Hoodoo Forest in Bryce Amphitheater

Hoodoo Forest in Bryce Amphitheater is an original illustration set in Bryce Amphitheater, Utah, USA. It lies in mid-latitudes, where the climate is warm-summer humid continental.

Bryce Amphitheater opens below a high forested rim as a vast bowl crowded with orange, pink and cream hoodoos. Thin fins, narrow windows and hundreds of irregular rock spires descend in ranks toward dark-green pine patches, while a small dusting of white snow lingers in shaded gullies at this unusually high desert elevation.

Why does the edge of this high plateau dissolve into a forest of orange stone spires?

The cliffs belong to the soft, layered Claron Formation at the edge of the Paunsaugunt Plateau. Water enters cracks, freezes and expands during repeated cold nights, splitting the rock into fins; rain then dissolves and rounds weaker layers until windows collapse and isolated hoodoos remain. Because erosion works backward into the plateau rather than along one permanent river, the landform is a chain of horseshoe-shaped amphitheaters rather than a single conventional canyon.

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