We decided to take the "Scenic Drive" from Torrey, Utah to Bryce Canyon. It was Utah highway 12 and it was a great drive through some more spectacular scenery. Unfortunately, we didn't get any good pictures.
I learned at the Visitor Center about the Great Basin. I never realized that it was named due to the fact that no water drained from the Great Basin to any ocean. That condition is called "hydrographic". The area consists of almost all of Nevada, the western half of Utah, a little bit of southwest Oregon, and some of southern California, including Death Valley and some of the Mojave Desert. So, Bryce Canyon was in the Great Basin.
We did get to see some bristlecone pines at Bryce Canyon. This one is pretty young.. Some of the others seemed pretty old, but not that healthy...
And another arch...
Dinner at the Bryce Canyon Lodge.
It was built by the Utah Parks Company, a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railroad in the 1920's to encourage more tourism to the area. I guess the tourist route included lodges at the Grand Canyon (North Rim), Zion, Bryce Canyon and Cedar Breaks (which is still a National Monument) and a hotel in Cedar City, which was where the train arrived. (Tourists were bussed from there.)
Link to next post: 6/14 - Bryce Canyon
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