Bryce Canyon 2006, Navajo Trail, Peekaboo Trail, Tropic, UT

I left Vegas and headed up to Bryce Canyon National Park without any type of hotel reservations and plans. I saw that the entrance to the park was very tourist oriented, which wasn't for me. So I drove past it and headed into the tiny town of Tropic, UT. I found a bunch of motels there but, strangely, none of them were open. I asked someone where I could stay and luckily one motel had reopened for the season, the Bryce Valley Inn. I introduced myself to the innkeeper, Wes, and was given a very comfortable room. I told Wes I wanted to do some serious hiking in the park and he suggested that instead of going through the park entrance I should begin my hike at the town of Tropic and go in the back way. This turned out to be an excellent idea. This way I started from the bottom and was able to go up and down twice. The views were spectacular, however, the weather warmed up to about 60 degrees F rendering the snowy trail into a mess of slush and mud. I was only able to hike 16 miles that day. I took lots of pictures.

One segment of the Peekaboo Trail was closed, so naturally I had to find out for myself why they were keeping me off the trail. I went under the chain and quickly descended. It turns out that portion of the trail was under 1 foot of messy snow, there were huge ice patches and one portion of this cliff-lined trail was completely washed out. It was quite the technical challenge and I was happy that I had brought my emergency blanket, extra water and food as well as a signal light. If I had slipped-up I would have been in the canyon for awhile.

( Update 01/26/21 I received a very nice guide from a man named Lukas for the trails in Bryce Canyon. It is far more in depth than anything I can provide. If you are thinking about visiting and hiking Bryce Canyon this is an excellent source: https://www.10adventures.com/hikes/bryce-canyon-national-park/.)

There are lots of pics associated with this.