our first stop en route to the phoenix area was bryce canyon national park! i’ve been to bryce before, but have always wanted to see it in the snow, and ian had never been there! the conditions turned out to be absolutely perfect – we lucked out with a sunny day, and packed but not melted snow, and the scenery was totally spectacular. the kids were great adventurers and we were all stunned and delighted by this unique, incredible spot on earth.

en route to bryce we made a quick stop in spring city, utah, where ian’s grandfather grew up. we got to drive past the house grandpa allred was raised in, and the city spring (for which the town is named 🙂 ).

and then it was on to bryce! before we could get any glimpse of the hoodoos (not visible from the road), we got all the kids bundled up and the babies snug in the hiking backpacks. when we first took in the amazing views we just past the parking lot, we were all amazed!! (photo on the left below taken by moses while ian took gabriel to the potty with eve on his back, ha!)

we did a loop hike that turned out to be pretty challenging at the end but it was sooo worth it! the trail was uncrowded and just chock-full of dazzling beauty.

by the end of our hike the babies were out cold! well, out warm we hoped because we had really bundled them up! 🙂

we drove to a few viewpoints to see the hoodoos at sunset. the boys weren’t super keen to get out of the car (understandably after trekking along that long hike all day!), so ian and i switched off running to the viewpoints and snapping photos and taking it all in. i can’t narrow down these photos any more … it was so gorgeous!!

we stayed at a little motel and before we left the area (to hit up zion np and las vegas before going into arizona) we did the main drive through bryce canyon national park that has lots of spots to stop and take in different vistas. ian, ever the maximizer, wanted to see all of them! so we popped out at each viewpoint and were again floored with the majesty and quirky beauty of the landscape. august was the only child willing to get out of the car with us at one viewpoint, haha.

remember that bit about ian being a maximizer? he really wanted to check out the mossy cave trail before we left bryce. so he ran the 0.8 miles out and back … the rest of us were content to see pictures 🙂

then we were off towards zion!