Bryce Canyon

This place is not for me.

I don't mean that I don't like it.  I mean that it does not seem to me to be human-oriented.

You stand at the very top of the big canyon looking in, and the thing is full of these giant, weird formations called hoodoos.  Pillars, spires, sculptures, windows, arches, walls?  The native american mythology is that they used to be people, and I can see that.  But the scale is all wrong.  It looks like you are gazing down into some kind of city full of chess pieces and dinosaurs and flying buttresses.  But really it looks like nothing you would have a name for.

For example, here is an arch.  The bridge leads to nothing; the path under the arch goes from nowhere to nowhere, too steep and gravelly to walk on.  You can use words that make this formation seem like something that is part of your human world, but you're just telling a story.

I think part of the reason I feel this way is that my home is the Pacific Northwest, where the wilderness feels magically lush and accessible.  Okay, the idea that any wild space is created for my comfort is a major illusion, but for pete's sake what am I supposed to think, when the shady woods are full of bubbly streams and berries?  It's so easy to believe in a provident Nature there.  Here, I felt like I was very much on my own, survivalwise.  I actually enjoyed feeling this way.  It felt like something a person ought to keep in mind, not just for survival, but in order to enjoy an appropriate humility about one's place in the world.  It's really a lot bigger than you, and shaped by forces that are way beyond your sphere.

In addition to everything being totally outsized and fairly spooky-looking, it is a just plain harsh environment.  The sandstone doesn't invite much to grow in it.  The canyon rim is quite high (8000-9000 feet), so even just being there felt like hard work, much less walking.  It's also very dry, so my nose was bleeding, and it's super hot during the day and briskly cold at night.  We were cranky and got headaches.  I remembered the feeling from Nepal.

We enjoyed the striking strangeness of it for a couple of days.  We did less hiking and more overlook-gazing than in Zion; though Dale and Deena did go down into the canyon for one long hike and enjoyed it a lot, the rest of us didn't want to do the down-and-up part.  We did some wonderful stargazing on both nights; on the second night, we kept the boys up late and taught them some constellations.  They're actually harder to spot when the sky is so very sparkly... my city-trained eyes could hardly pick out the familiar patterns.