Bryce Canyon
NATIONAL PARK Utah
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Oscar L. Chapman, Secretary
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
Conrad L. Wirth, Director
Contents
[Panorama of Bryce Canyon] Cover [Geology of Bryce Canyon National Park] 4 [How to Reach the Park] 8 [Roads and Trails] 8 [Administration] 10 [Naturalist Services] 10 [Museum] 10 [Free Public Campgrounds] 10 [Accommodations] 10 [Transportation] 12 [Saddle Horses] 12 [Post Office and Communication Service] 13 [Miscellaneous Services] 13 [Cedar Breaks National Monument] 15
Historic Events
| 1866 | Capt. James Andrus in command of a military expedition from St. George, Utah, crossed the Paria River a few miles south of Bryce Canyon. |
| 1872 | A. H. Thompson, geographer of the Powell Survey, sketched the topography of the Pink Cliffs eastward to Rainbow Point and ascended Table Cliffs. Lt. W. L. Marshall, topographer, and G. K. Gilbert and E. E. Howell of the Wheeler Survey mapped, described, and illustrated for the first time the features of the park north of Campbell Canyon. |
| 1874-76 | Scattered settlements established in the Upper Paria Valley. Ebenezer Bryce, for whom the park is named, ranged cattle in the area. The region that includes Bryce Canyon National Park studied by Capt. C. E. Dutton. View from Sunset Point described (1876) by T. C. Bailey, Deputy U. S. Surveyor. |
| 1877 | Cannonville and Henrieville founded. |
| 1905 | The Paunsaugunt Plateau, which includes the park, set aside as Powell National Forest. |
| 1923 | Bryce Canyon National Monument established by Presidential proclamation. |
| 1924 | Act of Congress authorized the establishment of Utah National Park, subject to extinguishment of private land titles. |
| 1928 | Name changed from Utah National Park to Bryce Canyon National Park; park established. |
Bryce Canyon National Park includes some of the most interesting exposures of the Pink Cliffs formation, whose rocks are among the most colorful of any forming the earth’s crust. The major beauty spots of the area are found where forces of erosion have cut back into the plateau, forming amphitheaters or wide canyons filled with pinnacles and grotesque forms.
Most of the park area, with some 30 miles of Pink Cliffs, can be seen from Rainbow Point, at the southern end of the park. Included in this panorama are such beautiful amphitheaters as Black Birch Canyon, Agua Canyon, and Willis Creek. In addition, there are magnificent views across “the land of the purple sage” to Navajo Mountain, 80 miles to the east, and to the Kaibab Plateau and the Trumbull Mountains to the south, the latter 99 miles distant.
In reality Bryce is not a canyon; rather it is a great horseshoe-shaped bowl or amphitheater cut by water erosion into the Paunsaugunt Plateau and extending down a thousand feet through its pink and white marly limestone. The character of the area is well indicated by the Paiute Indian name, “Unka-timpe-wa-wince-pock-ich,” which is translated as, “red rocks standing like men in a bowl-shaped canyon.” The largest amphitheater is 3 miles long and about 2 miles wide, and is filled with myriads of fantastic figures cut by weathering influences. Its domes, spires, and temples are decorated in all the colors of the spectrum.
The area was reserved as Bryce Canyon National Monument by Presidential proclamation, June 8, 1923. The act of June 7, 1924, authorized its establishment as Utah National Park when certain conditions regarding land acquisition had been met. The act of February 25, 1928, changed the name from Utah National Park to Bryce Canyon National Park and materially increased the size of the area. On September 15, 1928, when all alienated lands within the proposed park area were transferred to the United States, in accordance with the act of June 7, 1924, Bryce Canyon National Park was established. The park now embraces more than 36,000 acres under Federal ownership.
Bryce Canyon National Park is one of the areas of the National Park System owned by the people of the United States and administered for them by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior. In these areas the scenery and the objects of historic, prehistoric, and scientific interest are carefully preserved and displayed for public enjoyment.
