Sunrise at Sunrise Point

by Brenda Kame'enui (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find USA

Sunrise Point Twelve minutes before sunrise at Sunrise Point in Bryce Canyon National Park, the sky is a solid blue-gray, not spectacular azure of yesterday afternoon, when we hiked out of the canyon on the Queen’s Garden Trail. A few minutes pass, but still no evidence of sunrise over the mesa to the east. Dozens of onlookers shiver and shimmy and blow on their hands to keep warm, sending a cloud of misty puffs into the early morning. Helios must be waiting in solar silence in his own warmth until the last moment, when he hops in his chariot to move across the wide Utah sky. It’s a mere 27 degrees this autumn morning, and the wind chill is 17. Photography buffs, staged for sunrise with tripods and expensive cameras hanging on their necks, zoom lenses ready, line the west side of the viewing deck at Sunrise Point. Here they hope to capture the best photo yet of the Bryce Amphitheater. These eager artists are propped and parked behind a steel fence that prevents a catapult into the canyon. Other onlookers stand behind the serious photographers or cling to the fence up the walkway, less interested in the perfect position than in catching a hint of the sun’s warmth and the glow of the panorama below. I rub my hands together in fleece gloves. I packed well enough for a week of hiking at high elevation, but not well enough to stand in wait in the wind at 8000 feet. I should have mittens and a better hat. I think of wool items that would have served me well as I wait in my breezy “performance fabric” pants for the sun to appear over that eastern rim and warm my bones. My travel mate from India didn’t know about elevation or wind when she came to Bryce. I remove her thin gloves and warm her fingers between my fleeced hands. Tears run down her cheeks, both from the cold air and her cold misery, but she won’t give up on this moment. “Thank you for saving my fingers,” Chandana says. “I paid a lot of money to come here. I’m not going to miss a thing.” She tucks her hands away until she pulls out her phone for a photo. At last, the eastern sky brightens with a hint of pale yellow at the horizon. When the sun appears, all eyes turn back west. The Bryce Amphitheater of hoodoos and spires, patriarchs and angels, lights up in ocher and orange and umber--row by row. A peregrine catches a warm updraft and threads the needle of a distant arch, weathered from a soft pink cliff to a freestanding pinnacle. One color gives way to the next in the hoodoos below. When we’ve run out of adjectives and the wind blows the sun’s warmth right off of us, we climb the steps off the deck and leave. I hope to remember the ribbon of color revealed by the sun as it moved deeper into the canyon. I won’t forget Chandana, painfully cold but thrilled by the golden glory below.