The road to Bryce Point is 2 miles (3.2 km) long and ends at one of the park's most popular overlooks. After a stop at the Visitor Center just past the fee booths for restrooms, the park gift shop, and other amenities, continue 1.5 miles (2.4 km) to the turn for Bryce Point. Offering panoramic views of the kaleidoscopic topography, the trail can be accessed from several places along the rim, including Sunrise Point and Sunset Point, as well as the old and esteemed Bryce Canyon Lodge (opened in 1925).A shorter visit should focus on the first 3 miles (4.8 km) of the park, known as the Bryce Amphitheater. However, you will need your vehicle to reach viewpoints at the southern end of the main park road.īy far the park’s most popular activity is walking all, or part, of the 11-mile Rim Trail between Fairyland Point and Bryce Point. The shuttle runs to the visitor center, lodge, campground, and several overlooks. To help alleviate heavy summertime traffic, visitors are encouraged to park outside the park and hop the free Bryce Canyon Shuttle from a station off Highway 63 in Bryce Canyon City. Warm yellows and oranges radiate from the deeply pigmented walls as scatterings of light illuminate the pale spires. In the early morning you can stand for long moments on the rim, held by the amphitheater’s mysterious blend of rock and color. While the fantastical hoodoos are certainly what draws most visitors to Bryce, the park’s extreme altitude means that visitors can also explore alpine meadows and coniferous forests that provide habitats for a wide variety of flora and fauna. It’s a natural amphitheater carved into the eastern flank of the Paunsaugunt Plateau by millions of years of wind and water erosion (and perhaps a little help from the Coyote god). According to Paiute Indian legend, the canyon’s hoodoo rock formations were created by that old trickster Coyote, who turned the gluttonous To-when-an-ung-wa (“Legend People”) into stone. The area’s indigenous people were far more amazed. Related: EXPLORE THE TWISTING DESERT LANDSCAPES OF THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST “It’s a hell of a place to lose a cow,” he once famously quipped. Unlike the early Mormons who viewed Zion Canyon as a heavenly gift, rancher Ebenezer Bryce viewed the badlands that ran through his 1870s ranch as a bane. But there is more here than spectacular erosion. In about 50 years, the present rim will be cut back another foot. In summer, runoff from cloudbursts etches into the softer limestones and sluices through the deep runnels. Water may split rock as it freezes and expands in cracks-a cyclic process that occurs some 200 times a year. Bryce past and presentįor millions of years, water has carved Bryce’s rugged landscape. Encompassing six square miles, it is the park’s scenic heart. The largest and most striking is Bryce Amphitheater. Many ephemeral streams have eaten into the plateau, forming horseshoe-shaped bowls. To the west are heavily forested tablelands more than 9,000 feet high to the east are the intricately carved breaks that drop 2,000 feet to the Paria Valley. The park follows the edge of the Paunsaugunt Plateau. Many descend on trails that give hikers and horseback riders a close look at the fluted walls and sculptured pinnacles. Its wilderness of phantom-like rock spires, or hoodoos, attracts 2.7 million visitors a year. Perhaps nowhere are the forces of natural erosion more tangible than at Bryce Canyon. Among the nation’s most beloved (and photographed) parks, Bryce is a major draw for hiking, challenging rock climbing, and winter cross-country skiing trails.Īnd the park is less than 40 miles as the crow flies from another natural gem: Zion National Park. Entrance Fee: $35 vehicles $20 individualsīryce Canyon showcases the stunning geology of southern Utah, a red-rock wonderland created by wind, water, and snow.
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