Bristlecone Loop Trail is located at the end of the scenic drive in Bryce National Park. It is located at mile marker 18. The trail is quite short with only 1 mile in length but it does offer amazing view over the canyon. The trail starts at Rainbow Point Overlook. There is usually enough parking for visitors but sometimes it could get crowded.
We got to Rainbow Point around 1:30PM in the afternoon. When we got to the parking lot, the parking lot was already full. Fortunately the trail is short and people leave rather quickly. Thus we were able to find a parking space right away.
It was actually quite windy at the top of Rainbow Point since it is the highest point of Bryce National Park. Also, it was a bit cloudy so the temperature was not as high as we thought. We did bring additional layers of clothing just in case of such condition occurs.
The trail is a loop and the first section of the trail goes along the cliff side. This offers gorgeous view over the canyon with lot of colors to be seen. Along the trail, there were also many Bristlecone Pine Trees along the way and hence the name of the trail.
As we hiked down the trail, we noticed many burnt trees along the way. The ranger told us that these trees were burnt by them on purpose to reduce the risk of forest fire. It has been extremely dry this year with record low precipitation, thus the rangers want to reduce the forest fire risk.
We also saw few funny looking square box on the tree. We were wondering what it was used for. Then a ranger came by and told us that these boxes have motion sensors and they are used to count number of visitors each year. We never knew National Park Service does these type of things.
In general, Bristlecone Loop Trail is not as impressive as other trails in Bryce National Park. However, since all visitors at Bryce National Park will come to the highest point of the park, you might as well take a short hike around the trail.
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