The amphitheater at Bryce Canyon National Park will take your breath away. The hoodoos, created from layers of soft and hard rock eroded by millenniums of freeze and thaw cycles, have been sculpted into fantasy shapes worthy of any story telling. The following Paiute Indian Legend is posted at the rim of the canyon:
Before there were any Indians, the Legend People, To-when-an-ung-wa, lived in that place. There were many of them. They were of many kinds – birds, animals, lizards, and such things – but they looked like people…For some reason, the Legend People in that place were bad. Because they were bad, Coyote turned them all into rocks. You can see them in that place now, all turned into rocks; some standing in rows, some sitting down, some holding on to others. You can see their faces, with paint on them just as they were before they became rocks…
You can imagine anything here. You can see people, castles, armies lined up in formations, choirs of angels, and creatures that may crumble to sand with the next rain. It is possible to walk down into the canyon (the walk back up is considerably more challenging…) and the canyon edges that simply disappear in front of you will help remind you of the fragility of this astonishing landscape. It’s all a wonder.