Navajo + Queen's Garden Loop Trail

Combining the Navajo Loop Trail's descent into the Silent City and the Queen's Garden Trail you get Bryce Canyon National Park's most iconic and popular day hike. It's an absolutely unique experience you won't find anywhere else on earth! 2.9 miles in total length, the trail starts at Sunset Point, where you'll quickly hike a down 500 feet on a steep set of switchbacks into the vibrant orange, unworldly Silent City. The Silent City is the park's densest clustering of eroded pinnacle-like formations, called hoodoos.* Here, traveling through the slot canyon referred to as Wall Street, canyon walls tower hundreds of feet above the trail where the Utah desert's clear blue sky provides incredible contrast to the sedimentary rock. Passing through Wall Street, the amphitheater slowly opens to Bryce Creek and the high desert landscape dominated by ponderosa pines, western junipers, and green manzanita brush. Climbing back up to the canyon rim,** you'll enjoy passing through the Queen's Garden, a loose cluster of hoodoos, where views open as far east as the neighboring Escalante Mountains. * Hoodoos are thin, spire-like formations commonly found in arid drainages of sedimentary rock. Over time, weather erodes softer rock and leaves harder rock to remain. In contrast to spires or pinnacles, hoodoos are distinct because of their variable form and thickness that reflects differentiation in the hardness of the soil/rock. ** Geologically speaking, Bryce Canyon is technically not considered a canyon; rather, it is a series of amphitheaters on the eastern edge of the Paunsaugunt Plateau.