What is a Hoodoo?

Friday September 9, 2011
Yesterday and today we spent at Bryce Canyon National Park.  This is somewhat similar to Zion except for the following.  The park is on the rim of the canyon, not in the canyon like Zion.  Geologically it is higher in limestone content than Zion, so it has oodles of hoodoos. I thought a hoodoo was related to voodoo and meant some spell or something.  So in case you are asked, a hoodoo is a pillar of rock with an unusual shape formed by erosion.  Bryce has these in all shapes, sizes, and colors.  These are hoodoos,

What is interesting is how they form.  Apparently Bryce has 200 days of below freezing temperatures at night.  Any rain water or snow melt seeps into small cracks in the limestone, when it freezes the crack widens and the piece eventually falls off.  This process has been going on for 200 million years.  The wind polishes and smooths the surface.

The shape is dependent on hardness and the crack patterns.  This place is remarkable.  We hiked down to near the canyon floor today.  Actually we stroll, so it takes us a while.  Thing is we gawk, shoot pictures, and touchy feely. It's not the destination as much as the trip in our opinion, well yeah OK we stop to rest often also.  I can't describe it and the pictures do not capture the immensity and spectacular color there is here.  Its hard to believe something like this exists.  So following are some of the 200 pictures we took, I picked them somewhat at random.  Every one you take is a winner.  I also did a sweeping video which can be seen at following link  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEWjDfV1HYI

Bryce Amphitheater

When we were deep in the canyon today a storm was approaching, so we had to hustle to get out.  The following shows the storm coming. 

Bryce comes in close to coolest places to see. 

Tomorrow we plan to head south.  We're only 100 miles from the Grand Canyon North Rim, so we're planning to go, however weather may be iffy tomorrow, so we'll see.