The Park

The hoodoos of Bryce Canyon look like orange candlesticks.  They’re formed by erosion, flowing water from summer rainstorms, and the freeze-thaw cycle.  During half of the year, the temperature drops below freezing at night.  Water expands when it freezes, and it cracks the surrounding rock.  This process pokes holes in rock walls called fins.  As the windows expand, the top of the arch collapses and flash floods wash the debris away.  A bulbous spire called a hoodoo is formed.  Bryce Canyon National Park has the largest collection in the world.

There are very few animals here compared to most national parks in the west.  All of the grizzly bears in this area were killed by early settlers decades ago, and even black bear encounters are highly unlikely.  Mountain lions and rattle snakes are out there but are rarely seen.  The animal you will most likely see is the Utah prairie dog.  There are colonies of them in the meadows behind wooden fences.  Although they look cute, they carry the plague and generally are not as afraid of humans as you would think. And, of course, there are deer.

Located in southern Utah, Bryce Canyon is considered to be high desert country.  The elevation ranges from just under 8,000 to over 9,000 feet, which means you breath in 30 percent less oxygen here.  The temperature usually plummets below freezing at night.  During the day, the temperature could rise into the 70s and 80s, but it doesn’t get unpleasantly hot like it does in nearby Zion National Park.  The remoteness and lack of light pollution offers an extremely clear view of the night sky.  On moonless nights, you can see the Milky Way. 

The origin of the name has nothing to do with obvious topographical features, nor is it derived from the language of the native population. In 1876, a Scotsman and Mormon convert named Ebenezer Bryce settled into a cabin near the modern-day town of Tropic, which is a ten mile drive from the park entrance.  Bryce's arrival takes place three decades after Brigham Young led the Mormon exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois to the Southwest, which at the time belonged to Mexico.  After a victory in the Mexican War of 1848, Utah became an American territory.  

Thousands of members of the Church of Latter Day Saints flocked to the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau where they built civilizations even in the harshest of valleys. Under the direction of the church, Ebenzer and his wife Mary homesteaded in southern Utah to foster new communities.  Trained as a shipwright and a practical builder, he constructed a road into the canyon's amphitheater so that he could collect timber.  The local's deemed the place Bryce's Canyon, and the name has stuck for the last 140 years.    

Most visitors include Bryce on their itinerary as a package deal.  The most affordable and popular option is to fly to Las Vegas, rent a car, and drive to the Grand Canyon.  The next stop is Zion, and Bryce is a close neighbor.

The second most likely trip is nicknamed the Mighty Five.  The goal is to hit all five national parks in southern Utah starting in the west and heading east:  Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Arches, and Canyonlands.  They are all remarkably close together.  The first time I drove through this state, I managed to see four parks in one long day.  I watched the sun rise at Bryce and hiked the Navajo Loop.  From there, I drove through the Escalante-Staircase to reach Capitol Reef, where I saw a panel of petroglyphs and drove down the ten-mile scenic road.  I watched the sun set at Arches and camped in Canyonlands later that night. 

Of all Utah’s parks, Bryce is by no means the star.  Zion takes that crown.  Arches offers the most iconic image of Utah and is steadily increasing the number of visitors each year.  In 2013, the annual visitation increased by 20% in one year.  Capitol Reef consists mostly of backcountry trails and dirt roads that require a four-by-four vehicle.  Canyonlands mostly attracts the athletic mountain bikers and hikers eager to escape the large crowds.

 

National Park	Number of annual visitors
Zion	3.66 million
Bryce	1.75 million
Arches	1.4 million
Capitol Reef	780,000
Canyonlands	540,000

In 2012, the Utah Office of Tourism unleashed the Mighty 5 campaign urging visitors from all over the world, especially Europe, to spend their time and money in the red-rock landscapes.  The next year, Arches annual visitation jumped from 1 million to 1.3 million.  Gateway towns profited immensely as well.  Moab, which is only a few miles from Arches and a short drive to Canyonlands, raked in over $145 million in 2014.  The much smaller hamlet of Springdale, located just outside Zion, generated over $170 million during that same year.  Despite the lucrative results, the campaign has had a negative impact in the form of massive congestion. 

The National Park Service was designed to preserve the natural beauty of our country and to provide solitude in the wilderness for those who sought to escape the hectic pace of city life.  But now it is common to wait in traffic for over an hour just to enter a popular park.  Parking is nearly as impossible to find in a major city, and photographing scenic vistas such as Delicate Arch without a crowd of tourists in the frame is an improbable task.  The visitors are quickly becoming part of the natural scenery, which is meant to be untamed, wild, and even dangerous.

