BRYCE CANYON NATIONAL PARK
The Desert’s Hoodoo Heart
Greer Chesher
48 pages. Oversized 10”x13”
Translations available in French and German.
ISBN 1-58071-019-0 (English Edition)
$9.95
ISBN 1-58071-029-8 (French Edition)
$11.95
ISBN 1-58071-030-1 (German Edition)
$11.95

This stunningly beautiful, oversized book is lavishly illustrated with breathtaking color imagery by America’s leading landscape photographers. In addition to the stunning photography, the book also includes detailed maps of the park and region and insightful, heartfelt narratives detailing the park’s natural and human histories.

It is hot—the sun, blinding. This baked rime of desert wavers in the June heat, and wind pants through the passenger window. The car noses into the immense desert bowl of the San Rafael Swell on our journey to Zion by way of Bryce. I don’t know what possessed my mother and I to do this, to drive cross-country together. It’s been five days of haggling about driving habits (mine), windows (open or shut), the price of gas, and what food to eat.

But now, coming into this country, we are silenced. Our Michigan eyes brim with the West’s amazement, bowled over by the wide openness of it, the unscreened nakedness. No trees, no lakes; just sky the turquoise of stone and land the terra cotta of jumbled pots.

Around us plateaus tier in creams, yellows, cinnamons, and maroons, their flat tops forest green, their toes bare. Dry canyons wiggle away from the road like snakes, like lightning. It’s hard to keep my eyes on the road as the land peels to the bone. Sharp ridges jut like elbows; low hills arch like ribs. Cacti, tinged purple, poke from the rusty hardpan, and thin-skinned cows barely turn their heads at our passing. To the south, mountains rise, snow-capped blue sentinels in the burning desert. Signs proclaiming wonders tick by like fence posts—Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, Dark Canyon Wilderness Area, The Maze, Capitol Reef National Park, Anasazi Indian Village State Park. It appears we are circumnavigating the redrock heart of the world.

...Bryce Canyon National Park seems an oasis of beauty and stillness in a vast desert. And so it is. But Bryce is also embedded in one of the most spectacular regions in the world. Within a 50-mile radius lie 12 national parks, 14 national monuments, seven tribal parks, 17 wilderness areas, seven state parks, and six national forests. Although these areas cluster on a map, each is distinct. Zion reveals massive redrock cliffs; nearby Cedar Breaks balances slender hoodoos like a try of delicate china. Petrified Forest exposes an ancient forest teeming with dinosaurs, while Pipe Spring guards a pioneer fort. State parks brim with blazing coral pink sand dunes, Kodachrome landscapes, and wild goblins. Traders still trade in historic posts, and the enduing presence of native peoples lingers in the land.

—From “The Desert's Hoodoo Heart” by Greer Chesher

The Desert’s Hoodoo Heart
Greer Chesher
48 pages. Oversized 10”x13”
Translations available in French and German.
ISBN 1-58071-019-0 (English Edition)
$9.95
ISBN 1-58071-029-8 (French Edition)
$11.95
ISBN 1-58071-030-1 (German Edition)
$11.95

OTHER TITLES THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST

Bryce Canyon: A Visual Interpretation by Nicky Leach

National Parks of Utah: A Journey to The Colorado Plateau by Nicky Leach

Peaks, Plateaus, and Canyons: Scenes from the Grand Circle by Jeff Nicholas and Jim & Lynn Wilson

Bryce Canyon Postcard Book

Grand Staircase Collection: Bryce, Zion and Grand Canyon