The aspiring Park Junkie will want to have his or her hands on a number of Bryce Canyon facts that will be worthy of a mic drop when among friends on the trail in Utah. With this in mind, the following fun facts have been compiled to assure that you preserve your esteemed stature among your traveling companions.
Guide to Bryce Canyon
Bryce Canyon Fun Facts
fact 1: Bryce Canyon is not actually a canyon.
That’s right, the name is a misnomer. Bryce actually consists of more than a dozen natural amphitheaters, or bowls, which have formed along the eastern edge of the Paunsaugunt Plateau. This plateau is rapidly eroding, and scientists estimate that it will be completely gone in just a few million years.
fact 2: Bryce Amphitheater is home to more hoodoos than any place on Earth.
Each of the seven continents has hoodoos. Some have a lot of hoodoos… But there are more hoodoos in Bryce Canyon than there are in any of those other places. In fact, Bryce is home to more than a dozen amphitheaters that contain hoodoos, and there are more hoodoos in just one of these amphitheaters (Bryce Amphitheater) than anywhere else on Earth.
fact 3: Bryce has the longest running Night Sky program in the National Parks.
Yep, Bryce Canyon’s Dark Rangers have spent their evenings staring into space for decades. Today, more than 80% of Americans live in areas where light pollution drowns out the Milky Way. Given its remote location, Bryce is one of the few remaining places left in the U.S. where we can see the night skies as our ancestors saw them.
If you attend a night sky program, ask a ranger to point out the Andromeda Galaxy. This far-away world is the most distant object humans can detect with the naked eye, and the light that you’ll see from it took 2.5 million years just to reach us here on Earth.
fact 4: The hoodoos are actually people… Bad people.
This one may be debatable. But according to Paiute legend, the ancient people here believed that the area’s previous inhabitants, the To-when-an-ung-wa, had invited the wrath of the god (Coyote) by engaging in some bad behavior. As a punishment for their nefarious deeds, Coyote turned them into rocks. You can still see their faces today in Bryce’s hoodoos, in fact, the ancient people called this place, Angka-ku-wass-a-wits, or Red Painted Faces.
Bryce Canyon Stat Sheet
established: February 25, 1928 as Bryce Canyon National Park
monument: June 8, 1923 as Bryce Canyon National Monument
rank of admission: 16
size: 35,835 acres
rank in size: 52
annual visitation: 2018 – 2,679,478
rank in visitation: 12
time zone: Mountain Time
park phone: 435 834 5322
Guide to Bryce Canyon
Relevant Links
Rubys Inn – Bryce Canyon Shuttle
National Park Guides
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