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Bryce Canyon
NATIONAL PARK · _Utah_
[Illustration: DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR · March 3, 1849]
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.
[Illustration: Decorated Capital]
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.
[Illustration: _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.
[Illustration: _Generalized section of sediments in Zion and Bryce
Canyons_]