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| Badlands National Park |
Among the iconic sites of South Dakota’s Black Hills region is the Badlands, a bizarre menagerie of spires and domes encased by striped, twisting canyon walls. The Badlands also is a treasure trove of fossils – reptile sea monsters, rhinoceroses, camels, three-toed horses, clams, ammonites and more.
Balanced Rock Trail
Arches National Park
Day hikers can take a short walk to an astounding 55-foot tall block on the Balanced Rock Trail at Arches National Park in eastern Utah. The trail leads to a dinosaur-era rock that looks like a ball atop a pedestal. The sandstone spire technically is known as a hoodoo.
Queens Garden
Bryce Canyon National Park
Fairyland really does exist – it’s smack dab in southcentral in Utah, where a maze of totem pole-like rock formations called hoodoos grace Bryce Canyon National Park. Hoodoos are unusual landforms in which a hard caprock slows the erosion of the softer mineral beneath it. The result is a variety of fantastical shapes. Children will delight in the chimerical scenery encircling Bryce Canyon’s Queens Garden.
Devils Postpile Trail
Devils Postpile National Monument
A massive collection of nearly perfect hexagonal columns of rock await day hikers on the Devils Postpile Trail in California. The trail is an easy 0.9-mile round trip hike in Devils Postpile National Monument southeast of Yosemite National Park. The national monument protects the Devils Postpile formation – which this trails heads to the top of – and the 101-foot Rainbow Falls.
Learn more about national park day hiking trails in my Best Sights to See at America’s National Parks series.
