Fairyland Canyon, located one mile north of the National Park entrance station, offers an opportunity to see hoodoos at an "eye-to-eye" level. These hoodoos have inspired imaginations for years, and visitors today are bound to be as enchanted as were the Paiute Indians, who saw the hoodoos as ancient peoples turned to stone.
Geology
Located in the north end of the park, the structures that fill Fairyland Canyon are younger than those further to the south in the main amphitheater, and will be developed more fully as the erosional processes continue to wear away the land in a north and westward direction. By contrast, immediately to the south is Campbell Canyon, where you can hike through a "hoodoo graveyard." In this region, all the hoodoos have eroded away leaving multicolored clay mounds, which like tombstones, mark their passing. Campbell Canyon can only be reached by hiking the Fairyland Loop Trail.
Nature
Here the canyon rim is covered in Ponderosa Pine forest where deer, jays, turkey, and chipmunks and squirrels make their homes. As you hike into the canyon below, you make your way though a mix of habitats including little patches of Douglas Fir forest, large groves of pinyon and juniper trees, and clay slopes bare of vegetation. Hiking here offers the best chance of any place in the park to see our more rare and secretive creatures such as Mountain Lions, fox, bobcat, and even Great Basin Rattlesnakes.
Following the Rim Trail to the south offers you the best opportunity to see the diversity of wildflowers that grow in Bryce Canyon National Park including the Wyoming Paintbrush, Blue Flax, Showy Stoneseed, and Southwestern Stoneseed.
Trails
The trailhead for the Fairyland Loop is located at this viewpoint and descends into the midst of the Fairyland, around Boat Mesa, eventually ascending to meet the Rim Trail at Sunrise Point. Following the Rim Trail back north to Fairyland Canyon overlook completes this 8-mile strenuous hike. This trail is also one of the quietest, least used in the park. Also, from Fairyland Canyon overlook the Rim Trail continues south past 3 other overlooks eventually arriving at Bryce Point, 5.5 miles later.
