Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce Canyon sits in southern Utah, about four and a half hours from Las Vegas, and it is not really a canyon at all. It is the eroded edge of a high plateau, where frost and rain have sculpted thousands of tall, thin spires called hoodoos in orange, pink, and red. The rim view is only half of it, so walk down into the amphitheater on the Navajo Loop Trail from Sunset Point, which drops past Thor's Hammer into the middle of the hoodoos. May through September is the time to go, with warm days, cool nights, and every trail below the rim open.