We had heard a rumour (or read it on our weather app) that it might snow overnight. I woke early and peaked out the window - snow was falling. It was very neat to see it again, especially as we didn't expect to. Lexie woke and had a look with me, but it was still late so we went back to sleep.
By morning we looked outside and found that it was still snowing, and enough had fallen overnight to stick. We were pretty stoked. I had it in my head that I would still visit the Trembling Giant, so the kids and I got dressed and we took the car out for an adventure.
We drove towards the giant, in the falling snow. I was looking out for somewhere for breakfast and was not finding a lot of joy. Eventually we found a servo that had chips but that was it. The road was fairly covered in snow as we drove and the snow fall was slowly and steadily increasing. I was starting to get nervous.
We pressed on, driving up through the mountain pass. As we got near the peak I realised I'd missed my turn. The ground was white by now, and I couldn't even see the lines on the road. I did a U-turn and, regretfully, gave up on the giant.
Lexie had saved a carrot from her dinner the night before and was on a mission to build a snowman, so as we got into an area that was more managable I pulled over and we had a little play. The kids and I made our "snowman", and scooped up some snow (though it was too dry to be any good for anything fun). We arrived back at the hotel, tired and no better off for our adventure.
I had a chance to speak to the people at the front desk and got advice to take a different route to our next stop. I was initially planning on a scenic route that takes a bit longer, but which is beautiful. We were advised to take the other road if we were worried about safe driving. This route took us in the same direction as we originally went for the Trembling Giant.
As the weather was much better now, and the sun was working on keeping the roads clear, we thought we'd try again. As soon as we took the turn off I initially missed it was like turning back onto the morning road. The path was taking us up a hill and the snow was again thick. We perservered until we reached the crossroad. It looked like the path to the giant was along a single-track dirt road. We were not prepared to risk that in the snow. We could see some aspen from where we were, and it looked like they were bare and leaf-less, which made us feel a bit better about turning away, for the second time for me and the big kids.
After getting through the mountain pass we went through an incredibly boring and long stretch through a valley or platau. I have been endlessly fascinated and in awe of the scenery but even I was struggling to find the wonder in this part.
After not-too-long we were approaching Bryce Canyon, our next stop. I initially had this as a short stop, but was entirely prepared to skip it. I am so glad we didn't. The snow held and while we were driving into the park there was white everywhere. We were delighted. Because of the weather and general time of year, there wasn't a great number of people at the park. We had previously bought and downloaded an audio tour for the park which activated based on GPS location. We activated it and off we went.
The guide took us to the furtherest look out before we made our way back through the park. The tour was great. It regularly came on to tell us information about the area, the geography, and history. It told us which view points to stop at and which to skip. Our first stop was the hightest point for our park visit and covered in thick snow. We got out and shivered our way to the lookout, the wind was screaming. The kids took shelter in the car while Kieran and I went down a short path to a second lookout. I was in wonder, just drinking in the cold and trees and wilderness.
We made our way back to the visitor centre, stopping at all six of the lookouts. I was out at all of them, but Kieran opted to skip some. We went to the Bryce Canyon lookout at the ampetheatre, and saw some stunning views of the hoodoos. The audio tour said that it only snows 30 days a year there and Kieran and I were grateful to have gotten a snow day. The white added to the surreal landscape, and made it extra magical.
We reluctantly left to reach our next location. The audio tour was for both Bryce and Zion so it gave us information as we drove, which was great. It got into some of the history around the native American inhabitants and the origninal mormons.
We arrived in the dark to our rooms - covered wagons! We had two wagons here and two whole nights. Bliss.
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