The Land of Hoodoos

Tuesday morning we again packed up Toby Sue and this time headed toward Bryce Canyon National Park. On the way to Bryce you pass through a pair of natural tunnels into Red Canyon. The rock formations there are a deep, bright red color – just amazing. We got to Bryce Canyon about lunchtime, went to one of the viewpoints that had picnic tables, and watched the chipmunks and birds while we ate. I think all the chipmunks that Lannas saw as a child at Crater Lake have migrated southwest to Utah! They were everywhere, and despite all the warnings not to feed them, they seemed curiously unafraid of humans. Toby really wanted to chase them, but we bet she wouldn’t know what to do if she caught one.

Bryce Canyon is meant to be seen mostly by car. They have trails that you can hike down, but pets are not allowed on the trails and we experienced our first 100° day since leaving Arizona, so we couldn’t leave Toby in the car while we hiked. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! The scenery in Bryce Canyon is spectacular. They have these rock formations called hoodoos that are everywhere. The rocks are limestone and naturally acidic rainwater rounds the edges, but most of the sculpting of the rocks occurs due to freezing and thawing action. For 200 days of the year ice and snow melt during the day and refreeze at night. On top of the canyon walls are lots of trees, part of the Dixie National Forest. It was obvious that they had had forest fires in the not too distant past. They also set some controlled fires as part of the forest management system. On the day we were there you could see smoke from fires. Lannas asked a ranger about it and he told him the fire had been set last Wednesday. Despite two rain showers it was still smoldering almost a week later. The temperature at Bryce Canyon was much cooler than the previous day – only in the low 80’s. That’s because of the altitude – the highest point we went to was 9,100 feet and the canyon floor is more than 7,000 above sea level.

Wednesday morning we “broke camp” and drove back up I-15, then east on I-70 to Green River, Utah. After setting up camp at the local KOA we drove to Arches National Park. It contains the largest concentration of natural stone arches in the world – more than 2,500. To qualify as a stone arch a hole must have an opening at least 3 feet long in any one direction. That means that some of the arches are very, very skinny. While the park is famous for the arches, it has lots of very interesting red sandstone formations, some of them just huge. While the park has named some of them (Balanced Rock, Three Sisters, Delicate Arch), they have not named them all. Looking at them is kind of like looking at ink blots. Lannas and I saw different things while looking at the same rock. We are back in a desert area, with the temperature around 104 during the day.

This morning we packed up and headed down I-70 toward Colorado. We are staying in Montrose tonight, and then going on to Creede tomorrow. We plan to stay there for a week. If the weather doesn’t cool off in Texas, we may be here longer! Lannas will fish, I will read and we will both go to the theater!

Toby enjoys watching people go by while she is waiting for us to return from dinner!