Hoodoos - A Look at Bryce Canyon’s Strangest Rocks

Stepping up to the rim of Bryce Canyon National Park, the view is dominated by thousands of thin, jagged towers of colorful rocks stretching across a massive amphitheater. These surreal formations are called hoodoos, and Bryce Canyon is home to the largest collection of them anywhere in the world. But what exactly are hoodoos? And how did they form?

What Is a Hoodoo?

A hoodoo is a tall, skinny spire of rock. Hoodoos typically consist of two types of rocks: a softer rock that forms the lower portion of the rock formation, with a harder, less easily eroded type of rock topping the formation.

Hoodoos are created by a combination of two processes. First, weathering breaks down the rock that will become a hoodoo. Then, erosion transports that rock away. At Bryce Canyon National Park, ice and rain are the main forces behind these weathering and erosion processes. Water—from either rain or melted snow—seeps into cracks in park rocks. As the water freezes, it expands by nine percent, causing pressure on the surrounding rock. This pressure then breaks the rock apart in a process known as ice wedging. At Bryce Canyon National Park, over 170 days of the year involve temperatures that dip above and below freezing, creating ideal conditions for this ice wedging process.

The unique shapes of the park’s hoodoos are thought to come from slight variances in the composition of the rocks. All the park’s hoodoos are created from rock that has abundant calcium carbonate—the same chemical as makes up eggshells and pearls. Calcium carbonate dissolves when it comes into contact with even slightly acidic water. When it rains at Bryce Canyon National Park, the rain is slightly acidic, which is enough to dissolve the calcium carbonate in the park’s rocks. However, because the different rocks have different amounts of calcium carbonate, they dissolve at varying rates, creating the strange shapes that make the hoodoos at the park so unique.

While hoodoos do appear in other places (like Turkey’s Cappadocia or parts of the American Southwest), nowhere else do they exist in such quantity and variation as they do in Bryce Canyon.

Seeing the Hoodoos

Stepping up to the rim of Bryce Amphitheater at any of the viewpoints will provide you with a view of a huge number of hoodoos. However, there are certain hoodoos that are more famous than others, as well as some park trails that will get you a closer look at the park’s hoodoos.

Some of the most iconic hoodoo formations in Bryce Canyon include:

• Thor’s Hammer – A massive column topped with a blocky caprock, Thor’s Hammer is visible from Sunset Point; it is the park’s most famous, currently standing hoodoo.

• Queen Victoria – Named for its resemblance to Queen Victoria, the Queen Victoria hoodoo is found along the Queen’s Garden Trail.

• Wall of Windows – The Wall of Windows is a series of arches and hoodoos forming that are visible from Peek-a-Boo Loop.

For those looking to get closer to the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon National Park, there are numerous trails that will provide a better view of the hoodoos. Among the most popular are:

• Navajo Loop Trail – This short and steep trail is the most famous trail in the park; it will get you close to Thor’s Hammer.

• Queen’s Garden Trail – The easiest route into the canyon is the Queen’s Garden Trail, which takes hikers to the Queen Victoria hoodoo.

• Fairyland Loop – Over time, hoodoos change with the forces of weather; the weathering and erosion that create hoodoos also destroys them. Eventually, all the park’s hoodoos will be destroyed by the same processes that created them. If you want to see the end result of this process, the Fairyland Loop takes you to Campbell Canyon, a hoodoo graveyard where the hoodoos have been destroyed by nature.

  
  

Final Thoughts

The hoodoos of Bryce Canyon aren’t just beautiful — they’re a visible record of geologic time, weather, and patient, persistent erosion. Whether you're hiking among them or gazing from the rim, understanding how they formed makes them all the more incredible.

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 Want to learn more about Bryce Canyon National Park? Check out 101 Travel Bits: Acadia National Park.