Arrival

I arrived at the Bryce Canyon Visitor Center in the middle of the afternoon; while there were quite a few people there, it was nowhere near as crowded as Zion. I learned that, in the busiest season, there had been as many as 10 cars for every parking place in the park, so they had instituted a Shuttle, but cars were still permitted into the park.

That evening, I parked at a “dry camping” site. I experienced a failure of the “house” electrical system, probably due to excessive current draw on the rear battery, particularly at 120 V, which is up-converted from the 12V battery output. I was not able to fix the problem by resetting the circuit breakers and the 12V supply (which powers the fridge) as well as the 120V supply went down, making for an uncomfortable night.

Next morning, I arrived at Sunset Point in the Park, shortly after sunrise:

At this hour, the parking lot was already half full.

The early morning view was spectacular:

Hoodoos!

The vertical detached and semi-detached structures are called hoodoos. Reminds of a quote from the film: The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947) (“…Hoodoo? You Do!…), which was later quoted in a song in Labyrinth (1986).

Hoodoos are formed from complex erosion from the Claron Formation, layers of sedimentary rocks laid down at the bottom of a series of lakes some 50 million years ago (almost yesterday, compared to the time scales of the Grand Canyon). The upper layers are somewhat more resistant to erosion than the lower layers, forming hard “caps.” The rocks are eroded into fins, then broken up vertically due to ice forming in vertical cracks, eventually forming freestanding structures. Bryce Canyon contains the largest and most elaborate collection of hoodoos in the world!

The best views of the hoodoo “amphitheaters” are from the rim of the Canyon, and I was able to visit Inspiration Point and Bryce Point in addition to Sunset Point. The viewpoints are a little over 8,000 ft in elevation.

The picture below shows a fin in the process of being eroded, first forming “windows” then evolving into detached structures:

Here is a fully detached structure:

Here is a large group:

On story of these structures told by the Native American tribes is that they are bad people punished by being encased in stone. This illustrates the relatively human scale of the structures as compared to the superhuman scale of the Grand Canyon and even Zion Canyon. (Hoodoos generally vary in height from 1-20 times the height of a human, whereas the sandstone slabs at Zion are 100 times the height of a human and the depth of the Grand Canyon is about 1,000 times the height of a human.)

The Canyon is surrounded by some wonderful looking habitats including ponderosa pine forests. They are said to contain many interesting creatures from mountain lions to prairie dogs.

I was eager to explore the floor of the canyon and the inviting forests but was forced to leave in order to service my van’s electrical problem.

For a change of pace from the gorgeous canyons, the next stop will be Great Basin National Park.