Southern Utah’s Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks are spectacular, dazzling, stunning… I quickly ran out of adjectives when I visited this April. Each park has dramatic yet different scenery that reflects millions of years of extreme geologic sculpting.

Zion features canyons, cliffs, temples and towers sculpted from Navaho sandstone by centuries of rain and the Virgin River. Bryce Canyon is not really a canyon, but a series of rock amphitheaters filled with hoodoos, spires, fins and arches. It boasts the largest collection of hoodoos in the world.

Both Zion and Bryce are part of the Colorado Plateau’s Grand Staircase. Here many layers of sediment were deposited over millions of years in ancient seas. Then these layers were shaped by horizontal compression and uplifted, tilting enormous blocks along north-south fault lines. Sediment layers once connected were displaced vertically by thousands of feet.

Today Bryce Canyon is at the top of this Grand Staircase, revealing the youngest sedimentary rock. It ranges from 6,620 to 9,115 feet in elevation. Zion is 3,666 to 8,726 feet in elevation, carved from older sedimentary layers. Each park reveals rock formations in colors ranging from red to pink, gray, cream and white.

Zion and Bryce are two of the “Mighty Five” national parks in Utah, the other three being Arches, Canyonlands and Capitol Reef. I visited Zion and Bryce on a Road Scholar hiking tour that let our small group experience the grandeur of each park on foot. Other Road Scholar tours visit many of these national parks by motorcoach with less strenuous daily excursions.

Zion is more popular and accessible than Bryce, attracting about five million visitors annually compared to Bryce’s 2.4 million. Because Zion sits at lower elevations than Bryce, its climate is milder in winter and hotter in summer. In mid-April, we enjoyed warm, sunny weather in Zion – and below-freezing temperatures plus snow one day in Bryce. Due to its high elevation, the weather at Bryce can be highly variable for much of the year.

As long as 8,000 years ago, semi-nomadic groups of early Native Americans began occupying the Zion area. Later Southern Paiute tribes lived here. Mormon pioneers arrived in 1858. They saw Zion’s massive sandstone cliffs as a natural sanctuary inspiring awe. The sheer scale of Zion’s soaring cliffs and deep canyons indeed make the park a geologic marvel. Zion became Utah’s first national park in 1919.

We stayed in the gateway town of Springdale near the park’s southern entrance. Zion features a range of hikes from easy walks along the main valley floor to challenging trails zigzagging up steep canyons. Free shuttle buses take visitors between nine stops, including the Visitor Center, Human History Museum, Zion Lodge and trailheads for hikes.

One day my group hiked the Watchman Trail for great views of that peak and several others across the valley in the Court of the Patriarchs. We did the Riverside Walk from the Temple of Sinawava to The Narrows; there some hikers continued in the shallow Virgin River to reach the most scenic Narrows section.

The next day we hiked up Walter’s Wiggles to Scout’s Lookout (elevation gain: 1,100 feet) for an incredible view of Zion’s colorful sandstone cliffs rising above the Virgin River. Scout’s Lookout is where those who have obtained permits can then climb Angel’s Landing, the most challenging of Zion’s hikes. Later we also hiked to Emerald Pools and underneath a waterfall.

Bryce Canyon National Park features a very different yet equally stunning landscape. It is a series of rock amphitheaters filled with bizarrely shaped hoodoos, spires, fins and arches. The largest is Bryce Amphitheater, which is 12 miles long, three miles wide and 800 feet deep.

Hoodoos are the star attraction. Formed by frost weathering and stream erosion over centuries, the hoodoos have shapes that suggest heads, faces and limbs. The Paiute Indians believed the hoodoos were the bodies of evil “legend people,” turned to stone for their misdeeds. However, “Thor’s Hammer” is perhaps the most photographed hoodoo, named for the Norse god of thunder’s weapon.

Mormon pioneers arrived in the Bryce Canyon area in the 1850s. Ebenezer Bryce homesteaded there in 1874 and famously declared Bryce was “a hell of a place to lose a cow” before moving to Arizona in 1880. However, Bryce Canyon was named for him and established as a national park in 1928.

The rim of Bryce Amphitheater varies from 8,000 to 9,000 feet in elevation and has four main viewpoints: Bryce, Inspiration, Sunset and Sunrise. Each offers a spectacular overlook from a different angle. A free park shuttle bus (April – October) runs between these viewpoints for visitors, plus the Visitors Center and Bryce Lodge.

We hiked the rim trail south to north, starting at Bryce Point on our first day there. A coating of fresh snow below the rim surprised us, as did sudden sunny skies during our hike. The striking red, orange, and white rock walls and hoodoos were illuminated one moment, shaded by clouds the next. As we completed our rim hike, a snow/hail storm suddenly closed in, and we quickly retreated to the Visitor Center. Lesson: be prepared for any weather at Bryce.

The next day dawned very cold but sunny – perfect for exploring trails down into Bryce Amphitheater. We hiked the Peekaboo Loop Trail from Bryce Point, zigzagging down from the rim into a fantastic array of hoodoos, fins and spires.

Then we continued on the Navajo Loop and Queens Garden Trails for an even better close-up of Bryce Canyon’s hoodoos. This is listed as one of the top 10 hikes in the U.S. by National Geographic.

Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks indeed offer incredible experiences, whether you choose to hike or visit them by car, camping or tour sightseeing mode.

Julie Gangler visited Zion and Bryce Canyon on the Road Scholar tour, Hiking Bryce and Zion National Parks. She is a freelance writer who has worked as a media relations consultant for the Snohomish County Tourism Bureau. She began her career as a staff writer at Sunset Magazine and later was the Alaska/Northwest correspondent for Travel Agent Magazine.