Bryce Canyon Night Sky

Thanks to Beng Hooi for volunteering on 82 miles drive from Zion National Park over to our next destination, Bryce Canyon National Park. I only manage to have a short nap during the drive, as Beng Hooi also looks exhausted hence I have to stay awake to keep him accompany. Luckily the drive only take about an hour, and I am glad with the simplified process to check in the lodge. Simply stop the car on the small hut and validate identity, grab the key, drive the car all the way and park it directly in front of the room, within 10 minutes of time! Since there is still some brief sun light at the area, I propose that we drive in inside the park to some sneak peak on what to expect the next day.

Passing through the entrance to the park, just to realize that at this time, there is no more ranger on duty for us to purchase the entry ticket hence without a choice I can only drive in directly instead. Have a quick stop to have an overview of the hoodoos by the cliff, and was lucky to met with a herd of deer while driving in the park! After some simple Subway dinner with very satisfying hot soup, we get back to the lodge and was getting ready to have some good rest. Not sure if it is good or bad finding, I accidentally discovered that Bryce Canyon was one of the best spot in the states, or even highly ranking world wide for dark skies and stargazing! I know I am not having enough sleep throughout this journey, but again this is some opportunity that can't be miss.

Overview will do, will see more of you tomorrow.

Herd of deer marching over to a nearby field for some grass.

Try to get closer, and suddenly few of them will stop eating the grass but stare at you like they going to attack if you get any closer.

However, this boy don't seem to care even they look very aggressive.

Have some very good rest at the lodge, which make sense for sure as I almost sleepless for past 24 hours. I thought I am going to miss my alarm clock, yet with this condition, I still manage to wake up on time at 1:00 AM, fully charged and ready for some stargazing. As expected, Beng Hooi give up the invitation and continue to sleep instead. With light equipment I walked out from the motel room just to realize that it was -3 Celsius. I have to turn back in to borrow Beng Hooi jacket and glove to ensure I can stay outdoor longer.

It was extremely, extremely dark inside the park seriously. As I am not familiar with the surrounding that much yet, hence I decide to find a viewpoint that close to car park so I can stay close to my car. After making some analysis from the park map, my first destination was Swamp Canyon. The sky is incredible bright with countless stars, and you can also see the incredible milky way clearly on this majestic dark skies! Compare to the sky, my surrounding is totally dark and I can't barely see clearly my surrounding, probably just few meters away. Freezing night, but I really enjoy so much snapping photo or just standing quietly to enjoy the moment. Moment of the night, with my bare eyes I saw a super huge shooting star fly all the way from the left towards right and it brighten up the area for a few seconds, totally amazing!

Can't recall how long I stay at Swamp Canyon, probably an hour, I try to move to another area that potentially able to capture these night skies along with signature voodoos here in Bryce Canyon. I drive further into the park and stop over at Farview Canyon but too bad my tripod not high enough to do so, and I not feel that comfortable to walk further for that purpose as it was truly dark in the ground area. Hence I just stay nearby to my car for snapping photo, and guess what, I saw a bright line in the middle of last photo that I took! First glance I thought it was shooting star, but after analyze it further, it seem to be a plane that fly through the dark skies with schedule light blinking. Still, that was a nice result for me.

Bryce Canyon is heaven for dark skies stargazing seriously, do not miss it if you are here!