5 Best Sights in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

Even if you're eager to hit the hoodoos, the visitor center—just to your right after the park entrance station—is the best place to start if you want to know what you're looking at and how it got there. The exhibits are well-designed, and there's an excellent 24-minute film about the park. Rangers staff a counter where you can ask questions or let them map out an itinerary of "must-sees" based on your time and physical abilities. You can also use the Wi-Fi, pick up backcountry camping permits, and browse the books, maps, and other goods sold in the Bryce Canyon Natural History Association gift shop, whose proceeds help to support park programs and conservation.

This hike is the easiest way down into the amphitheater, with 450 feet of elevation change leading to a short tunnel, quirky hoodoos, and lots of like-minded hikers. It's the essential Bryce "sampler." Allow two hours total to hike the 1½-mile trail plus the ½-mile rim-side path and back. Easy.

By walking this extended 3-mile loop, you can get a clear sense of what makes this park so special; it takes a little more than two hours. The route passes fantastic formations and an open forest of pine and juniper on the amphitheater floor. Descend into the amphitheater from Sunrise Point on the Queen's Garden Trail and ascend via the Navajo Loop; return to your starting point via the Rim Trail. Moderate.

This short hike (0.8 mile) has a little bit of everything you might be looking for in Bryce: the sound of rushing water, a small waterfall, a grotto, and hoodoos. The trailhead is on Highway 12, north and east of the main entrance, and it follows an irrigation ditch dug in the 1920s by farmers from the nearby town of Tropic looking to divert water from the Sevier River for agriculture. Since the dig predates the park, the water right-of-way belongs to the farmers. This is an especially fun hike in winter, when the waterfall transforms into a display of dazzling icicles. Easy.

One of Bryce's most popular and dramatic attractions is this steep descent via a series of switchbacks leading to Wall Street, a slightly claustrophobic hallway of rock only 20 feet wide in places, with walls 100 feet high. After a walk through The Silent City, the northern end of the trail brings Thor's Hammer into view. A well-marked intersection offers a shorter way back via the Two Bridges Trail or continuing on the Queen's Garden Trail to Sunrise Point. For the short version, allow at least an hour on this 1.3-mile trail, with 515 feet of elevation change. Moderate.