Geology of Bryce Canyon National Park[1]
Regional Features.—In Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks the type of scenery peculiar to the plateaus of southern Utah and northern Arizona attains its most complete expression. Layer upon layer of shales and sandstones have been carved into architectural forms, astonishingly alike for size and color. The long stretches of even skyline seen on approaching the parks from Cedar City (west), Panguitch (north), and Grand Canyon (south) give an impression of extensive flat surfaces that terminate in lines of cliffs, but viewpoints within the parks reveal a ruggedness possessed by few other regions. The canyons are so narrow, so deep, and so thickly interlaced, and the edges of the strata so continuously exposed that the region seems made up of gorges, cliffs, and mesas intimately associated with a marvelous variety of minor erosion forms. The parks might be considered as mountainous regions in which departures of many thousand feet from a general surface are downward rather than upward.
The canyons and adjoining terraces are spectacular illustrations of erosion. They show with diagrammatic clearness the work of running water, rain, frost, and wind, of ground water and chemical agencies active throughout a long period of time. The horizontal tables and benches, broken by vertical lines that in distant view appear to dominate the landscape, are normal features of erosion of plateau lands in an arid climate. The tabular forms are the edges and surfaces of hard strata from which softer layers have been stripped. The vertical lines mark the position of fractures (joints)—lines of weakness which erosion enlarges into grooves and miniature canyons. As they entrench themselves in horizontal layers of rock that vary in resistance to erosion, the master streams and their tributaries are developing stairlike profiles on their enclosing walls. Cliffs in resistant rocks and slopes in weak rock constitute risers and treads that vary in steepness and height with the thickness of the strata involved. Thus near the south entrance to Zion Park the edge of a layer of hard conglomerate is a vertical cliff, its top a platform. Above this platform a long slope of shale, broken by many benches developed in hard beds, extends upward to the great cliff faces of West Temple and the Watchman. In front of Zion Lodge a slope of weak shales leads upward to a cliff of resistant sandstone above which a slope of shale extends to the vertical wall of Lady Mountain. In Bryce Canyon the rim road is on the highest tread of a giant rock stairway that, as viewed from Rainbow Point, leads downward in steps 30 to 400 feet high to the flat lands 3,000 feet below.
View of multicolored formations from Bryce Point (Union Pacific Railroad photo)
The streams at work in the parks, though relatively small, have steep gradients, including rapids and waterfalls, and are supplied with disintegrated rock material swept from the ledges by torrential rains about as fast as formed. They are therefore powerful agents of erosion, especially in times of flood. The fresh, sharp, angular profile of mesas, ridges, and canyon walls and the extensive areas of bare rock are maintained by the rapid down-cutting and prompt removal of rock waste. The resulting land forms reflect the aridity and the topographic youth of southern Utah and contrast strongly with the rounded hills, broad valleys, plant-covered slopes, and deep soils of more humid regions.
Geologic History.—A large part of geologic history is revealed in the canyon walls of Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. Just as Grand Canyon is the best known record of ancient geologic history, Zion Canyon records most clearly the events of medieval geological time, and Bryce reveals much of modern geologic history. The story of Zion begins where that of Grand Canyon ends, and ends where Bryce begins. The rocks exposed in these three national parks incorporate the records of a billion years.
Generalized section of sediments in Zion and Bryce Canyons
| Age of rocks | Formation | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| lava | |||
| Eocene | Wasatch: Pink Cliffs | ROCKS IN BRYCE CANYON PARK | |
| MESOZOIC | |||
| Cretaceous | Undifferentiated: Gray Cliffs | ||
| sandstone | |||
| shale | |||
| coal | |||
| Jurassic | |||
| gypsum | |||
| Carmel | limestone | ||
| Navajo sandstone: White Cliffs | cross-bedded sandstone | ROCKS IN ZION PARK | |
| Kayenta-Wingate | |||
| Triassic | |||
| Chinle: Vermilion Cliffs | shale, sandstone, ash and limestone | ||
| fossil wood | |||
| Shinarump conglomerate | |||
| Moenkopi: Belted Cliffs | shale | ||
| sandstone | |||
| oil | RIM OF GRAND CANYON | ||
| Permian | Kaibab limestone | ||
A study of the rocks of Zion and Bryce Canyon shows that during the last 200,000,000 years the region comprising the parks has witnessed many changes in landscape and climate. At times it was covered by the sea, at other times broad rivers traversed its surface, and at still other times it was swept by desert winds. Most of the rocks were laid down by water as gravel, sand, mud, and limy ooze. They have been converted into solid rock by the weight of layers above them and by lime, silica, and the iron that cement their grains. Embedded in the rocks are fossil sea shells, fish, trees, snails, and the bones and tracks of land animals that sought their food on flood plains, in forests, or among sand dunes. The most conspicuous remains are those of dinosaurs—huge reptiles that so dominated the life of their time that the Mesozoic is known as the “age of dinosaurs.”
