Mossy Cave

by Robert Bales

Title

Mossy Cave

Artist

Robert Bales

Medium

Photograph - Photo

Description

Mossy Cave is in the northern section of the park, located on Highway 12, approximately 4 miles east of the intersection of Highways 12 and 63. Look for a small parking area on the right-hand side immediately after crossing a little bridge. The Mossy Cave itself is at the end of a short trail. Here too you can see hoodoos and windows without having to hike a steep trail.
At first, this canyon known as Water Canyon, might look like any ordinary Bryce Canyon kind of canyon. It's not. From 1890-1892 mormon pioneers labored with picks and shovels to carve an irrigation ditch from the East Fork of the Sevier River, through the Paunsaugunt Plateau, into this canyon. Every year since its completion in 1892 (except during the drought of 2002), this canal known as the Tropic Ditch has supplied the communities of Tropic and Cannonville with irrigation water.


By definition Bryce Canyon is misnamed, it is not a real "canyon". Canyons are carved by flowing water. Most of the "canyons" of Bryce are carved by ice forming in cracks - a process known as frost wedging. Even though the Tropic Ditch has been flowing for only a century it has changed the geology of Water Canyon. As you hike up the Mossy Cave Trail, notice how the higher elevations of this "canyon" have the lumpy, broken, and random texture typical of Bryce Canyon and its hoodoos. You will also see how the lower section is without hoodoos, and has smooth angled sides looking like a 'V' in cross-section. Because of this little water course, it is unlikely that hoodoos will form here. The existing ones will eventually crumble and Water Canyon will have completed its metamorphosis into a "real canyon."

Uploaded

April 24th, 2015

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