The night I left Zion I opted to spend the night at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, just a short detour away. I was driving down the dirt road to the park when I saw a big open parking area just off the road with two campers set up. Lucky day-there was a sign up asking overnight campers not to bury their trash so I knew I could set up there and get a free night’s stay. As I was pulling in, 9 dune buggies come flying off of the dunes behind the lot and I realized that the purpose of this park is sand sports. It was fine with me; I set up far away from the other groups and their loud buggies, cooked dinner, and had a great nights sleep.

 

It was my coldest night – I think 18 degrees when I woke up. But the funniest thing about that morning was I heard a lot of noise even before the sun came up. When I popped my head out of the warmth of my sleeping bag and looked out the windshield I saw two full size tracker trailers, maybe 100 ft from the front of my car! There were about ten men offloading big sand buggies at 6 in the morning. It made me wonder what else I might be missing happening outside of my car at night…

It was too cold to cook breakfast so I pulled on a pair of jeans, climbed into the front seat and took off. I took a nice walk in the park and watched the sunrise over the pink sand dunes.

Then I headed north to Bryce Canyon. Like I mentioned, it was my Grandma’s favorite and I was excited to see it. I didn’t know this but the Canyon is famous for “hoodoos,” kind of mushroom towers that have developed from wind and water erosion. It’s very weird looking. I think God/Mother Nature was having a bit of fun when this place came together!

I was excited to hike in Bryce but the first two trailheads I went to were snowed in. Some of the more popular hikes closer to the Visitor’s Center were open but I was acutely aware that I didn’t have too much time to spend; Bryce is at a high elevation and the ranger told me it was getting down to 15 degrees at night so I knew I had a long way to drive that evening until I got somewhere off of the plateau.

I was also much more drawn to the Red Canyon, which I went through on my way up to Bryce. It is sometimes called Bryce’s little brother, but there was no one there, and that of course drew me in. So I left Bryce and headed down to the Butch Cassidy Trail (he grew up close by and supposedly hid from the law along this trail) and had a gorgeous hour long hike completely by myself in the wilderness.

The rocks here are obviously red, and as they have weathered away huge red dunes have encased the rock castles. Somehow conifers grow all over it, including my favorite Bristlecone Pines!

On this hike three trees taught me lessons.

The first: never give up, even when you’re on rocky ground:

The second I didn’t get a picture of, but it was one of those trees that you can see was growing one way and then at some point a rock or other tree fell on it and forced it to change direction. This tree had an almost 90 degree bend in its trunk. From it I was told “even if you start out in the wrong direction, it’s never too late to straighten out.”

And at the apex of my climb, this tree:

“Never give up, so that even in death, you may leave behind something beautiful.”