The driving distance from Zion National Park to Bryce Canyon National Park is only 72 miles, but what a difference an hour makes! Bryce is at higher elevation than Zion so it’s colder, and its frost and thaw patterns have created a fairyland of hoodoos, those fascinating spires of rock that stir the imagination. As one transitions from the gorgeous countryside outside of Zion into the first red rock canyons near Bryce, the trail to the hoodoos announces itself quite dramatically.