G.A.S.P.

Today (10-16) was my day to see Bryce Canyon and it turned out to be a great day despite the cool and windy weather. My first stop this morning was at the store to buy a headband with earflaps on it. Then I headed into Bryce Canyon, which is really not a canyon at all, but a series of amphitheaters. The place is really beautiful – a result of color from oxidized minerals (red, pink and orange from iron; purple from manganese; white that is purer limestone) and erosion that has created the magnificent rock pinnacles called hoodoos. Bryce is the ideal climate for hoodoos – freezing temperatures more than 200 days per year (including today). A cycle of freezing and thawing widens cracks in the cliffs, runoff scours away the frost wedged debris and cuts narrow gullies between walls, eventually isolating pinnacles and exposing them to more weathering.

At least that’s one theory. The Paiute Indians have a legend of their own as to the creation of these hoodoos: "Before there were any Indians, the Legend People, To-when-an-ung-wa, lived in that place. There were many of them. They were of many kinds – birds, animals, lizards, and such things – but they looked like people…For some reason, the Legend People in that place were bad. Because they were bad, Coyote turned them all into rocks. You can see them in that place now; all turned into rocks; some standing in rows, some sitting down, some holding onto others. You can see their faces, with paint on them just as they were before they became rocks…"

The formations are wonderfully displayed at several locations along the rims of the amphitheaters, but if you really want to experience Bryce Canyon at its best, you need to take the trails that go down into the hoodoos. There are several trails, with the Queens Garden and the Navaho Loop being terrific. Some of the great formations you will see include Queen Victoria, Wall Street, and Thor’s Hammer.

This place calls to me as only a few others have. It’s beautiful, to be certain, but much more so, it’s spiritual. I have a very strong desire to return here during the summer, under a full moon. I would stay in the National Park campground, and sneak over to Sunset Point after dark, and walk the Navaho Loop Trail down among the hoodoos. The word hoodoo comes from voodoo, and means to cast a spell. The connotation is negative, but I’m not buying that part at all. The spell cast on me is very spiritual and reverent. At midnight, under a full moon, in the valley with the hoodoos -this would be a time and a place when I would talk to God.

From 1875 to 1880, Ebenezer and Mary Bryce, Mormon pioneers, homesteaded in the Paira River Valley at the mouth of a canyon with towering and colorful walls. Neighbors and visitors began to call the canyon Bryce’s Canyon and it began to attract attention as a place of great scenic beauty. It’s unknown whether or not Ebenezer ever referred to it as a place of beauty, but his description that "it’s a hell of a place to lose a cow" will forever endear him to me.

Click on image to see Gary's favorite Cedar Breaks photos.