Sep 28: Outside Bryce Canyon

We are technically not in Bryce Canyon National Park.

We got up for hotel breakfast and picked up my package at the Post Office when they opened at 8. A little bit of pack shuffling, "Am I really going to eat these raisins?", waiting for my friend to send me her new address, her missing the cutoff, and me re-addressing the postcard to my brother after crossing out the one irrelevant sentence, and we were off. 

We just walked Center Street west out of town until it became the Tropic Trail and brought us into the heart of Bryce Canyon. The guidebook HDT doesn't take you through the best part of Bryce, which is a little weird. I guess it would be difficult to make a continuous route (you'd either walk highway to Tropic, or you could skip Tropic, hike into the park in the middle and do a loop to the north to catch the best part). Nano had never seen any of it; I think this is my fourth time, but it's still awesome.

We then headed south on the Under the Rim Trail. It was nice to be in trees and on a trail; we made great time. There was a fire recently, I'd guess maybe four or five years ago, and once you're in the Sheep Creek area, there are a lot of blowdowns. Under the Rim being almost the single long backpacking trail in the park it was disappointing that the trail isn't maintained better. (Is it even designated wilderness? A single chainsaw crew should be able to clear this in a few days.) It's almost as if a culture of selfishness and instant gratification has led to massive underfunding of boring things like maintenance of public goods. Or maybe some goon somewhere mismanaged a public health crisis resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the reallocation of a couple park staff.

Anyway, we're not camped in the park. The trail weaves in and out and very close to the National Forest, where I believe you don't need permits.

The moon is getting close to full. It's going to be a cold night tonight.