Spellbound by Hoodoos

Utah is home to a number of great National Parks and Bryce Canyon, which lays of the slopes of the Paunsaugunt Plateau certainly holds it own on the list. This park gets around one million visitors a year from all over the world. The park follows the plateau rim for most of the 18 miles it covers, with many overlooks offering stunning views. There are also many trails, including a must do trip down into the hoodoos themselves through the Queen's Garden and Navajo Loop. We did that particular hike in one of our two previous trips here. A hoodoo is a pinnacle or odd shaped rock left standing by the forces of erosion. In Bryce, there are thousands of these colorful rock formations and when you first step up to a ledge and see them for the first time, it literally takes your breath away. According to the Bryce brochure, "geologists say that 10 million years ago forces within the earth created and then moved the massive blocks known as the Table Cliff and Paunsaugunt plateaus. Rock layers on Table Cliff now tower 2,000 feet above their corresponding layers on the Paunsaugunt. Ancient rivers carved the tops and exposed the edges of these blocks, removing some layers and sculpting formations in others."

We took Savannah with us and as dogs aren't allowed on trails, we just stopped at a few lookout spots where there were paved roads that they were allow on.

Inspiration Point was our first stop. It is hard to capture the dramatic scenery in a few photos, but i did my best to give you an idea. It's one of the places that should be on everyone's bucket list.

 

We saw wild life!! There were some antelope grazing in the park.

 

We stopped at Natural Bridges. The Natural Bridge is really an arch, as bridges are formed by streams and Natural Bridge was carved by rain and frost erosion from the top of the rock.

 

This bird followed some people to their car. I think he wanted a ride.

 

 

Rainbow Point was our next stop, which is near the end of the road in the park. Note the elevation. A couple of places where you walked up the hill to get to the point had us puffing a little.

 

 

 

 

 

The white in the picture below is snow. I read a few days later, that they got more snow. Would have liked to have seen that, but this was after we left that area.

 

 

 

 

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