Hoodoos and the White Stuff

Bryce National Park - Utah

Its amazing how different each national park can be ... although only 2 and a half hours apart they are so different.

Hoodoos, rock spires, fins, windows, grottos, fluted walls, sculpted pinnacles ... so different.

Remember when you were little, and you went to the beach and made sandcastles ... and you got the sand really wet ... with your pail ... and you drizzled the wet sand out of you hand - well its like that but on a huge scale.

And the colors of the sand creations are spectacular ... peaches, pinks, yellows, oranges, reds, mossy green ...
The sky is a vivid blue and its all frosted with a light dusting of snow.
What a creative God we have.

The first inhabitants were the Paiute Indians.  They explained the hoodoos with a legend

Once there lived animal like creatures that  changed themselves into people.  But they were bad, so coyote turned them into rocks of various configurations.  The spell-bound creatures still huddle together here with faces painted just as they were before being turned to stone.

It just takes a little imagination.

We did a very nice hike down into the bottom of the canyon, around lots of cool hoodoos and back up at another spot and back to the truck along the rim trail.  It was cold at the top, but by the time we got to the bottom, it was much warmer and we were peeling off layers.

There was still snow.  The weather at Bryce was a little colder than normal for this time of year ... they also received a late snowfall last week.  But there was lots of sun to warm us up.

This was the trail back up - kind of reminds you of walters wiggles ... on a much smaller level.

These are grottos.

Rainbow Point - Elevation 9100

Ebenezer & Mary Bryce came to the canyon in 1875 to homestead and harvest plateau timber.  Neighbors called the canyon behind his home Bryce's Canyon.  About the canyon, he said, "hell of a place to lose a cow."

The famous Utah Prarie Dog - it was the best shot I could get.

After exploring Bryce we decided to try some rockhounding.  Found a real neat spot to look for agate ... found lots ... too much.  Then on to another location for jasper ... don't know what that looks like. 

So we looked around, broke a bunch of rocks with a hammer - still nothing, so we continued down the dirt road leading to nowhere - because you can't go back the way you came. 

We ended up in the Dixie Forest on a road to Smith Canyon that went on forever and ever and ever ... until there was snow ... 4 wheel drive ... got through that ... and ever and ever ... until a large tree across the road.  The boys hooked up the straps and tried to pull it out of the way - no luck.  They tried to push it, pull it, jump on it, whack it with a hammer ... it wouldn't budge. 

So we had to turn around ... as it was getting dark ... and travel back down the bumpy road over the river and through the woods forever and ever until we finally returned to pavement and all said "Ahhhhhh"