Framedlight

After the marmots and a talk by one of the park rangers, Anne needed to see the rest of Bryce. As I explained in an earlier blog, Bryce Canyon is not a true canyon but rather a cliff face which is being eroded back by the action of frost and water. As you drive the length of Bryce there are stopping points where there are scenic overviews. These are mainly amphitheatres where for some reason a bite has been taken out of the side of the cliff, and erosion has created the dramatic hoodoo formations. The road and the Canyon finish in the south at Yovimpa Point and this is where we started. I did not take a large number of pictures as I had already done that on my previous visit with Mike, so I will just show a few. We ended the day at Bryce Point, as the sun was setting. Bryce is not the best place for sunset as it faces east, but I gave it a go! The clouds became quite heavy as the sun set but cleared in the 'blue hour'. Yovimpa Point The Backpacker, Agua Canyon ...

Not being quite methodical we left out the next stop on our trip up Bryce Canyon and went straight to Bryce Point, an enormous amphitheatre of pinnacles. Here is a panorama to show the size of the place. The individual hoodoos can reach up to 200ft to give you an idea of scale. Needless say we were mightily impressed. After lunch we went on a guided geology tour where we learnt more about the rock formation at Bryce. The Canyon stands at the edge of the Paunsaugant Plateau on the northern edge of the Grand Staircase, a huge collection of steps in the landscape of the Colorado Plateau leading down to the Grand Canyon. The rock at Bryce is known as the Claron Formation, a collection of  limestone, silts and mudstone, sometimes topped with a layer of dolomitic limestone which is much harder than normal limestone and resilient to acid rain. The plateau edge is being continually eroded, mainly by frost damage but also by water flow off the edge of the canyon and is receding at a ...