Concessioner-provided horseback rides are another way to experience Bryce Canyon during the summer season. Ranger Program at the visitor information desk. Hiking trails explore the forests of the plateau, connect between viewpoints along the rim of the Bryce Amphitheater, and wander through the hoodoos below.ĭeepen your understanding of the park by attending a ranger program, whether it be a daily geology talk, rim walk, evening program, astronomy program, or full moon hike. Other viewpoints are found all along the park's 18-mile main road which travels from the park's only entrance in the north along the plateau rim to its highest elevations in the south (over 9,000 ft / 2,743 m). Between April and October a shuttle service is operated in this area of the park to reduce congestion. Perhaps every visitor to the park will spend at least some time marvelling at its four main viewpoints, all found within the first few miles of the park: Bryce Point, Inspiration Point, Sunset Point, and Sunrise Point. The most famous of these is the Bryce Amphitheater, which is filled with irregularly eroded spires of rocks called hoodoos. Caption by Kathryn Hansen.Bryce Canyon is not a single canyon, but a series of natural amphitheaters or bowls, carved into the edge of a high plateau. NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens, using Landsat data from the U.S. The limestone weathers faster than layers of other rock types also present, giving the hoodoos their lumpy shape. The hoodoos are further sculpted by the region’s small amount of slightly acidic rainfall, which dissolves the limestone. When the water re-freezes, it expands and makes the rocks vulnerable to erosion. It is one of the reasons for Bryce’s amphitheaters and the high concentration of hoodoos-so many, in fact, that the area has been called the “silent city.” When temperatures rise, meltwater from the snow and ice works its way into cracks in the rock. Winter weather makes for more than a pretty picture. Iron oxide minerals have tinged the rock red, orange, and yellow. Most of the rock pictured here is 50-million-year-old limestone from the Claron Formation. As the name implies, the view from Sunset Point is most spectacular near sunset, when the colorful rock formations are illuminated by low-angle light. On February 9, 2017, photographer and writer Ray Boren captured a ground-based photo showing snow extending into Bryce Canyon.īoren shot his photo while looking toward the southeast from Sunset Point, one of the park’s many overlooks accessible from a network of trails. When this satellite image was acquired, snow covered the plateau. Over time, weathering has shaped the series of hoodoo-filled amphitheaters that descend from the east side of the Paunsaugunt Plateau.Ĭompared to Zion Canyon just 80 kilometers (50 miles) away, Bryce Canyon is about 300 meters (1,000 feet) higher in elevation, and the climate is cooler and moister. Unlike canyons sculpted primarily by a river, Bryce Canyon is the result of weather-induced erosion. It shows the north-central part of the park in the vicinity of the main amphitheater. On March 9, 2017, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured this natural-color image of Bryce Canyon National Park. They are there to capture images of the delicate spires called “hoodoos” that rise from the canyon. But photographers who visit Bryce Canyon National Park are not typically looking for dizzying heights and depth. Arizona’s Grand Canyon, for comparison, measures more than 1,800 meters deep in places. Utah’s Bryce Canyon is not the deepest in the United States its largest “amphitheater” of naturally eroded rock drops 240 meters.
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