Bryce
National Park, Utah
BRYCE AND ZION:
THE PILLARS OF UTAH
by
Bruce Burnett
The
color red is such a dominant but mutable feature in the landscape of
Bryce Canyon National Park in southern Utah that it would be convenient
to have 30 or more different words to describe its variations, just
as the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic have 30 different words to describe
snow. Indeed, 60 varied shades of red have been identified. One is told
the canyon is at its best at sunset. That's true. Until you see it at
sunrise. The harsh glare of noon betrays the devilish formations of
broken-face gargoyles and sinister, brooding shapes, reminding the visitor
of famous profiles or man-made structures. Hence some of the bizarre
pillars, pedestals and carved, crimson cliffs, collectively known as
"hoodoos," have been nicknamed "Pope," "Queen
Victoria" and "Tower Bridge."
This masterpiece of erosional scenery is a startling marriage of harshness
and serenity. Nature's chisels, time, wind and water have carved mile
after mile of column-filled amphitheatres, labyrinths of box canyons,
sheer walls, fin-like ridges and towering, fluted columns.
The iron oxides in the limestone spires furnish the yellows and reds.
The purples and lavender come from manganese oxides. When the light
shifts with moving sun or cloud, the umber turns to pink, then salmon,
then crimson. When contrasted with the green, 2,500-meter (8,000ft)
plateau from which the canyon is viewed, white in winter and in fall
streaked with silver-barked, gold-leaved aspens, the color combinations
are breathtaking.
Along the 27-kilometer (18 miles) drive on the canyon rim there are
13 viewpoints offering spectacular vistas of the amphitheatre. Hiking
trails are well-marked and there are 23 of them varying in length from
one hour to three days.
Bryce isn't really a canyon at all, but a series of "breaks"
in 14 enormous amphitheaters carved out of the pink and white limestone
cliffs and ochre sandstone pinnacles. To the south the land falls away
in a tier of gigantic steps called the "Grand Staircase,"
the bottom step of which is the ever-deepening Grand Canyon, 250 kilometers
(150 miles) away across the state border in northern Arizona. This represents
a drop of over three vertical kilometers (two miles) exposing two billion
years of erosion.
Bryce Canyon was named after Ebenezer Bryce, a Scottish Mormon who settled
here in 1875. Being more interested in the Rock of Ages than the age
of rocks he declared the canyon to be "One hell of a place to lose
a cow" and moved to Arizona.
The original inhabitants were the Paiute Indians. Their legend claimed
the rock pillars of the canyon were men turned to stone by an angry
god who condemned them to stand forever in stoic and stony silence.
The natural architecture of Bryce could be termed Gothic in its unrestrained
profusion of stone metaphors of angels and monsters. This is in contrast
to the relative Grecian quality of Zion National Park, about halfway
down the "Grand Staircase," 130 kilometers (80 miles) to the
southwest.
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Footprints
left by dinosaurs and fossils of shellfish show that the area supported
a wide range of life.
More than 100 million years ago a huge desert of wind blown sand covered
much of what is now the western United States. The dunes were eventually
transformed into sandstone by the return of a sea, which flooded the area.
What is now Zion slowly took shape. As the long, slow uplift of the Colorado
Plateau began, streams draining from it, such as Zion's Virgin River,
began cutting canyons. Over time the rapidly flowing and sometimes flooding
Virgin River, with its load of sand, pebbles and sometimes boulders, carved
the canyon we see today.
Again, the first white settler was a Mormon who saw "temples built
by hands not of man" in the canyon's towering masses of stone and
said, "I shall call this place 'Little Zion'."
The Paiute Indians called the canyon Ioogoon, their word for arrow quiver,
meaning the canyon had to be exited by the same route it was entered.
The Paiutes told stories about mischievous spirits among the rock formations
and they would not enter the canyon alone or remain there after dark.
From the valley floor at 1,220 meters (4,000ft) above sea level the canyon
walls tower to over 2,500 meters (8,000ft). Below the white and red of
the higher walls are the purple, pink, lilac, yellow, blue and mauve shades
in the most brilliantly colored rocks and the hues shift constantly with
the light and seasons. The sheer beauty of these cathedral-like rock formations
is reflected in their names: The Great White Throne, The Court of the
Patriarchs, Weeping Rock and Angels' Landing. There are a total of 11
hikes from Zion Lodge on the canyon floor varying from half-hour strolls
to the arduous 20-hour, 42-kilometer (26 miles), trek along the west rim
to the Grotto Picnic area.
One of the most delightful short hikes from the lodge is the quite strenuous
three-kilometer (two miles) climb to Emerald Pools. In spring, or after
a rainfall, the falls mist the delicate foliage of spring-fed hanging
gardens that garnish the rock face like nasturtiums on a chocolate torte.
Zion was declared a national park in 1909 and Bryce in 1928. They are
part of Utah's "Color Country" in the southwest corner of the
state which consists of three other national parks: Capitol Reef, Great
Basin and Lake Powell. "Color Country" usually also includes
the north rim of the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona.
Website: http://www.utah.com/nationalparks/.
BRYCE
AND ZION: THE PILLARS OF UTAH
was first published by The Globe and Mail
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