Sunrise Point - Bryce Canyon National Park, UT - American Guide Series on Waymarking.com

From SUNRISE POINT, on the trail east of the lodge, the eastern view reveals a gently rolling landscape that looks like fields of spun gold. Its structures are more massive than those of Fairyland; the great walls, saturated with red, are in sharp contrast with monuments that seem to be of white chalk. The scuplturing here is more gigantic, is less barbarous, though there are many lean shafts, emaciated bulkheads, and weirdly lacquered crags. In the foreground the erosion is more spectacularly purposeless than on the far side, where huge castles need only windows and doors to be complete. Glasses show that portions of the roofs have fallen in, staircases and mezzanine floors are crumbling, vestibules are too rugged for human occupancy, and corridors have lost most of their vaulted ceiling, but the excellent stucco of the walls is intact. Some of the roof fragments seem to be elaborately adorned with cupolas and steeples, but the walls below have a chaste restraint. The white formations when brought close, are seen to be not a part of the castles, but silent figures who stand or kneel upon the battlements. In the south, there is a striking figure called Thor's Hammer, but it looks more like an Egyptian priest, sitting on a throne and facing the rising sun, with an enormous stone crown on his head.