We arrived midafternoon and drove to the amphitheater area to take in the view. It’s not a huge area, but definitely impressive. Because most of the group had sore legs and feet from the previous day’s hikes, we decided to only take a short hike and did the Navajo loop. It takes you down into the canyon to observe the hoodoos from the bottom looking up. You wind around the pillars, walk under natural bridges, and alongside dead desert creek beds.
We hung out for a couple hours wanting to see the sunset which supposedly casts magnificent glows onto the red canyon. Naturally we chose sunset point to watch the light show, but surprisingly we were underwhelmed. My parents expected it to look like the sunsets at arches that illuminated the landscape in a fiery red, and I expected something… but in our opinion there wasn’t really much. We heard later we should’ve chose a different viewpoint maybe Bryce point or Paria point.
Where to stay:
We spent the night near Bryce at Red Canyon campground – first come, first serve. No reservations. I highly recommend it. There are flush toilets, running water, water spigots, and pay showers. All the campsites have trees, picnic tables and a fire pit. It’s a self pay campground at $20/night. The showers are $2.50 for 8 minutes.
Since it’s first come first serve and we arrived around noon, we were a bit worried we wouldn’t get a spot. But there were more open spots than taken spots so we even had the luxury of choosing what spot we wanted.
Our beds for the night
A drive under the rock on our way to Red Rock Campground
Things to do:
- The amphitheater area. It has some of the most popular views and trailheads to some of the shorter hikes.
- Drive the lookouts. There is a stretch of 18 miles of road that spans the length of the canyon dotted with many viewpoints and trailheads. We drove to the end and then picked and chose different viewpoints to get out at on the way back.
- There is a lot to do in the local vicinity. You could tell it’s a popular spot for people to come camp at for longer periods of times. People bring their ATVs, horses, and bikes as there are tons of trail options for all. If you don’t have your own there are guided and unguided ATV rentals, trail rides, and bike rentals everywhere.
- If you’re camping somewhere without reservations, check into your campsite first. I recommend this no matter where you are. If you’re planning to stay at a first come first service campground, try to get there as early in the day as possible so you can guarantee a spot for yourself before it gets more full as the day goes on. Once you’ve reserved your spot, then go and do your exploring.
