Bryce Canyon National Park

The culmination of our two week tour of northern Arizona and southern Utah was our day trip to Bryce Canyon National Park. Once again, this proved to be a place of indescribable geological formations, a vast rolling landscape of red, pink, yellow and white hoodoos. The surroundings are otherworldly, at times ghostly and ethereal, and walking among these ancient towers was like being transported to some other planet. We hiked through several trails in the park, and at every turn in the road was a new shape, a new color, and a new impression, with our eyes constantly drawn skyward to the spires and pinnacles at the top of each hoodoo. At the bottom of the canyons, as I wound my way around the rock formations I felt tiny and insignificant, almost like an intruder into some secret world. Along the ridges, gazing down into the canyons below, the hoodoos were transformed into rippling waves of an ocean of rock, with arrangements that looked like gigantic aquarium ornaments.

“Poetry in Stone” is how the National Park brochure describes Bryce Canyon, and I can’t think of a more apt definition. Millions of years of weathering and erosion shape the rocks, with flowing water playing only a minor role in this story. As snow and ice melt, water seeps into fractures. As it re-freezes, it expands and cracks the rock around it. The combination of gravity and meltwater causes soil creep, moving the stone fragments downhill. There, is of course, always a geological explanation for all planetary structures and phenomenon, and hoodoos are curious and captivating, begging the questions of “how?”, “why?” and “when”?  But the immediate experience of seeing the crystalline blue sky, rocks ablaze with sunlight, shifting shadows wrapping in and out of the hoodoos as the day progresses, and the forces of nature creating this dynamic, mesmerizing place cannot be confined to merely geological terms. Hopefully our pictures help fill in some of the blanks as well.

Chiricahua National Monument (Arizona)

One hundred miles east of Tucson, near the border of New Mexico, is the Chiricahua National Monument, aptly dubbed a “Wonderland of Rocks”. Nothing could have prepared me for the impact of hiking right into the center of some of the most amazing rock formations I’ve ever seen. The park spans 11,985 acres accessible to visitors via an 8-mile paved scenic drive, or 17-miles of hiking trails, and contains large expanses of volcanic rocks which have eroded into dramatic pinnacles and spires. Known as “hoodoos”, these stacked rock formations are other-worldly in appearance, and it’s hard to fathom how they stay put! Formed from a huge volcanic eruption around 27 million years ago, I guess these rocks, composed of compacted pumice and ash, aren’t going anywhere soon, despite the fact that many of them appear so precariously balanced that it seems a high wind should send them tumbling down.

From the Visitor Center, Dan and I hiked the 7-mile Rhyolite Canyon trail that culminated in the 1.1-mile Heart of Rocks Loop, a route that winds through some of the most impressive rock groups in the park, and includes several examples of these impossibly balanced pillars. Fanciful names have been assigned to many of the formations such as Kissing Rocks (this one begged for a photo pose from us!), Punch and Judy, Thor’s Hammer, Camel’s Head, and Duck on a Rock. It isn’t hard at all to see where these names came from! I am so grateful to have the opportunity to visit places like this, to have access to the natural treasures preserved by our National Parks system. Chiricahua National Monument is truly one of these treasures, and I hope someday I’ll get the chance for a return visit.

We did have one unexpected encounter with a Black-Tailed Rattlesnake, about ¼ mile from the parking lot on our return trip. This snake was coiled, hissing, and shaking it’s rattles, so Dan kept a careful distance while taking the pictures I included below. We also saw several Mexican Jay, birds that didn’t seem very put off by people, allowing us to get pictures of them as well.