Bryce

[Note: excuse the poor quality of the pics... single-use cameras suck!]

I arrived in Bryce Canyon National Park on the 28th of April, and left on the 30th. In the afternoon of the 28th, I did a bit of drive-and-shoot like I did in the Arches--and it got old even faster.

The following day, early in the morning, I hiked down in Bryce Amphitheater. This is probably one of the most eerily beautiful place in the world. There's something about these orange hoodoos, with the green of the pine trees below. It is very peaceful. The silence down there in the early morning, before the hiking path becomes crowded with people, is very powerful. It takes a while to slow the pace down enough to take it in.

• * *

I've been re-reading "Into The Wild" a bit. Because he was often sleeping rough in unsafe places (like under a bridge, for instance) whenever he was crossing a city, Chris (or Alex, as he used to call himself), made a habit of burying his money and other important belongings before he entered into town, retrieving it when he was leaving. Before spending some time in Las Vegas in February 91, he buried his backpack in the desert. As his journal says:

"On May 10, itchy feet returned and Alex left his job in Vegas, retrieved his backpack, and hit the road again, though he found that if you are stupid enough to bury a camera underground you won't be taking many pictures with it afterwards. Thus the story has no picture book for the period May 10, 1991 to January 7, 1992. But this is not important. It is the experience, the memories, the great triumphant joy of living to the fullest extent in which real meaning is found. God it's great to be alive! Thank you. Thank you."

May I find some inspiration in there!

• * *

That night, I went back down there under the moon light. My initial plan was to do some stargazing. The altitude on the rim is between 2,400 and 2,700 meters above sea level. The air is very pure, and there is very little light pollution. Unfortunately, the light of the moon hide a lot of stars.

So I did little little stargazing and instead did a one-hour hike. It is very weird hiking under the moon. You can kind of see most things, but it's very dark. Yet, if you switch on your head-lamp, everything else but the very thing your lamp shines at disappears. It was quite scary too. I was so alone down there, it was so still and silent. I'd be watching for any kind of movement. I'd stop to listen intently everytime I thought I heard something. You could say I was afraid of my own shadow! But it was cool.

Speaking of cool, the nights were freezing (literally!) in Bryce.