Bryce Canyon is the second most visited NP in southern Utah, behind Zion. In Zion, you are looking up at the geologic features from the canyon floor whereas in Bryce you are looking down at the features, especially the "hoodoos" from the canyon rim. OK, you might ask, what is a hoodoo?

Hoodoos are tall skinny spires of rock that protrude from the bottom of arid basins and "broken" lands. They are formed by two weathering processes that continuously work together in eroding the edges of the plateau. The primary weathering force at Bryce Canyon is frost wedging and rain. In the winter, melting snow, in the form of water, seeps into the cracks and freezes at night. When water freezes it expands by almost 10%, bit by bit prying open cracks, making them ever wider. Rain, the other chief source of erosion, removes of the debris that the frost heaving leaves behind.

We were unable to take any of the trails into the canyons, but those who did leave the rim, said that to be among the hoodoos gives one an entirely different perspective.

An early Mormon settler summed up the landscape by saying, "Its a helluva place to lose a cow".

We had exceptional sunny weather that made the colors of the rock walls an overpowering array of the various shade of red.