Bryce, Bryce baby

Click for bigger version and more detail

The third and surely the best of our outdoorsy stops here is Bryce Canyon. In fact it makes my top 2 of world canyons (along with Kings Canyon, Australia).

Set at altitude - about 9,000 ft - and mixed with pine forest, there's a wonderful fresh, clean feel to the air, and it feels like you can see forever off into the distance from the rim*. Even the distance is beautiful, with more mountains and plains.

* You can certainly see mountains 82 miles away.

But the real winner is the canyon itself. Mainly limestone, but with iron deposits, you get a whole range of colours from white to orange to red, and in places other minerals lend some localised yellow or blue. And the wonderful formations come from a mix of the easily eroded limestone with dolomite capstones, which protect some bits, forming 'hoodoos' - thin columns of stone, sometimes wider at the top than lower down. From the best viewpoints you can see hundreds of them in neat formation, looking like China's terracotta army.

Unlike the Grand Canyon, the best views here are around the central area, and the scenic drive further down the canyon is a mere after eight mint*. It's all about the Bryce Amphitheatre, and the views from Inspiration Point and Bryce Point are amazing.

* Still worth seeing, especially Agua Canyon for a couple of ridiculously top-heavy hoodoos that should surely not be still standing, and Natural Bridge, the best of a few arches in the park.

But wait, we haven't finished yet. It claims to have 'the world's best 3-mile hike', and it may just be right (although the last part was closed so we had to detour). The first part, Queens [sic] Garden, is like descending into a giant fairytalle-style sandcastle, past hoodoos and many strange formations, through the occasional man-made arch, and finally down to see a formation that looks more like Queen Victoria than any novelty rock formation has a right to.

I didn't say it was perfect, but for a natural process of rocks + erosion...

In fact the beauty of these crazy bits of rock is that lots of them look like something, and not just in a squint-and-turn-your-head-sideways-and-shut-your-eyes-and-maybe-I-can-sort-of-see-what-you-mean way. What a great place. Grand Canyon gets the hype, but for my money Bryce is better.

And if all that wasn't enough, the road out of the park to the east runs through Red Canyon, with more giant red rocks and two huge man-made arches to drive through. Brilliant.