 

Shuttle systems in both Zion and Bryce have been implemented to decongest roads and stave off at least some pollution caused by all the motor vehicles. In Zion, riding the bus is mandatory unless you are staying at the hotel, and in Bryce it is highly recommended.  Some parks like Yellowstone don’t necessarily have problems with congestion (except during bear and bison jams) because they are massive, and the attractions are spread out.  But many road systems in parks are designed like bottle necks:  there is only one way in and one way out.  Bryce Canyon follows this pattern.

The park is situated north-to-south on an eighteen-mile road from the visitor’s center to the park’s zenith at Yovimpa Point at an elevation over 9,000 feet.  Most of the visitors don’t even bother driving past mile marker two.  The amphitheater is the heart of the park.  Along the canyon rim, visitors can walk along a paved trail from Sunrise to Sunset Point, ideal viewpoints at both dawn and dusk.  From these spots, a visitor can descend into the canyon and hike the Navajo Loop, a moderate 1.3 mile course that takes the visitor past the iconic Thor’s Hammer, a mighty square rock somehow holding onto a thin spire.

The Navajo Loop is a mere sampling of the canyon, but most of the visitors clog up the path.  Located nearby is the Lodge at Bryce Canyon, equipped with two hotels, a dozen wooden cabins, two restaurants, a general store, and two campgrounds. If you drive a few miles up the road, you can find yourself completely alone.

Even though my bank account is directly enhanced by the Mighty 5 campaign, I have uneasy feelings about the futures of national parks.  There is a diverse range of people who visit the national parks:  hikers, photographers, fishermen, and families from all over the world.  When visiting a national park, I enjoy a strenuous hike that rewards me with a vista worthy of a photograph.  I realize that not everyone wants the same experience.  Some people merely want to go for a scenic drive, park in a nearby lot, walk a few hundred yards on pavement, and take a picture of a canyon they won’t bother to hike in.  For older visitors and large families with young children, this is reasonable, but I have also seen some incredibly stupid behavior.

While hiking up a slickrock canyon with uneven footing and the occasional gap to jump across, I saw a man pushing a stroller.  I’ve witnessed several people hiking in the desert during the heat of the day with no water.  I’ve seen men wearing sandals hiking up mountains, and women wearing dresses and high heels into canyons.  When I worked in Yellowstone, I heard of a family who applied bear spray to their skin under the assumption it was to be used like mosquito repellent.  I wonder why people who don’t know how to prepare themselves for the wilderness even want to leave their homes in the first place. 

Regarding the economic spike and increase in visitation, a hotel owner from Moab says, “[Visitors] are just going to have to accept that it's not going to be a pristine experience. People need to drive in, take their pictures, leave some money, and drive away. These are the people whose experience we need to improve.”

The rest of the world is already catering to these types of people, so why should the National Park Service follow suit?  These are free, public lands designed for recreation, not consumption and moneymaking like a Disney theme park.  There are possible solutions such as creating a reservation system to stagger the flow of traffic, to make solitude an option, and to better sustain heavily impacted lands.  

Although visitation is overall on the rise, problems dealing with overpopulation and congestion center around the top ten most popular parks. 

The Great Smoky Mountain National Park on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina is the busiest park in the country.  Over ten million people each year flock there in hopes of seeing a bear.  Its popularity undoubtedly is owed in part to its proximity to several major eastern cities like Atlanta, Charlotte, and Nashville (not to mention the tourist trap of Dollywood and Gatlinburg).  I saw a bear jam there extending three miles long, but once I sauntered off into the woods I found only a few hikers on the trail. 

It is possible to avoid the crowds at the popular parks by spending time on the fringes, but it can also be pleasing to visit less-well-known destinations such as Big Bend National Park in Texas, Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota, or the Everglades in Florida. 

Another option is to visit the national monuments instead.  Deeming land a national park requires an act of Congress, but a president alone can create a national monument, which is still governed by the Park Rangers or the Bureau of Land Management.  Natural Bridges National Monument in southern Utah, for example, offers similar scenery to Arches National Park, but nobody was in my pictures, and I could enjoy my hike in complete solitude. 

Sipapu Bridge at Natural Bridges National Monument.  I saw two other people on my hike.

Delicate Arch at Arches National Park.  There was a line of tourists waiting to get their picture taken under the arch.  I unknowingly cut in line and was accosted by a foreigner.  I had to wait a few minutes to get a shot with nobody under the arch, but I couldn't get a perfectly clean shot with nobody in the frame.  

If you want to be alone in the wilderness these days, you have to be willing to go to places most people have never heard of:  Great Basin National Park in Nevada or Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado.  In some social circles, Bryce fits this description.  When I told a friend I was working here, she said she didn’t know such a place existed.  Millions of others do.  Whether or not this popularity is good for posterity, I am unsure.  Parks like Bryce were once buried treasure, and now the secret is out.