20 miles, 8.5 hours

We walked about three miles from our motel in Tropic to reach a back country entrance into Bryce via the Tropic Trail. We connected a few trails together to make our way through and around the huge area of hoodoos the park is known for. They are towers of orange and pink rock and clay that are left standing after eons of erosion, because these spots had huge rocks on top to keep the underlying earth intact. I couldn’t stop saying wow! at every switchback. Soon we connected with the Under the Rim Trail, the main backcountry trail following the park north to south. It meanders up and down through the many drainages and shoulders coming off the rim. We walked through several kinds of forests depending on elevation. We ended the day in a dry drainage in pinyon, juniper and ponderosa.

This part of the hike is off-route, so if we hadn’t diverted our path to re-supply in Tropic we would have missed these spectacular views! I have to recommend Hayduke hikers make the same diversion, as this was one of the most beautiful days of the trip.

TRAIL NOTES:
This early in the year it’s easy to find water on the Under the Rim trail because there is still runoff from snow. Many of the drainages had water. Year-round sources on the trail head sign were Right Fork of Yellow Creek, Yellow Creek, and Sheep Creek Campsite.