For logistics, we only had one car, and the park shuttle bus only goes as far as Bryce Point, so we left a car at the visitor center and hitch-hiked to Rainbow Point from near the Sunset Campground. It didn’t take long to catch a ride from someone, especially since we were past Bryce Point, so all the cars driving that direction were going to Rainbow Point. This also meant we had about a 2-mile walk to the car at the end of the run from Fairyland Point to the visitor center.
We started our run from Rainbow Point around 9 am and enjoyed a nice, cool morning on the Under the Rim Trail. Like others have reported, there were several down trees, but the trail was well-marked and easy to run. We didn’t stop to see if there was any water running at Iron Spring given it was so early in the day and we were fresh on water, but we did stop at Yellow Creek to filter water. We carried 3L of water each. Temperatures got into the mid-80s by the end of our run.
This route can be done much faster, but we had a blast running the traverse and going for the unsupported FKT. This was our first time at Bryce Canyon, so seeing all of the hoodoos for the first time was incredible. Definitely a route worth doing— excited to see how fast the women’s time could be!