Navajo Trail offers best views of Bryce Canyon

BRYCE CANYON NATIONAL PARK — What's the best hike in Utah with the least effort required?

The Navajo Trail in Bryce Canyon might be the top contender for that honor.

At 1.5 miles long — through a loop that descends just 521 feet — this spectacular trail lets the magical "hoodoo" shapes in Bryce cast their spells on hikers.

Fast hikers could race through the trail in less than 30 minutes, but enjoying the magical views there demands at least an hour.

This is also a hike where you don't have to traverse the entire loop to enjoy the benefits of nature's erosive process up close and personal. Just a mere 500-yard walk down this trail's south side and then back up again is well worth the 15-minute effort.

Most visitors to Bryce Canyon are on their way somewhere else, and the average visitor is only in the park for three hours. Spending one of those hours on the Navajo Loop delivers the most for the least hiking time.

You may be satisfied with the Bryce views from above, but the Navajo path provides the best views inside Bryce itself.

"It was a good feeling walking down there," Florence Nick, 15, of Cologne, Germany, said after she hiked just a portion of the Navajo Trail to Wall Street, a narrow slot canyon with two Douglas fir trees that are almost 800 years old at its end.

The only thing she didn't care for was the sticky, red mud at the bottom of the switchbacks.

Twin Bridges, two stone formations that resemble logs more than stone, and Thor's Hammer are two must-see formations on the north end of the Navajo Loop.

At the halfway point of the Navajo Trail, connecting trails join with paths that lead on longer hikes to such places as Queen's Gardens and the Peekaboo Trail.

The Navajo Trail is considered moderately strenuous and is suitable for children, if they are properly supervised. There are some steep cliffs along the path.

Navajo, which begins and ends from Sunset Point, is the park's most popular trail. Bryce rangers believe it is their "flagship trail."

How many people hike Navajo?

Bryce has some 1.5 million visitors a year, and park rangers estimate that half of those walk at least some portion of the Navajo Trail, though no exact records are kept.

The Navajo Trail has closed twice in the last 17 years, because of rockfall and excessive erosion. It was closed from May-August in 2006 and also during some of 1992-93. The most recent closure resulted in a rerouting of its upper path to better avoid erosion.

The primary weathering force in Bryce is frost wedging, where the park has an average of 200 freeze-thaw cycles each year. When water freezes, it expands by about 10 percent and bit by bit opens cracks.

For more information on Bryce Canyon, go to: www.nps.gov/brca.

E-MAIL: lynn@desnews.com