Bryce Canyon is all about erosion, by the wind and snow and aeons of time. It's a vast wilderness of spooky rock spires, called hoodoos by the locals, with numerous hiking trails etched into the landscape amongst the bright red sandstone pinnacles, all studded along the edge of the mighty Paunsaugunt Plateau. The striking Bryce Amphitheatre lies right at its beating heart, all six square miles of it.
Buy the basics – you'll find everything you need at Ruby's Inn General Store.
The air here is exceptionally clean and clear; you'll be able to see Kaibab Plateau and Navajo Mountain from Rainbow point, sometimes even as far as Arizona's Black Mesas and outwards into Mexico.
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Sign up for a special star-gazing event
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See nocturnal animals on a ranger-guided tour
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Turn up in time for the world-class Bryce Canyon Astronomy Festival in June
Road trips come on an epic scale here. Take Scenic Byway 12, 124 miles of canyons and plateaus and a unique journey. Then carry on with yet more enormous landscapes along Heritage Highway 89 and Scenic Byway 143.
Bryce Canyon delivers some of the most dramatic landscapes in the States. Go west for forested high altitude flatlands, east for intricately carved rocks with 2,000 foot drops down into the lovely Paria Valley.
Take yourself to the park's excellent Visitor Centre, an award-winning attraction in itself with its fascinating 22 minute movie.
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Drive to all four famous viewpoints: Sunrise, Sunset, Inspiration and Bryce
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Take a hike along gorgeous canyon trails, or stick to the canyon's rim for even more remarkable views
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Join all sorts of interesting outdoor courses while you're there
Drive to Rainbow Point, an 36 mile round trip, and marvel at a grand total of 13 breathtaking viewpoints on the return trip.
"The canyons are calling; take time to soak in the surprising scenery, catch the setting sun and take home a lifetime worth of memories" - Discovery America
In the 1800s the Mormon settler Ebenezer Bryce, after whom the place is named, remarked that it was "a hell of a place to lose a cow." And it is. This is hostile country, a place where wise humans are rightly wary of nature's enormous power. Treat the canyon with respect, take care, listen to what the rangers say and you'll enjoy the natural experience of a lifetime. Love skiing and snowboarding? Walk this way. The canyon offers more than 10 miles of clearly-marked ski trails to play on, with a collection of beautiful unmarked trails for confident skiers. Fairyland and Paria offer exceptional skiing, and you can also enjoy 20 more miles of connecting ski trails at Ruby’s Inn and Dixie National Forest.
Experience the blinding white sandstone domes of Capitol Reef National Park. Marvel at the extraordinary plateaus of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and the towering rock chimneys at Kodachrome Basin State Park. If endless, beautiful lush woodland is more your thing, head for the lovely Dixie National Forest. It contains the infamously lovely Escalante Petrified Forest with its fascinating chunks of petrified wood, calcified fossils and dinosaur bones, plus Panguitch Lake, which is stuffed to the gills – pun intended – with absolutely enormous rainbow trout.