The Photographs
By Lee Frier
The following photographs I took at Bryce Canyon National Park located in Southwestern Utah during the summer. Having lived in flat, swampy, hot, humid, muggy and buggy Florida all my life, I found a week of vacation in the remote desert Southwest to be an enlightening and a extraordinary experience. Along with seeing the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, and hiking up Mt.Timpanogos to do some cave exploration, I made sure, that Bryce Canyon was on the agenda of places to see. The day spent at Bryce was one to remember. You could spend a week at Bryce and not see all it had to offer. As I was driving up to the canyon, the sky started to darken and foreboding clouds loomed ahead towards my destination. The situation was not looking to good and I was starting to feel a bit disappointed having traveled such a long way for it to rain on my parade that day, literally. As I got closer, the rain began to fall and the weather took a turn for the worse. By this time I was at the top of the canyons and all hell broke loose, or better yet hail, and hail it did! Lightning, wind and hail surrounded me. At one point the beating of the hail on the car was louder than any rock concert I could remember. Even the thought of a flash flood crossed my mind. About 30 minutes later, the tempest stopped as suddenly as it had begun. It was somewhat surreal with the speed at which everything was happening. The storm was only the beginning, of nature's assault on the senses. After regaining my composure and stepping out of the car, the brisk cool air was filled with the fresh aroma of pine and cedar trees. The rain seemed to make the canyons dance with glowing variations of red and orange hues. The sound of silence was broken with the occasional howling of the winds through the canyon as if the canyon were breathing. A thunderclap off in the distance was as if the canyon was trying to speak. The views were simply breathtaking to behold. The passing shadows of the clouds seemed to race across the canyons like a child on a playground. Looking at the canyons was like looking back in time. The force of millions of years of Mother Nature's erosion had shaped the earth into amazing shapes and colors beyond belief. The tall rocks reaching up to the skies from the canyon floor were like giant sentinels glowing in the passing sunlight. No words can really describe the beauty of this strange and awesome place, or the feeling of its grandness and splendor it imposes upon you. I hope you enjoy the photographs I've taken of Bryce. If you ever get the chance to visit there, I highly recommend it. Thanks for coming by. Sit back, relax and enjoy the views.
