Southern Utah parks thrill first-time visitors

Driving through southern Utah, the color of the sandstone mountains changes as dramatically as the scenery, from fiery red to dull bronze to soft pink.

It is hard to say which shade is most stunning, and just as hard to pick a favorite part of Utah.

It is a majestic place.

I had never thought of Utah as a vacation destination. We decided to explore the southwest corner as a side trip to the Grand Canyon last summer. But the side trip was so spectacular that when my daughter, Abbie, then 7, glimpsed the Grand Canyon after a week in Utah, she asked:

"What's so special about the Grand Canyon?"

We flew from Charlotte to Las Vegas and drove a couple of hours into the desert, climbing through the yellow sandstone of the Virgin River Gorge, which was a taste of the geological marvels to come. We got up early the next morning to begin our explorations at Bryce Canyon National Park.

No words or photographs can capture the magic of Bryce Canyon, which is actually not a canyon. It is an amphitheater of eroded rock formed over 60 million years into fantastical pillars called hoodoos. If you've ever dribbled wet sand at the beach to make spires on a sand castle, that's what these strange pinnacles look like, only thousands of times bigger.

They got their name because they seem to cast a spell.

They did on us.

From the rim of the amphitheater, the trails plunge down through a bizarre conglomeration of formations with names that seem to be trying to make sense of one of the world's geological masterpieces: Queen's Garden, Sinking Ship and Fairy Land Canyon, also Thor's Hammer, Wall Street and Alligator.

The hike down is steep, but the perspective changes so dramatically from rim to bottom, walking down is the best way to experience the miracle of Bryce.

At 8,000 feet high, snow is common from November through March. We were there in the beginning of June and wore fleece jackets — the night before it froze, and the day's high was 50.

We hiked five hours, underneath natural arches, through walls of stone pillars, up sheer drop-offs. If we had to do it again, we would rent a cabin on the rim or a room in the lodge and spend another day or two exploring.