After a great couple days exploring Capitol Reef National Park, we headed south on Utah’s Route 12 Scenic Byway toward Bryce Canyon National Park.

While there were some services closed for winter, it didn’t negatively impact our time in the park. In fact, we chose this time of year specifically so we wouldn’t have to deal with the mandatory shuttle service that individuals visiting between spring and fall have to use in order to enter the park. Instead, we were able to explore the visitor center, scenic drive overlooks, trailheads, and more on our own schedule and in the comfort of our own vehicle.

Per usual, our first stop was the visitor center, which had a small museum and park film as well as a number of rangers who were able to provide some hiking recommendations for this time of year. We arrived in the late afternoon to discover the forecast was calling for snow the next two days so we reorganized our plans to make the most of our visit.

Here are the top three things we experienced during our winter trip to Bryce Canyon National Park.

Top Three Things to Do: Bryce Canyon National Park in the Winter

Visit the Viewpoints along the Scenic Drive

I’m glad we stopped in the visitor center as soon as we arrived because the rangers let us know they typically close the scenic drive when there’s snow. We were planning to prioritize hiking during our visit and sneak in the drive when we had time, but instead we opted to check out the drive and overlooks that initial evening we arrived on the off chance their warning came to fruition.

Good thing – it ended up snowing about six inches that night, and the drive was indeed closed for the remainder of our visit!

We drove from the visitor center out to Rainbow Point – the scenic drive terminus – and then briefly stopped at each overlook as we made our way back to the park entrance. The sun was setting, making the red rocks and hoodoos glow, and we had clear, panoramic views across the canyon.

One of my favorite viewpoints was called Natural Bridge, named for the stone bridge over the circular cut-through in the photo below.

Hike the Figure-Eight Loop

My favorite hike of our road trip was the Figure-Eight Combination at Bryce Canyon National Park.

I originally thought we might hike the popular Queen’s/Navajo Combination Loop, but after looking through the materials and talking to the staff we decided to swap our planned hike for the longer Figure-Eight so we could spend more time down among the hoodoos.

To make the Figure-Eight, we parked at Sunset Point, hiked the Rim Trail over to Sunrise Point, took the Queen’s Garden Trail down to the Two Bridges decision point (via a quick stop at the Queen Victoria hoodoo) and then hiked the Peekaboo Loop Trail before climbing back up to the rim via the Two Bridges trail.

Our hike clocked in at 7.3 miles and 1,759 feet of gain. It was made even more spectacular by the large, soft flakes of snow that started falling shortly after we set out. I was glad we had our poles and ice spikes for a few sections where the accumulation covered slick ice on the rock. There were very few people out, resulting in a quiet and peaceful hike through the hoodoos.

Check out the Icicles at Mossy Cave

Our final morning we drove away from Bryce Amphitheater, the main section of the park, to Mossy Cave, an area of the park accessible off of Route 12.

This short, snowy hike wound through the red rocks before splitting in two – one route taking us to the Mossy Cave, where we could admire the massive icicles that form in the winter, and the second route taking us to the frozen waterfall viewpoint.

The latter didn’t result in much as the falling snow limited visibility, but the former was an interesting departure from the massive hoodoos we had explored the previous day. The mid-sized cave was full of human-sized icicles with more bright green moss than I had anticipated given all the snow and ice.

While we only had a couple days to explore Bryce Canyon National Park, we hit the highlights – learning more about the history and geography of this place in the visitor center, exploring the scenic drive and overlooks, and hiking in a couple different areas of the park.

This was definitely a park worth visiting in winter. The snow was lovely on the red rocks, there were few fellow park visitors, and we could explore at our own pace without the normal shuttle and timed entry requirements. I loved our winter visit to this beautiful national park.