Hi Everybody,

This is our Thanksgiving adventure! After chowing down with the April and the fabulous family, we decided we had wanted to go see a southern Utah park in the winter. We had not yet been to Bryce Canyon National Park so that became the choice. We didn't do much investigating beforehand. The park is situated between 7000 ft to over 9000 ft. Only about 3/4 of it was open because they were still clearing the snow off the roads from the previous storm for the remaining 1/4. That said, the weather was nice. Teens at night and 30s during the day with sun all day and incredible stars at night. Here are a few pictures.

It's sometimes surprising how different the National Parks are in southern Utah. They are located so close together yet are featured differently. Geologically, Bryce Canyon is the highest, then Zions is below it and then the Grand Canyon is at the bottom, meaning that the bottom layer of Bryce Canyon is the top layer of Zions, and the same with Zions and Grand Canyon. There has been some upheaval and shifting so parts of Zions are higher than Bryce now, but its layers belong below Bryce.

The main feature that Bryce Canyon is know for are the Hoodoos, pronounced just like it looks, a made up word just for these features and a variant of voodoo. Their formation story is similar to the arches and natural bridges but turns out looking a little different.

Samuel and Hyrum making a snowman at camp.

Hiking the Hat Shop trail. This is only about 200 yards into it and already ours are the only tracks. We went the entire 1 1/2 miles (each way). We called Hyrum 'TB' for TrailBreaker because he liked to lead the way. The kids were impressed with how used the trail looked after we went in and came out and though that others might follow now.

Hyrum above the Hoodoos we are about to drop down into

Dallin and Hyrum

Staying warm in tent with propane heater. Taking the canvas tent was part of the plan to keep everyone happy. We'd all gather and read and play games at night then we'd shut the heater off and half of us would go crawl in the other tent.

Sierra and Samuel hiking down Navajo Trail in between hoodoos.

Whole family (except Weeze taking pic) where hoodoos get close together.

Can you tell it's cold?

This is how the house looks for 2008 season!

ps Shawn wrote this as an email to his family then I posted it to the blog.