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Interesting Places - Bryce Canyon National Park

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A couple of autumns ago my wife Sandy, myself, and our two dogs, Cam and Oakley, made an RV trip to Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. While going through my photograph files recently I found a number of images from that trip I really like, but hadn't published yet. So now I am adding them to my online gallery and thought I'd share a few with you on this blog.

First, Bryce Canyon left us stunned by its magnificent beauty, startling formations, and vivid colors. Every day was a "Wow!" day. A big part of the park is made up of a number of natural amphitheaters carved out of the edges of the Paunsaugunt Plateau by wind, rain and continual freezing and unfreezing. The result is like stepping into an alien world. The ground is rich in iron oxide resulting in startling colors against the vivid blue sky. One of the amphitheaters is called "Black Birch Canyon." In this image you can see incredible formations that appear to guard the canyon like the statutes in "Lord of the Rings."

Black Birch Canyon Overlook
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Continuing our view of Black Birch Canyon you can see a semi-circle of hoodoos seemingly forming a fortress wall that would fit in perfectly with any number of fantasy games kids play today. Hoodoos are tall skinny spires of rock that protrude from the bottom of basins and lands. According to the National Park Service website: "nowhere in the world are they as abundant as in the northern section of Bryce Canyon National Park." The difference between Hoodoos and pinnacles or spires is that hoodoos have a variable thickness at different levels of the pillar, almost like a totem pole. I told you it is a strange place!

Hoodoo Walls
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A little further down the park road is a turnout for "Natural Bridge." That indeed is the name. Interestingly enough however, according to geologists, a natural bridge is caused by a stream, an arch is caused by weathering, rain and freezing and unfreezing. They think the latter caused this formation so it is technically an arch. However, after forming, flowing water made the arch larger. So like I said, it is a strictly technical point, so I call it both!

Natural Bridge Arch
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A couple of other formations, which are also variations of hoodoos are Thors Hammer:

Thors Hammer
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and, what I call a large gnarly rock sitting on top of a tall hoodoo!

Hoodoo Supporting A Rock
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If you haven't been to Bryce Canyon, then you need to put it on your list!

Accompanying this blog publication and to thank you for your interest, Bryce Canyon Art and Photography prints are now on sale through 2/23/2015. Prices for these prints begin at just $19 (+shipping & taxes).! For added convenience the images are temporarily combined into a single Gallery. Just click on this link: Bryce Canyon Gallery. No coupon code is required. The reduced prices are reflected on the individual image pages. Enjoy!

Until my next blog update I wish you all the best and be sure to visit some place beautiful this month!

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