"Don't Think Thrice, Bryce is All Right! " a Bryce Canyon National Park Travel Page by richiecdisc

Bryce Canyon National Park seems almost too perfect. There is an eery Disney-like quality to the surrealistically colorful hoodoos and the park's innovative trails that bring visitors into tight weaves amongst what initially look like plastic recreations of sand drippings from above. But make no mistake these are sandstone formations made entirely by the forces of nature. What nature intended in its result is not entirely certain but its effect on man is not: awe.

The spell that Bryce Canyon casts on all visitors who gaze upon its hoodoos is nothing new. Paiutes attributed the magical rock formations to being people turned to stone by a god-like coyote and it would be the rare person indeed who did not ascribe their formation to some type of power from above. Sure, we all know about erosion but why here and in such profusion. Their formation can be explained physically but how can it be that the result is so visually stunning, so stiring within? Man's all consuming need to pose such questions lies at the very core of why we as a species are drawn to such sites to not only gaze but contemplate our place in the universe. It is perhaps the only time we realize that we are likely not the center of any such constellation.