Vacation: Day Four

Bryce Canyon

Our next excursion was to Bryce Canyon. After entering the canyon we stopped at the visitors center and ask which trails would be good to hike that were not too strenuous, yet good hikes all the same. We were given names of a few trails that sounded like they would be easy to handle. We decided to eat lunch and then hike the Queens Gardens trail. When we arrived at the trail there was a sign that read "Hiking Boots Recommended." We stood there for a few minutes and then proceeded to take the trail anyway. It was a narrow, steep winding trail but very beautiful and well worth the effort. After that particular hike, the rest of the trails we went on in the Bryce Canyon seem to be a piece of cake.

It seemed every time we came around a corner there was another picture ready to be taken. We took so many pictures, it will be hard to decide which pictures to keep and which pictures to delete. We watched a movie at the visitors center about how the hoodoos are formed, which was quite interesting in itself. We enjoyed our time in Bryce Canyon, especially since there were no shuttle buses and we could go wherever we wanted by driving ourselves. Not only that, but the weather was absolutely perfect for hiking.

In the evening, we ventured on to a small town called Panguith. It was quite a unique little town. The first year, the settlers came to Panguitch was in 1864. It was a hard winter, and the settlers were starving to death. A group of seven men, set out to get food from a nearby town 40 miles away. The men struggled with every footstep, sinking to their hips in deep snow. As they held a prayer circle, kneeling on a quilt, they discovered they did not sink in the snow. The men completed their journey by laying quilts over the deep snow and walking across them, picking up their quilts and repeating the process to their destination. That is how they saved their town and the story came to be known as the "Quilt Walk."