Bryce Canyon Archives - National Parks With T

Welcome back to National Parks and other public lands with T! On a regular basis, we’ll feature favorite photos or stories from a friend in the National Park community. Are you a National Park fan with a favorite you think would be great for this series? Send me a private message through the contact section of this blog!

About these photos»

Place: Bryce National Park in Utah
Date: 2014
Photo Credit: Don (The Beerchaser)
Why they are some of my favorites:

While we love all of the National Parks and have visited many more of them since we retired in 2011, those in Utah are some of the most impressive. We loved the mystique of Arches and the dramatic back roads of Canyon Lands and the waterfalls of Zion, but the perfect panoramas of Bryce made it our favorite.

In our fall 2014 visit, as we gazed down on the multitude of hoodoos in the Canyon and the geologic story that captivated us, it beckoned us to explore further. So, after talking to a ranger, we headed to Sunset Point and started the walk down to the Canyon floor – a nice trail, but steep with a lot of switchbacks.

Since thunderstorms were forecast, the ranger admonished us, “If there’s thunder and lightning, don’t take shelter near or under a hoodoo, as they are a target of sorts.”

While that sounded good conceptually, we didn’t realize until we got to the floor that basically the only thing there besides some small vegetation, was the hoodoos. When the rain started pelting us accompanied by rolling thunder and some jagged lightning flashes, we “hightailed” it out of there stopping only once on the way up to catch our breath. And greeting us at the top was a beautiful rainbow which we still remember.

Meet Don from The Beerchaser»

One of my initial retirement goals in 2011 was to eventually have a beer at every neighborhood tavern or brewery in Portland— and to blog about the experience. So a few months after retiring, with some help from my tech-savvy son-in-law, I started the blog.

By August 2012, I had reviewed 23 bars – all in Portland except one in Port Towsend, Washington. With one exception which was somewhat disappointing, all establishments were great to visit. This validated my premise that each bar or pub has an interesting history and distinguishing characteristics.

With retirement travel, the “journey” expanded. We started hitting bars in Europe, Alaska, various parts of the US from the Southeast to Montana and Wyoming and Oregon’s coast and desert country. Almost nine years later, I have visited and reviewed 375 watering holes. With 125 of them Portland area establishments and another 250 outside the City of Roses.

Each quarter, I also select an individual or group as my Beerchaser-of-the-Quarter. These people, almost all of whom I know personally, are military heroes, media personalities, academicians, authors and athletes. They may or may not have anything to do with bars or beer but have an interesting story and have made a contribution to society.

I became involved with the Benedictine Brewery at Mount Angel in 2016 as a member of the Brewery Advisory Committee. I helped set up the business operations as a volunteer before it opened in the fall of 2018. The Benedictine Brewery at Mount Angel is one of only two or three in the US, that is owned by Benedictine Monks and does its development, major production, and taproom service on-site, with monks doing the brewing and running their own operation.

—Written by Don from The Beerchaser