Bryce Canyon

Bryce Canyon - our favourite place so far here in the U.S. The place is beautiful with views  across the open plains deep in the rift between the valley walls. It's made up of several types of rock but it's the sandstone and limestone mixed with iron and manganese that gives all of this area the deep red colour and the contrasting whites and blacks visible across the plain. 

On the drive to Bryce we passed an area called Red Canyon and just after saw this interesting rainbow in the sky.  We've never seen this happen before it appears to have formed the stripe in the centre of a small cloud formation. No rain just hot weather, who knows why!

The pillars of rock stretch out into the canyon and down to its base some 600 to 1000 feet below at this point. The images probably don't portray this amazing place satisfactorily but hopefully you can get a sense of it from these few pictures. In the evening we attended a presentation from the local ranger about astronomy. Bryce has perfectly dark skies the only problem was it got so dark that ourselves and another couple we got to know couldn't find our way back to the campsite. It took us a few false trails and a hour or so walking to get back to the tent. 

This one is called Queen Victoria's garden, I wonder why?