunder Mountain Trail head |
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| Trail starts in the pines |
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| Changes to the red rock |
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| Then there is some strange moonscape terrain |
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| Lots of Hoodoos |
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| Crossing the spine- not as bad as it looks but the 20mph crosswind made it interesting. |
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| The start of the very technical rocky switchback down. |
This goes in the books as one awesome bike trail.
On our 2nd day we went into Bryce National Park and hiked the
Queens Garden-Navajo Loop.
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| Starting the trail from Sunrise Point |
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| Views, views, more views. |
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| Many chances for photos |
From Navajo trail we added on the Queens Garden trail and the interesting rock formations.
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| Rock formation called Queen Victoria |
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| Hike along the bottom |
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| Our hike out |
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| From the top |
On our final day, leaving this wonderful place, nature graced us with a some snow in the morning, and on the first day of May.
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| Morning snow |
It had us worried driving Highway 12 to Torrey because of the narrow road, steep grades, sharp curves, the Hogback and a summit of 9500ft so I looked at alternative routes and found we could take Highway 89 and some back roads into Torrey. It kept us at lower elevations and didn't add much more to our travel miles. It ended up being a beautiful drive and less stressful driving for Mike.
Here are some photos of the sections of Highway 12 we were worried about with the snow.
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| The road back to Torrey without snow |
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| The Hogback without snow |
It still made the drive to 89 a little interesting as the snow increased and roads became more covered but the rig and the drive, although slowly, went fine. These storms are not uncommon in Utah in April and even into May so stay safe; have an alternate travel plan or stay put if necessary.
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| A little snow on the roads |
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| More snow |
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| Even more |
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| Some construction with detour around the tunnel |
Fun trip but too short, looking forward to a repeat visit here in October and more hikes and a few more rides on Thunder Mountain.
Next up: Torrey, Utah- Capitol Reef, NP
