Yovimpa Pass

Jacqueline, Zyla, and I wanted to take a trip so we chose Bryce Canyon for the day. It was only a couple hours drive and I chance to hike during the day with some cool weather. Jacqueline wanted to drive to the end of the road because she figured there would be less people. It doesn’t actually ever work that way in National Parks as most people decide to drive and then only get out of their cars when there is nowhere else to go. I was happy to hike from there though, as there are still quite a few trails in Bryce that I am yet to do. The two points of Rainbow and Yovimpa are grouped together. We found the Riggs Spring trail and headed out from there. I had never been on this trail and it immediately left the road and started dropping downhill. It would have been hard to go uphill as we were at the highest point in Bryce. The trail took us through the trees, where we had to deal with lots of downed lumber. With Zyla on my back, it was tricky. I decided that Jacqueline could not get away with not carrying a pack next time as Zyla and all our stuff was quite a load. Eventually the trail popped out of the trees where we were hiking on some ridges with views of the cliffs of Bryce. We gave Zyla a break for some time out of the backpack, but she was still enjoying herself. We were concerned that she was not going to be able to sleep, though, as this smaller pack gave her no neck support. After our break, Jacqueline took over for a little bit carrying the pack. It was nice to share the load, but I didn’t want to make Jacqueline carry it for too long. Luckily, our hike would not end up being very long. We only hiked what I would estimate to be around a mile and a half to Yovimpa Pass. From there, we turned around as it was already afternoon and Zyla would most likely miss that afternoon nap.I took over the duties again and almost immediately Zyla started to get slap happy. She thought her mom was just about the funniest comedian ever. Zyla’s laugh is contagious and soon she had all three of us rolling with laughter hiking along on the trail. We were going for a good 10-15 minutes and frankly if you want to be in good mood, just laugh for a while cause we were all having a good old time. Once that stopped, it wasn’t long before we had a sleeping child. I had a lot of dead weight on my right side. This could not be very comfortable for little Z, but she was resilient. We made it back to the trailhead with her still sleeping. We decided we would have ourselves a little dinner at Ruby’s Inn, then had back to ZIon. All in all, a great day out with the family on a quiet trail in Bryce Canyon.