Bryce Canyon National Park - Forests and Hoodoos

The Forest World
It was atop the heavily forested Pausaugunt Plateau that the nomadic Paiutes spend their summers, living in loosely organized family groups. Here they built brush shelters called wickiups, and hunted the abundant mule deer, along with rabbits and other small game. From the lush grasses growing in occasional meadows they gathered many kinds of seeds, a big item in their diet, which they winnowed in sturdy baskets.

The plateau, rising in a great dark lump off the desert floor, engenders rainclouds and milks them nearly dry. In summer, thunderheads stack up, sending vivid tentacles of lightning into the forests. From October to April, the snow is deep and wet, impossible to traverse without snowshoes. At the high south end of the plateau (at about 9,100 feet, the high point of the Grand Staircase) summer is but a brief pause between long, intense winters. Dark, shady forests of fir and spruce cover the land, similar to those found much farther north. Silver-barked aspens stand out in sharp contrast, their bright yellow leaves adding a brilliant dash of autumn color. In midsummer, mule deer browse on mountain lilac and other shade-tolerant shrubs; but for the most part, food resources are skimpy in these deep shadows, and fewer animals live here than at the lower elevations. When winter clamps down, and dark clouds glower, the canyon seems far away, and one feels like a castaway on a piece of Canadian terrain that by some weird magic has broken loose and drifted south to Utah.

Beyond the heavy forest, on desolate high ridges overlooking this end of the canyon, squat occasional bristlecone pines, as gnarled as gnomes. Some have clung there stubbornly for more than 1,000 years.

Farther north, as the plateau's elevation drops, ponderosa pines gradually come to dominate, growing to heights of 100 feet and more. A forest of ponderosa is a bright, spacious place; the lowers branches spread well overhead, and each tree's extensive root system efficiently drains moisture from surrounding soil, discouraging nearby competition. In the warm afternoon sun the air is scented with the subtle vanilla fragrance given off by the trees' scaly, orange-tinted bark. In autumn the ground is littered with prickly russet-brown cones, among which scurry chipmunks, marmots, ground squirrels, and their busy kin. Here and there the ponderosa forests are interrupted by grassy meadows, where elderberry, ceanothus, and creeping barberry provide food for a large assortment of birds and other animals. Along occasional watercourses grow willows and cottonwoods, mixed with the distinctive water birches, their multiple trunks aglow with bronzy bark.

Throughout this diverse world are scattered blue-green Rocky Mountain juniper, Manzanita, bitterbrush, and a richly varied selection of other shrubby growth upon which mule deer feed. Shy creatures with liquid eyes, they raise their heads when startled, fan their enormous ears out like radar screens, and stand perfectly still. Sensing danger, they disappear soundlessly, their tails pointing upward in alarm.

Mazes, fins, and hoodoos
As you approach the canyon rim, you get no hint of what's in store. The ponderosa forest grows more spacious as the soil gets drier; the earth tilts slightly upward underfoot as if toward the lip of a shallow bowl. Suddenly the ground falls away in countless gullies and ravines, and you gaze out upon one of the strangest landscapes you will ever see. It is as if a ferocious, taloned giant had raked the edge of the plateau, carving deep runnels and washes that bleed colors as they curve and slash their way down toward the desert floor. If the air is really clear, the rounded dome of Navajo Mountain, some 80 miles to the southeast, seems close enough to touch.
Descending the canyon walls is an ordeal. The slopes are steep, and any trail must double back upon itself in tight coils. The soft, crumbly materials of the Claron Formation give way easily underfoot. Close to the rim, the ponderosas are small and widely scattered, joined by pinyon pines, cliffroses, sagebrush, and desert scrub. Before long, the ponderosas are displayed altogether.

In a snowfall, the canyon seems mysteriously to vanish. The jutting rocks are obscured by gloomy clouds that spill over the rim like cotton from an overloaded bag. From down in the canyon, the same snowstorm is a marvel to behold. Puffy white flakes, spiraling slowly between reddish blades of rock, seem to take forever to land. Pinyon branches droop under the burdens that cling to every twig and needle.
Every autumn, before deep snows covered the plateau, the Paitues took this route over the rim and through the canyon down to the desert valleys at its base. There they lived the hard life of desert foragers, digging sego lily bulbs and picking prickly pears and other cactus fruits. From such tough, sinewy plants as the yucca they made fiber for sandals and rope, to snare lizards, birds, and rabbits, as well as needles, soap, and other items. From pinyon pines they gathered nuts to mash and bake into nutritious little cakes.

Pinyons are plentiful out in the open reaches of the amphitheater, as are Utah junipers, small shaggy cousins of the Rocky Mountain juniper. Though less plentiful along the canyon walls and on canyon floors, pinyons do survive there, sparse and stunted, among perfumed cliffroses and sharp-scented sagebrush. Pinyon nuts are the basis of a vital food chain. Ground squirrels and chipmunks devour the nuts, and in turn are preyed upon by hawks, eagles, bobcats, and ringtails, and sometimes by such larger animals as coyotes and mountain lions (although these mighty hunters prefer more substantial prey when they can find it).

Summers are long, hot, and arid in the canyon. Ovenlike trails wind in mazes between sheer rock blades that hold in the heat, especially in the area known as Queens Garden, below Sunrise Point. Fracture lines are visible everywhere in the rock, and the litter of small chips and stones underfoot indicates the steady rate of disintegration. New colors and formations lurk around every turn. Many weirdly sculpted pinnacles, or hoodoos, have been named: the Chinese Wall, Tower Bridge, Queen Victoria, The Pope. Others have no names, but in the late afternoon, when the light catches a lofty pedestal at a certain angle, a prominent nose may emerge, or the suggestion of an eye socket. The sight can send a shiver up your back; inside the rock you have seen one of the Paiutes' frozen Queer Ones.

The colors they wear come from minerals in rock layers. The Pink Cliffs at the top of the Claron Formation are tinted by the oxidation of iron. In the yellow walls below, the iron oxide has rusted, becoming a substance called limonite. Blue and purple surfaces indicate traces of manganese oxide. The white layers are nearly pure beds of limestone and dolomite. These colors are often concealed under a reddish-brown clay, a natural "stucco" that covers the canyon walls.

But during early mornings and late afternoons in summer, when the slanting rays of the sun are almost palpable in the canyon, coating your flesh with a golden patina and seeming to soak through your pores like a liquid solution, it doesn't matter how the colors got there. What matters is the way the glowing light seems to radiate from the rocks, the way the living colors pulsate from within.

The Paiute way of life is gone now, replaced more than a century ago by the coming of settlers. (One of them, a carpenter named Ebenezer Bryce, gave his name to this canyon, which he described only as "a heck of a place to lose a cow.") But Paiutes still live, and many remember and still revere this monumental place, through which their ancestors made their way twice a year, overseen by spirits of the petrified dead.