Bryce Canyon dreamscape

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BRYCE CANYON, Utah -- Utah? Who knew?

Utah hits us head-on as a land of vast discovery.

Driving to Bryce Canyon, with spectacular mountain horizons, we understand not just those cowboy movies, but how gargantuan dinosaurs could have roamed here, with so much space.

Bryce, with 1.7 million annual visitors, may be overshadowed by its larger, better-known Utah cousin, Zion, with 3 million visitors each year, but don't let size fool you.

"Totally outlandish" is how John Boslough and John Gattuso, authors of "America's National Parks," describe Bryce. "This is a place that looks like it has been gouged out of the earth, then filled with orange and red rock pedestals so fancifully and bizarrely formed that they look like the inhabitants of a dreamworld."

Bryce is not actually a canyon but a series of amphitheaters created by millions of years of erosion on a massive plateau. It is best known for hoodoos, whimsical rock spires that sometimes resemble armies marching up from the depths below.

Hoodoo is derived from voodoo, as in casting a spell, which plays into one legend that claims hoodoos are people turned to stone by trickster coyotes.

At 13 overlooks, formations boast names such as Thor's Hammer, the Poodles, Wall Street and the Silent City. The Bryce Point overlook is perhaps the showiest with its megahoodoo collection, Bryce Amphitheater.

The red rock is the Claron Formation, created by a 40-million-year-old lake that stretched to Nevada, says geologist Tom Hill. The Colorado Plateau 10 million to 15 million years ago uplifted the Paunsaugunt Plateau, creating joints that were eroded by water, forming slot canyons and the hoodoos.

"There are hoodoos other places, but you'll never find another Bryce Canyon," Mr. Hill says. "You can hear the rocks cracking and moaning. When that stuff gets wet, it actually moves," carving an ever-changing landscape. "These columns form by weathering, and these columns die by weathering," he says. "Millions of hoodoos have been formed and died."