Utah, Bryce Canyon,
enchanted slopes
Utah, magnificient bristles,
the circuses of Bryce canyon
From the south-east on the 12, we climb a plateau at 2,500 m, before turning left onto the 63, to reach Bryce Canyon City.
The wind is sometimes much cooler and the semi-desert mountainous walls allow some forests of tortured and robust fir trees to grow, even real forests that are a little sparse.
Here is another geological wonder.
But you have to get to the very edge of a cliff whose quirky outline is festooned with successive large natural amphitheatres, which have deeply bitten the ancient plateau.
It is while approaching the edge that suddenly the landscape lights up and sets fire to innumerable and very high rock needles (the "hoodoos"), of narrow and bristling ridges, populating like a cheering crowd the deep bottom of huge natural circuses.
On a roughly north-south axis, the park stretches as the crow flies for about 30 km.
The most spectacular part seems to be located in the 1/10th of the park to the north after the Visitor Center (opposite a view of this most frequented part, taken from Google Earth).
The rest is a treat for long hikers.
The hoodoos amphitheatres open to the east.
Along the "Rim Trail" (the balcony path that runs along the top of the cliffs), and according to the successive belvederes, everybody is struck by an extraordinary chromatic symphony.
The ridges are so thin that they sometimes seem to be lit by transparency.
It's not the emotional shock described by others, but the discovery of a wonder whose eye seems never to tire (albeit ...), after the work infinitely stretched over millions of years of erosion of the sedimentary plateau, which has played on the different hardness of its composition.
Impossible to forgive the most clumsy of photographers for not drawing superb images from them.
In its immutable grandeur, the Grand Canyon is photographically elusive, except perhaps by the greatest who will have carefully chosen the moment and the light.
In Bryce Canyon, enthusiastic, the visitor shoots ; he never stops ecstasing himself in front of so much beauty.
The bride is so beautiful.
Then, multiplying the views from a thousand angles just like the thousands of other visitors, after a single day where he traverses the park for a long time, and fatigue helping, the profusion of panoramas, however all different, ends up dulling his exaltation.
Without he stops capturing, out of habit.
But the miracle takes place as soon as you get home : most photos of Bryce Canyon are an enchantment. This site remains an extraordinary visual fireworks.
In the forest-park, crisscrossed by cars for a part and by shuttles, some local antelopes, long ears, graze peacefully, without fear of tourists who stop their car to savor the spectacle.
The same as on the south rim of the Grand Canyon.
From the edge of the circuses, on white track paths that sometimes turn ocher, it is possible from a particular point of view to descend and weave between the rocky needles.
On the "Navajo Loop" trail
In the descent towards the hoodoos, on a white track in laces, starting from "Sunset Point".
There, for having gone through the "Navajo Loop» over 1.6 km and 189 meters of vertical drop, you can better appreciate the magnitude and size of the needles, through steep bends, sometimes bordered by dizzying windows.
A good way to discover other hidden rocky splendours, to finally climb boldly towards our starting point which seems very high to us.
On the long balcony, the "Rim Trail", and in the surrounding sparse forest, a lively and swift little squirrel, whom some call "chipmunk" (is that the real name?) is living its life, at the look out for crumbs.
Another easy little walk, named " Queen Garden Trail " from "Sunrise Point" comes to an isolated, virginal white hoodoo named "Queen Victoria hoodoo". The sky in the distance darkens and pours rain bars, which we will not have to suffer.
... and on that of the "Sueen Garden"
There is indeed a tree that walks; but where are the roots in the ground?
The first Monday in September is a holiday here, it is the "Labor Day».
And the only day (Monday, September 3, 2018) when we can devote all our time to the visit.
Not easy then to find a place for our car in the successive car parks of "Viewpoints",
We decide to come and park it in the morning for the day at "Sunset Point», Then take the shuttles, after learning about their route, and having booked the free pass to Bryce Canyon.
