Erosion causes iconic Bryce Canyon hoodoo to crumble

Erosion causes iconic Bryce Canyon hoodoo to crumble

(Bryce Canyon National Park)


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BRYCE CANYON NATIONAL PARK — The iconic hoodoo in Bryce Canyon National Park known as “The Sentinel” recently toppled after years of erosion, according to national park officials.

Bryce Canyon National Park officials are unclear of the exact time The Sentinel fell from its perch above the Navajo Loop, but photos taken by visitors seem to place the event sometime during the evening of Friday, Nov. 25. Officials estimated the section that fell to be around 15 feet in height, having fractured at a point 2 feet in diameter.

However, rangers have not yet been able to locate debris from the collapse due to snowfall.

The hoodoo became a known landmark of the Bryce Canyon landscape and received its name due to its shape and structure.

“As its name implied, it appeared like a sentry or protector of the peace gazing to the east, and was a familiar and trusted form along the horizon,” Bryce Canyon National Park Ranger Jan Stock said in a news release. “We consider this its End of Watch.”

The Sentinel has slowly been eroding for several years and has fractured before, according to national park officials. In July 1986, a paddle-like section of the hoodoo crumbled and was later discovered on the trail below. Subsequent years of frost-wedging, wind and rain reduced the remaining spire to a gravity-defying form that become recognizable to visitors, park officials said.

"This is a hoodoo people would stop and look at and wonder if it would fall and if they would see it,” Ranger Joel Allen said in a news release.

Bryce Canyon officials said that along with erosion, wind and water, probably the biggest factor that shapes the unique hoodoos and landscape at Bryce Canyon is the 200-plus days of freeze-thaw cycles each year. The top riser of the Grand Staircase (known as the Pink Cliffs) has been carved by ice, officials said.

“Fractures created in part during the gradual uplift of the Colorado Plateau beginning approximately 70 million years ago now provide cracks for rain and melted snow to collect, and eventually expand with rock-shattering force whenever temperatures fall below the freezing point,” park officials said. “The life cycle of a hoodoo is therefore often one of gradual formation and sudden demise.”

Officials said while weather and erosion will create future unique rock formations. The Sentinel will be a missed landmark.

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Faith Heaton Jolley

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