Bryce Canyon
At an elevation of almost 10,000 feet and nestled far away from city lights in the South west corner of Utah, Bryce Canyon National Park has some of the best night skies. In addition, the cool ‘hoodoo’ formations that the park is known for provide an otherworldly landscape, very suitable for nature photography. Finally, winter skies give way to long nights – almost 16 hours, and the cold temperatures and frequent snow storms blanket the orange rock in a glowing white coat. Bryce Canyon is often regarded as both one of the best winter and night National Parks, here is my experience combining them both!
My time in Bryce Canyon was centered around 2 days in December. Coming right off of long hiking trips in nearby Zion National Park (see previous article), my body was incredibly sore and looking for a more relaxing adventure. I got my first taste of Bryce Canyon with a stop at the visitor center and a drive down the 20 mile park road. Taking stop offs at the various ‘amphitheaters’ of hoodoos gave great perspective on the region and the geologic formations of the park. After visiting the Grand Canyon and Zion, Bryce Canyon completes the rock layers of the Colorado Plateau. From the bottom of the Grand Canyon, to the top of Bryce Canyon, over 7000 feet of elevation is covered and almost a dozen classified rock layers are revealed. This helps explain the change from brown, to red, to orange rock colors as you increase in elevation.
Luckily, the entire park road was open– a fact that is not always true given the significant December snowfall in the area. Stopping on the way back in the famous Bryce Amphitheater, I began on the Queen’s Garden Trail. The short 2-3 mile path allows hikers to descend into the hoodoo formations and walk through the towering canyon-like walls. The trail was exactly what I needed after an exhausting few days in Zion.
After walking through the Queen’s Garden, I made my way back to the hotel in nearby Bryce Canyon City. Being in a religiously Mormon area of Utah, Bryce Canyon City actually has interesting jurisdiction laws. Despite being composed of essentially one large hotel (the hotel we were staying at), the couple buildings of Bryce Canyon City are completely incorporated due to a Utah State loophole (See the history of Ruby’s Inn Utah). The hotel serves as a ‘city in a box’, with the town’s post offices, restaurants shops and only liquor store all within the confines of the hotel lobby. After checking in and unloading some stuff, I began to plan night photography.
My goal for today was star trails. Star trails is a photographic technique that uses long exposure night photography to capture the movement of the stars. I like to think of long exposure photography as a sort of ‘camera averaging’, where the resulting picture is the average of the light present during the exposure. When pointing a long exposure shot into the night sky, you are able to ‘average’ the stars' positions. Because the earth rotates, this produces interesting circles or ‘trails’ that give a super cool backdrop to a night photo.
For successful star trails, a good location and tripod is a must. Bryce Canyon gives a perfect and expansive night sky, making it easy to see and capture lots of stars. In addition, with 10+ minute exposures, anything other than a perfectly still tripod is useless. Without this, blur would ruin the photographic details.
Around 9pm, I began to descend into Bryce Canyon with full night photography gear. After about a half mile of walking into the canyon, I settled on a nice view with the ‘Thors Hammer’ formation towering in the foreground. After some test short exposure shots, I began taking 10 minute exposures. For me, 10 minutes gives plenty of opportunities to both see star movement and take multiple shots during a night. I took a few shots at the location until I was happy and then continued onward a little further into Bryce Canyon. For this shot, I wanted an up close hoodoo view. I set up my tripod right at a bend in the trail, and began shooting. After only 2 shots I got the view I was hoping for. Getting both late and cold, I ascended back out of the canyon and went driving along the park road. My third shot was taken over the Bryce Amphitheater, with the expansive and classic National Park view and the fourth was taken further along the park road at the Natural Bridge.
Bryce Canyon was one of my most successful night photography adventures. Along with some sunrise and sunset photography opportunities over the Bryce Amphitheater, I left the park with a wide array of cool photos. I can comfortably rate Bryce Canyon as one of my favorite National Parks in the country. The combination of intimate trails, expansive views and fewer crowds (compared to parks like Zion) make Bryce (especially in winter) a calming retreat away from everyday life.