Hiking Bryce Canyon at 8,000 Feet above Sea Level

 

Bryce Canyon June 2025

I told myself that I was in great shape, given that I lift weights, swim, and attend yoga regularly each week. However, going on a hike in Bryce Canyon humbled me. 

My husband has an annual board meeting at Bryce Canyon each June, and this year I decided to go with him. One morning, a group of about ten of the thirty participants and their invited family members chose to do a hike at dawn before the meetings started. This is also a good strategy for managing the dry heat of Southern Utah. 

I expected the hike to be challenging but manageable. Well, I was the biggest whiner of the group! Why? 

I was not expecting the need to stop and catch my breath. I also had a hard time watching two other from the group in their 70s outpace me. (I'm in my early 60s.) One of these two was training all summer to hike the rim of the Grand Canyon, so I have to recognize that training by hiking at 6,000 to 7,000 feet above sea level works better than my swimming in an indoor pool at 5,500 feet. 

Here is a photo of the trail sign that provides data about the specific trail we took: 

We hiked 1.3 miles
with an ascent of 515 feet

Of course, going downhill was a breeze. Well, I had to manage my balance, and going downhill was actually very hard on my arthritic hips. 

The view behind me
from my descent.

By falling onto my own weight again and again, my leg bones were jamming into my hip bones, and that was the area where I was the most sore the day before. I did wear hiking boots that gave me good ankle support. 

Thanks to a DEXA scan circa 2013, I know that my bone density is about 20 year older than my chronological age. (I blame my youth where I rejected dairy, and I sat around reading and watching TV when I should have been building bone density.)  I started to get more active in my 40s, but I missed key years for building dense bones. 

Enough about my brittle bones. Let's get back to the hike at Bryce Canyon. 

Once we started the ascent, I was breathing very heavily. I moved from Indiana to Utah in December or 2023. The altitude in Evansville is 400 feet above sea level.  This hike was almost 18 months after the move to Ephraim, Utah, which is at 5,500 feet above sea level. That is a big jump in elevation. 

(If you go back to posts in February of 2024, you can read about my husband's horrible case of pneumonia, contracted in part because of the change in altitude from Indiana to Utah.) 

I managed the increase of 5,100 feet. However, Bryce Canyon is 2,500 plus feet higher than Ephraim. I could feel it!  I did not want to slow down the group, but I found myself fighting to get enough oxygen to power myself. In other words, I was panting heavily, but I had enough oxygen to complain through the entire ascent. 

(My apologies to Snow College vice presidents Jay and Cody. My apologies to Governor Cox's uncle--the septuagenarian--training for a hike along the Grand Canyon Rim--who outpaced me. And apologies to the board members and spouses who were on the hike. I will train during spring and early summer of 2026 so that I can keep pace with y'all in June of 2026.) 

Bryce Canyon is gorgeous from the rim once we ascended. We could see Thor's Hammer and other notable landmarks. 

I am glad that I went.  And now I have a more accurate task representation of the level of fitness that I need to hike at 8,000 plus feet! Here is a post about hiking at high altitudes if you want more information. 

Related:

Exercise to Increase Bone Density
Outrunning Father Time and the Grim Reaper for those 50+
VO2 Max: A Biomarker of Health and Longevity