Frequent readers of this blog might remember our experience in Yellowstone National Park, whereby we were caught off-guard by cold weather. History has repeated itself: Bryce Canyon gave us a chilly reception today.

It actually got colder than this, down to 27-degrees, at one point in our drive along the rim.

Sad to say, in both cases we really have no excuse for suffering. Our guide book told us to bring hats and gloves to Yellowstone, even in August, and we laughed it off. Yesterday the internet forecast temperatures in the 30s today in the canyon. We just couldn’t get our heads around it. It’s almost May. We were sweating in shorts a few days ago in Las Vegas.

Even as we embarked on our main hike today, around 9:30 a.m. Utah time, we told the girls that it would get warmer as the Sun rose. It would get warmer as we got below the rim and out of the wind. It would get warmer as we lost elevation and reached the canyon floor.

Picture would be improved with wool hats an mittens

It did get warmer…somewhat. From 28 degrees in the trail-side parking lot to maybe 31 degrees inside the canyon. There, as we feasted on microwave popcorn Zoe had ferried in her backpack, I started to notice white flecks in the air. Errant cheese powder from the snack? No, it was snow. Because it was still sunny out, my brain stuck to the cheese powder explanation for quite a while. But no, it was snow.

The flurries followed us around the canyon as we hiked among fantastical sandstone formations and ducked through carved-out doorways. At times it reached squall proportions right where we were; at times we could see the squalls darkening the forests of rock spires in distant parts of the canyon. Bryce is well worth the effort to get here, plus the effort to move up and down its switchbacks, and even the effort to ignore the merciless cold.

I, particularly, rate it favorably to Zion for its relative lack of crowds and its relative lack of vertiginous overlooks. Sadly, not everyone in the family would agree with me, solely based on the relative lack of a cafe selling hot chocolate in the lodge.

This is a place Jen and I would like to visit again. We could hike around a lot more in the canyon (the girls have reached the end of their hiking rope and we couldn’t wring many more miles out of them even if it were a sunny 65 degrees outside) and there is a very appealing bike path that calls out for further investigation.

Now the squalls are across the canyon, in the center of the picture.

For now, we’ve retreated to our cabin in the nearby — and rather ironically named — town of Tropic, UT, where the heater is turned on and the wifi is just good enough for us to crank out a couple of blog posts.