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| We love hoodoos! |
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| Bryce National Park is about hoodoos - everywhere |
Bryce Canyon is all about hoodoos, ornate stone walls, fins,
windows and spires carved as the side of the Paunsaungunt Plateau erodes away through
the relentless thawing and freezing of water in tiny cracks in the stone. The fanciful, bulbous features are brightly colored in
orange, red, pink, and buff. They have
the largest collection of hoodoos in the world - though they aren’t called
hoodoos in the rest of the world - literally thousands of them.
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| Snowcapped |
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| Can you see trickster Coyote's stone people? |
We were told many versions of the origin of the name “hoodoos”. The one that we heard, and liked, the most is
a Native American legend. Apparently,
there were some annoying people (some versions say they were greedy, others say
they were loud and argumentative), so trickster Coyote brought them all
together and turned them into stone.
Consequently, this is a place of mystery and a bit of fear.
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| Aquarius Plateau 15 miles away - same strata as our hoodoos |
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| Boat Mesa |
Bryce is part of the Colorado Plateau. Millennia ago, it was at sea level and over
the millennia sea beds ebbed and flow, depositing lots of organisms. Under the weight of all of these layers, the
deposition was compressed into stone.
There was a tectonic event, and the area we know as the Colorado Plateau
was lifted from sea level to 8,000 – 9,000 feet of elevation. The layers of rock were not disturbed, it
just lifted up. This was the same
tectonic event that formed the Rocky Mountains.
At some point, a shallow, algae filled huge fresh water lake formed. Again depositing lots of debris. Another tectonic event broke off a few plateaus,
forming the Paunsaungunt Plateau, where Bryce is located, and the Aquarius Plateau about 15 miles away,
and draining the lake.
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| Sinking Ship Mountain |
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| Lines of strata along the hoodoos |
Bryce Canyon isn’t really a canyon, it would need to have
two sides to be a canyon. It is a
plateau whose sides are eroding away in a unique way. The erosion is more localized in some places,
forming amphitheaters or scooped out areas of the plateau’s edge all filled
with hoodoos.
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| An amphitheater of hoodoos |
The area has about 180 days of freezing temperatures. While we were there it was around 30 degrees every
morning as we got up. It also gets a lot
of snow. Snow melted water seeps into
tiny cracks in the stone and re-freezes, expanding the crack. Summer monsoons, wash away the sand and bits
of stone that have broken off.
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| A fin |
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| Windows |
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| Dolomite limestone capstone or "hoodoo helmet" |
Eventually, fins or walls develop. Windows, or holes, start developing in parts of
the fins. The top of the window chips
away until it too collapses, separating the two sections of fin. These sections are the hoodoos. The top layer of strata is hard dolomite limestone. The dolomite serves as a “hoodoo helmet” (phrasing
from Ranger Emily, who taught us about this) that protects the hoodoo. Gradually, the softer sandstone beneath the capstone
erodes away until it can no longer support the limestone at the
top. From there, the hoodoo erodes away
into a mound of sand and gravel.
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| These hoodoo have lost their protective capstones and are eroding away |
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| Old Rim Trail that has started eroding away into a hoodoo |
This process is still continuing at a pace of 4
feet every 100 years. In fact, a part of
the Rim Trail recently had to be rerouted, because it “fell in”. Several trails among the hoodoo were closed this
spring because of mudslides over the winter, or perhaps the natural progression
of erosion, had blocked them. Other
parts of the park and trails were closed because of snow.
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| Hoodoos come in many shapes |
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| We think this capstone looks like an alligator, do you? |
Our first stop was to hear a Ranger Talk about hoodoo
geology overlooking hoodoos (of course), fortuitously scheduled at the time
when we arrived at the park. Afterwards,
we walked the short paved Rim Trail from Sunset Point to Sunrise Point gazing
down at the hoodoos along the way. We
went to the Visitors Center for the video.
From there we took the shuttle back to Bryce Point, and decided to walk
the recently opened mile and a half Rim Trail from Bryce Point to Inspiration
Point. This trail was not paved and about
half of it was either snow covered or muddy from snow melt. The hiking books we looked at later rated
this hike as moderate to difficult – when it is dry. The views were spectacular, and the hike well
worth the effort.
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| Natural Bridge |
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| Hiking part of the Rim Trail in the snow |
Like other National Parks in this region, Bryce Canyon has
a shuttle system that picks you up at a few locations outside the park, and
continues throughout the northern section of the park, picking you up and
dropping you off at vistas and trail heads along the way. They also offer a free 3-hour bus tour to the
southern part of the park that is not served by the shuttle. We took that our second day. The southern-most, and highest elevation at
9,000 feet, section was still closed due to a very heavy snowfall that they
were still working to clear from the roads.
We did get to see Natural Bridge, which really isn’t a bridge (there is
no stream underneath it) but a very big window.
Pretty none-the-less. As a consolation
for missing parts of the tour, we visited Fairyland, which is in the northern
part of the park, but is also not served by the shuttle.
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| Heading down the Fairyland Trail |
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| Past a hoodoo capstone being formed |
We returned later to Fairyland in our car, to hike down
among the hoodoo. The hoodoo helmets
that look so tiny and precarious perched atop the spires are actually massive blocks
of limestone. The hoodoos are very tall,
some 200 feet high, and substantial, when we are next to them.
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| This is what the stone looks like up close - many tiny crevices to collect water and ice |
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| We even had a pile of snow at our campsite |
We stayed at a place called Ruby’s Inn and Campground, 2
miles outside the park entrance. Reuben
(Ruby) and Minnie Syrett had ranch land on the plateau, and recognized the
beauty of Bryce’s Canyon (as it was then known, named after Mr. Bryce who had a
ranch below it). They built a tourist
guest house near the rim to feed and house visitors to the hoodoos. When the area was made into a park, they
moved their operation to their ranch that coincidentally was located adjacent
to the new park. Still a family run
company, the complex is now called Bryce Canyon City, housing a huge campground,
several hotels, a bunch of restaurants, a gas station, specialty shops, a rodeo
(in season) and several park shuttle stops.
Location, location, location.
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| Such pretty colors |
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| Happy hoodoo hikers |
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