On our spring RV trip through western national parks, we visited Bryce Canyon, a strange landscape of sculpted-pillar hoodoos. Located in southern Utah, Bryce sits high in the sky, averaging 8,000 feet in elevation. Snowbanks stood head high along some of the overlook paths during our late April visit, although temps were mild.

Bryce Canyon isn’t actually a canyon at all but an amphitheater. This geological bowl was filigreed by eons of water runoff and snowmelt. A canyon, on the other hand, is carved by a river.

Bryce’s famous hoodoos — pillars of stone sculpted by erosion and helped along by the pressures of freeze and thaw — are concentrated here in greater numbers than anywhere else on earth. If you squint right, they can look like people.

Erosion also creates arches like this one.

The ongoing subtraction process constantly creates new hoodoos along the edges of the amphitheater, and existing ones collapse. It’s a pretty temporary landscape in the grand scheme of things.

Aspen trunks and snow

I had to laugh witnessing this staring contest between an inquisitive turkey and a park visitor.

After the hikes at Zion the day before, I found Bryce to be more of an “overlook park.” We drove the length of the rim, stopping at pullouts to admire turret-like views.

The number of hoodoos is astonishing.

Like clouds, hoodoos assume various forms in your imagination. Crenellated castle walls? Check. Throngs of people pressed tightly together? Yep, I can see that too.

Hoodoos to be

A fallen tree stretches white, weather-sanded limbs toward the sky.

Castles in the air…

…where sentinel trees cling tenuously to cliff edges…

…and your eye can roam and roam.

Up next: A visit to gorgeous Red Hills Desert Garden in St. George, Utah. For a look back at majestic Zion National Park, where we spotted bighorn sheep, click here.

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Digging Deeper

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