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Show 1 Winter Schedule Makes c Parks Available To Visitors Winter touches each of Bryce Canyon country's scenic parks in i, very special ways. Bryce Canyon National Park, the area's crown jewel, welcomes winter win-ter visitors with a pristine peace and an awesome stillness. Its windowed walls, its miniature cities and cathedrals carved in Wasatch limestone lime-stone by rain, frost and running water taken on a special splendor when winter's white frosting contrasts con-trasts against the pinks, reds, oranges or-anges and lavenders of their delicate jewel-like spires. The park visitor center is open all winter along with one campground. camp-ground. Overnight facilities and restaurants are found at several locations just a few miles outside the park. Three beautiful state parks each provide a unique visitor experience all winter long. Kodachrome State Park, at an elevation of 5,800 feet with easy access, provides some of the most unusual geological formations in the nation. Its rich hues of spectacular spectac-ular rock chimneys and spires vary from gray and white to several tints of red. Towering monolithic spires or chimneys just up from the valley floor or protrude from the sandstone rocks surrounding the campground which is open all winter. In recent years, a magnificent natural arch was discovered by park Supt. Tom Shakespeare while hunting a coyote den one day. The structure was named Shakespeare Arch by state and local officials to honor early settlers of the area, many of whom were the superintendent's superin-tendent's ancestors. Wild animals abound at Kodachrome and exploring explor-ing the area's old dirt roads is a favorite fa-vorite pastime. Kodachrome is reached by traveling east on U-12 from Bryce Canyon junction at U-63 for 12 miles to the tiny town of Can-nonville, Can-nonville, then south for nine miles on a well-maintained dirt road to the park. New modern restrooms with hot showers have recently been added at this favorite winter campground. Escalante Petrified Forest State Park, in addition to its monuments to an ancient age petrified logs which were once living trees also features Wide Hollow Reservoir, Reser-voir, which, when frozen over, provides ice fishing and ice skating. The park's petrified forest claims some of the finest examples of petrified pet-rified wood to be found in the nation. na-tion. Nature has replaced each cell of the living tree with minerals that hardened over the years, creating a rainbow of colors. The area was also a popular summer camping grounds for Piute Indians near the turn of the century. The unique park is reached by traveling east from Cannonville on U-12 for 37 miles. Signs just one mile outside Escalante tell the traveler trav-eler where to turn off, and the park is only a short distance from the highway via dirt road. A third popular state park, Anasazi Indian Village, offers still another unique and exciting look at area history. Anasazi, a Navajo term translating translat-ing roughly into "enemy ancestors," ances-tors," is an archaeological site with a museum where excavation is still underway. Life for about 200 Anasazi Indians was sustained at the site for a period of about 75 years almost a thousand years ago. The Anasazi were an ancient Indian In-dian people who inhabited the four- corners area of Utah, Colorado Arizona and New Mexico during the' periods of perhaps a few hundred f years before Christ until the late 1500's. With the exception of perishable artifacts such as sandals, baskets mats and other wood and vegetable materials, the artifacts displayed in the museum are those actually excavated ex-cavated at the site. Visitors touring the site can see how the ancient inhabitants of the village actually lived. Supt. Larry Davis and his assistant Dee Hardy, both trained archaeologists, can make the visitor's stay a special experience with an introduction to the ancient peoples of the area. The park, which has several picnic pic-nic sites but no overnight camping, is located in Boulder, about 30 f miles northeast of Escalante over v! U-12 with some of the area's most spectacular scenery along the way. Boulder is also the last town before be-fore the traveler heads southeast over the Burr Trail to parts of Capitol Reef National Park and popular Lake Powell. It is also the last town before U-12 U-12 heads northward over 9,200-foot Boulder Mountain, a 30-mile newly ; paved highway with wide curves, incredible scenery and extraordinary vistas. The highway junctions with U-24 at Torrey, and it is only nine j miles to Capitol Reefs headquarters from there. Inquiries should be made in wintertime win-tertime at Anasazi or with the sheriffs sher-iffs office in Panguitch before starting over Boulder Mountain or the Burr trail. Every effort is made to keep both open, but occasional closures occur during snowstorms or with snow buildup. |