The accumulation of some 8,000 feet of strata (Mesozoic and Tertiary) on top of 4,000 feet of older (Paleozoic) beds, which are exposed in Grand Canyon, may be considered the first of three major events in the development of the marvelous landscapes of the Zion-Bryce region; it provided the material from which the huge scenic features were later carved. The second event was a regional uplift which elevated the previously low-lying top beds of the series (Wasatch, Pink Cliffs) to a height of nearly 2 miles above sea level. As a result of this movement, the earth’s crust was broken into huge rectangular blocks by north-south fractures or faults. Three of these great faults can be seen in the vicinity of the parks: the Hurricane fault in the Hurricane Cliffs, west of Zion; the Paunsaugunt fault in the cliffs of Bryce; and the Sevier fault along the Mount Carmel Road between the two parks.
In consequence of the uplift the third major event, the present cycle of erosion, was initiated. The streams became strong and swift and so were able to cut deeply into the underlying rock and carry away the land waste. In this process the streams have removed many cubic miles of rocks, which, if replaced, would fill the present canyons and build up their bordering land to the level of the lofty Markagunt and Paunsaugunt Plateaus. The gigantic features of Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks mark a stage in the process of erosion that began long ago and which, if continued without interruption, will convert the present rugged landscape into plains near sea level.
Distinctive Features of Bryce Canyon.—In its regional setting Bryce Canyon National Park is the southeastern border of the extensive Paunsaugunt Plateau. It comprises two areas of strongly contrasted topography that meet in a line that marks the rim of the plateau and the top of its bordering cliffs. Back from the rim the plateau surface on which the park buildings and the automobile roads have been constructed is generally flat land traversed by broad, shallow valleys in which erosion is inconspicuous. Below the rim erosion has produced a region of remarkable ruggedness. It might naturally be supposed that the beautiful amphitheater at the head of Bryce Canyon had been carved by waters pouring down from the plateau above. But the plateau streams contribute nothing; they flow away from the rim. The chief sculpturing agents are the rain and snow that fall directly into the canyon. In producing the amazing variety of erosion features the streams have been aided by frost that pries fragments from the cliffs and by chemical agencies that decompose the rock and supply its vivid color.
The development of the park landscape was made possible by movements within the earth’s crust which brought originally low-lying strata to an altitude exceeding 8,000 feet. Streamways on the flat top of this uplifted block were little affected, but with greatly steepened gradients the streams around the borders of the newly made plateau became powerful. The Paria and its swiftly flowing tributaries have cut deeply into the face of the Paunsaugunt and carried billions of tons of ground-up rock to the Colorado. At the present time erosion by Bryce Creek, Yellow Creek, Willis Creek, Podunk Creek, and many smaller streams, is causing the plateau face to retreat northwestward, and these streams are taking into their drainage areas channels that formerly carried waters northward to Sevier River.
The drab-colored landscape along the southeast border of the park has been developed in alternating beds of shale, coal, and sandstone (Cretaceous age); in the resulting erosion forms, slopes, mounds, rounded ridges, and valleys with inclined or steplike sides predominate. The brightly colored rocks that form the topmost cliffs and terminate abruptly in such headlands as Steamboat Mountain, Bryce Point, and Rainbow Point are resistant limestones of Tertiary age (Wasatch formation). They erode as vertical walls (Pink Cliffs), which weathering has developed into the astonishing display of architectural forms that make Bryce Canyon distinctive.