36 Fun Facts About Bryce Canyon National Park

Which animal, North America's fastest land mammal, lives in Bryce Canyon National Park?

Pronghorn: it can reach 55 mph, a speed that possibly evolved to escape extinct predators such as the American cheetah.

Bryce Canyon's pink and white rock was laid down about 50 million years ago in what?

A freshwater lake: geologists call it Lake Claron, and its purest limestone layers are white because they lack the mineral impurities that colour the rest.

Which famous Bryce hoodoo has a boulder-like caprock balanced atop a slender column?

Thor's Hammer: like most hoodoos, it still stands because its harder cap shields the softer column beneath from erosion.

In Paiute legend, Bryce Canyon's hoodoos are Legend People turned to stone by which trickster?

Coyote: the Southern Paiute say he turned the Legend People to stone as punishment for their bad deeds.

Which venomous reptile do rangers warn hikers to watch out for in Bryce Canyon National Park?

Great Basin rattlesnake: Bryce's high, cold plateau is poor habitat for reptiles, so only 11 reptile species live there.

What mainly shaped Bryce Canyon's Natural Bridge, a rock opening that is really an arch rather than a bridge?

Ice expanding in cracks: no stream ever cut through it, which is why geologists class it as an arch, not a bridge.

Where was Ebenezer Bryce, who homesteaded in the area in 1874, born?

Bryce was born in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1830, trained as a ship's carpenter, converted to the LDS church and sailed for America at 17, reportedly disowned by his father.

What did settler Ebenezer Bryce reputedly call Bryce Canyon's amphitheaters?

A helluva place to lose a cow: Bryce grazed cattle inside today's park and dug a canal to water his animals and crops.

What did Ebenezer Bryce build into the Pink Cliffs that led neighbours to name the canyon after him?

A timber road: it let him haul firewood and lumber, and the name 'Bryce's Canyon' stuck even after his family moved away in 1880.

Ebenezer Bryce left in 1880 for which state, where a settlement is named after him?

Bryce moved his family to Arizona in 1880, where the town of Bryce in Graham County bears his name; drought and floods drove most Paria settlers out, and those who stayed dug the 10-mile Tropic Ditch.

Whose federally funded survey sent Almon Thompson's party past the Bryce Canyon area?

John Wesley Powell: after his 1869 boat run down the Colorado won him Congress's backing, he put his brother-in-law Thompson in charge of the mapping.

Which president established Bryce Canyon National Monument in 1923?

Warren G. Harding: the park service's director had first favoured a state park, and Harding died in office two months after signing.

What dissolves the calcium carbonate that cements Bryce Canyon's rock?

Slightly acidic rain: layers with less of that cement dissolve faster, which is why hoodoos have bumpy, bulging profiles.

Which railroad built Bryce Canyon Lodge through its subsidiary, the Utah Parks Company?

Union Pacific: it built lodges at Bryce, Zion and the Grand Canyon's North Rim to give its rail passengers destinations worth the trip.

Who designed Bryce Canyon Lodge, built from local logs and stone?

Gilbert Stanley Underwood: his Zion and North Rim lodges both burned, leaving Bryce's the only one of the three still completely original.

What is unusual about Bryce Canyon Lodge's roof?

Wavy shingle courses make it look warped: the cedar-shingle pattern is original, and later re-roofing matched it in material and pattern.

Which large predator that hunts mule deer still roams Bryce Canyon National Park?

Mountain lion: it hunts by ambush, stalking close before a sudden leap and a bite to the neck.

What mineral gives the spires their dominant bright orange colour?

Hematite, an iron oxide, gives the spires their orange and red hues, while limonite supplies the yellows; the Claron layers were laid down in lakes and rivers early in the Cenozoic.

What is the giant sequence of cliffs that drops from Bryce Canyon toward the Colorado River called?

The Grand Staircase: Bryce's Pink Cliffs form its top step, holding the youngest rock, while the Grand Canyon's depths hold the oldest.

Which higher set of amphitheaters, carved from similar rock, lies west of Bryce Canyon?

Cedar Breaks: its rim tops 10,000 feet, so snowpack closes the main road through the monument every winter.

Which tree dominates Bryce Canyon's middle elevations?

Ponderosa pine: its thick, insulating bark lets mature trees survive the low surface fires that sweep through their forests.

What do the prairie dogs reintroduced to Bryce Canyon's meadows do through the plateau's long winters?

Hibernate in their burrows: those burrows also aerate the meadows and help plants grow, one reason prairie dogs count as a keystone species.

Bryce Canyon's Bristlecone Loop is named for a pine famous for what?

Living for thousands of years: bristlecones compete poorly in rich soil but thrive in harsh, dry terrain, where they grow very slowly.

Which black, lumpy, slow-growing ground crust helps hold Bryce Canyon's surface together?

Cryptobiotic soil: a living mix of lichens, algae, fungi and cyanobacteria, it grows so slowly that trampling can take a very long time to heal.

Which birds eat the seeds of the park's lowest-zone pines and help the trees spread?

Pinyon jays and Clark's nutcrackers cache pinyon pine seeds and forget some, spreading the trees; the park counts more than 100 bird species along with 59 mammals, 11 reptiles and four amphibians.

The Navajo Loop, one of Bryce Canyon's best-known trails, starts from which viewpoint?

Sunset Point: many hikers descend the Queen's Garden trail from Sunrise Point, then climb back up the Navajo Loop to Sunset Point.

Which is Bryce Canyon's longest overnight hiking route, at about 23 miles?

Under-the-Rim Trail: for all its length it passes fewer famous hoodoos than the day hikes, so rangers steer first-time visitors toward those instead.

Which Bryce Canyon bird of prey recovered from near-extinction after the US banned DDT?

Peregrine falcon: DDT built up in the birds and thinned their eggshells, so fewer eggs survived until hatching.

Which All-American Road crosses part of the park on its way from Panguitch to Torrey?

Scenic Byway 12, 'A Journey Through Time', runs about 123 miles from Panguitch to Torrey through Grand Staircase–Escalante, over the guardrail-free Hogback and up Boulder Mountain.

Which mountain-building event, which began raising the Rocky Mountains, also stripped rock layers from the Bryce Canyon area?

Laramide orogeny: geologists commonly blame an ocean plate that slid beneath North America at an unusually shallow angle.

Which Native cultures left artifacts in the Bryce Canyon area before the Paiute arrived?

Anasazi and Fremont: the Fremont lived more to the north and west, the Anasazi to the south and east, and the Paiute moved in as both left.

The Queen's Garden trail is named for a hoodoo said to resemble which monarch?

The Queen's Garden trail ends at a hoodoo nicknamed Queen Victoria for its likeness to the monarch in profile, complete with crown and robes; it is the park's easiest trail below the rim.

Which white-barked tree grows beside Douglas fir and blue spruce in Bryce Canyon's highest forests?

Quaking aspen: a whole grove can be one tree, its trunks sprouting from a shared root system, like Utah's giant clone Pando.

Pioneers dug the Tropic Ditch over Bryce Canyon's rim to bring water from which river?

Sevier River: its water let settlers farm the dry valley below the cliffs, where they laid out the town of Tropic in 1891.

Which National Park Service director initially wanted Bryce Canyon to become a state park?

Stephen Mather: the park service's first director, he later reversed course and recommended federal protection instead.

Which large bird listed under the Endangered Species Act uses Bryce Canyon National Park as habitat?

California condor: captive breeding rebuilt its numbers after the world total fell to about two dozen birds, and released condors now fly over southern Utah.