All driven by seniors, the shuttles have the advantage of also reaching sites prohibited to cars.
From a nearby starting point, another track is taken by a group of riders, which gradually sinks into the depths of the canyon ; at certain steep passages, we hear a few cries of fear from the riders and a horse neighing.
The cautious march stops for a few moments to hear the recommendations of the driver of the "rope team" (because the slope is steep) on horseback.
Then later, still complete but well stretched, the same group emerges from petrified dunes, from another side of the valley.
The storm which is brewing in the distance brings the striking contrast of a black sky which vomits a bar of rain in the distance, releasing the splendors of the foreground circuses.
The small village of Bryce Canyon, certainly of still recent construction, is laid out with tourist shops disguised as western facades and a huge parking lot next to a large "trading post"where you can eat and buy all kinds of souvenirs.
Different widely spaced hotels welcome visitors.
Among the population of tourists who roam these natural geological wonders, it seems quite simple to differentiate the Americans from the Europeans, or even from the French.
Vigorous framework, the tall, well-made stature for the men, a beautiful physical presence which would make all the elderly women of local former misses, often identify without possible error the inhabitants of the New Continent in relation to others.
There is also, in addition to the clarity of the eye, a kind of quiet detachment, a slower way of moving perhaps, which is not found among compulsive French people, even when, seized with passion for the Harley, they try to enter the skin of rock and roll bikers and complete great journeys on their bike.
There is also a rodeo show for tourists on Saturdays and another day of the week, which we will not see.
Bewitching landscapes ...
and a few more ...
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
 |  |
Erosion work and park plan
Erosion of Paunsaugunt plateau where the park is located formed different geological structures named walls and hoodoos.
The upper geological layer of the plateau, the Claron Formation, is made up of rocks sedimentary and limestones rather crumbly.
Particularly under the effect of freeze-thaw cycles (up to 200 times per year), the edges of the plateau erode over time and form increasingly narrow wallshaped formations. Those are then perforated at their weakest points and arches appear, which enlarge before breaking, forming pillars called hoodoos.
The hoodoos have heights varying from 1.5 to 45 meters, and a thickness over their entire height very fluctuating, which differentiates them from a simple column and gives them very varied shapes. Some of them have been baptized as the "Hammer Thor", the "Queen Victoria", or "E.T.18".
The rock in which hoodoos are formed, date of Paleocene or Eocene (40 to 60 million years). It's mostly made up of limestone but also a little sands and clays from sediment deposits accumulated at the bottom of shallow lakes that no longer exist.
Their coloring comes from the different minerals they include. The rock is also eroded by acidity of storm water. Hoodoos have better resistance to erosion compared to the rock around them thanks to the thin top layer of protection containing magnesium more weather resistant.
Plateau erosion is estimated to occur at a rate of 0.6 to 1.3 meter per century, which means that at this rate, new hoodoos will be able to still form for about three million years.
Utah,
(more) modest and picturesque
Red canyon
When taking route 89 from Bryce Canyon village to Panguitch, beyond a few miles on an uninteresting plateau bordering a small aerodrome, we descend winding through a landscape here still ocher, with slopes much less pronounced than at Bryce Canyon.
It is "Red canyon", very picturesque and easily accessible on foot ; a modest Bryce Canyon, more on a human scale ; on our scale.
Access to the Visitor Center is after a few bends where the road passes under two thick successive arches, which in reality were opened by man for the inauguration of the road that crosses this park in 1925.
to go
and on the way back
Less tall, columns and peaks are also less numerous and more massive, but in the middle of vigorous pines which make here almost a forest.
Erosion sculpts rocks, turning them into statues, overhanging slabs, fragile columns in unstable equilibrium, deep caves, easy refuges ; Butch Cassidy and his gang passed by there.
A short hike on balcony trails allows to savor other beautiful landscapes.
An appetizer before Bryce Canyon ... or else if it's after, a quiet and healthy herbal tea after a too heavy meal.
