Hoodoos Utah's Balancing (?)

  The arid lands of the Colorado Plateau offer some of the more spectacular landscapes of the American West, and the parks of Utah are among the more popular destinations. One feature which draws many visitors are the incredible spires and towers eroded into Paleocene sedimentary rocks and Holocene volcanic ash. Called "hoodoos" by many locals, the term reflects the magical and primitively mystical qualities they seem to have. Even the National Park Newsletter from Bryce Canyon is named after them.

  And, with all the loose rock around, who can resist a bit of nature-inspired "land art"? As for building cairns (frowned on elsewhere), one park display suggests that visitors should "Trust them on the trail only if you build them!" Native American traditional relationships with these geologic structures are undiscussed, and European settlers were all too happy to bestow place names such as Zion on the locations, reflecting their own particular mythical bent.