Kodachrome Basin and Bryce Canyon

JOSEPH GET OFF THE WOOD! On Queen Anne's Trail at Bryce Canyon there are a series of small wooden stump markers that indicate you should look at the corresponding number on your trail guide. Joe ran up to balance on one, as you might imagine a nearly 10 year old would do. Of course, everyone within a fifteen foot radius screamed or gasped as he nearly lost his balance. The markers are placed about 6 inches away from a sheer drop of hundreds of feet down a hard, sharp, rocky cliff. From that moment on he was close by our side. I can only imagine the number of angels pushing from the other side as he tottered.
Kodachrome Basin is beautiful, named after the film when it first became a State park back in the 40's. Apart from it's beauty and cool hikes is the fact that it is lower, and therefore warmer than the campground at Bryce Canyon. Add to that, the fact that it has free warm showers and we switched plans and slept at Kodachrome, and visited Bryce. I have to say, a wonderful decision.
However, Bryce was completely beautiful, exceeding even our raised expectations. I wish I could have spent a month living on the side of the cliff there just gazing at the hoodoos all day long. Instead we hiked down into the valley with Nate and Savannah secured in the backpacks. We chose to hike the Navajo trail back up through Wall Street. This is an amazing if exhausting hike through a narrow split in the walls of a canyon, ascending from the bottom of the valley to the top of the cliffs steeply with stairs cut into the rock and numerous switchbacks. Every view breathtaking. Did I mention yet that Kev is working through his fear of heights???
Kodachrome has mountain lions that visit the campground occasionally and live in the rocks and cliffs around. Of course, this park was the first of many with such amazing and yet shy animals. The kids and we became experts at "not acting like prey." NO running, no getting out of sight of adults. If you happen to see one, stand your ground, try to look big, DON'T RUN and if attacked... fight back. Fortunately, we never saw one of these big cats except on the warning posters.