Postcard from Bryce Canyon

You are looking at the only waterfall in Bryce Canyon National Park. And, believe it or not, it does not have a name. Truth be told, it isn’t really that big. And, if you really want the deep, dark secret about it, it is was formed by the hand of man.

Let me explain. The falls and its creek are located below the main portion of Bryce Canyon…you know, the one where are the tourists are (here is another secret…Bryce Canyon isn’t really a canyon!).

But back to the nameless falls. Back in the late 1800’s, this area, and all of Utah for that matter, was settled by Mormon Pioneers. They built farms and ranches below Bryce, in an around the towns of Tropic and Cannonville. Well, as you can probably guess, Utah is not blessed with an abundance of water, especially below Bryce Canyon.

So, some very clever and hard working pioneers dug a 3-4 mile long irrigation canal from the East Fork of the Sevier River (which is west of the Park) and connected it up to the canyon you see here which is called Water Canyon…and the water flowed. There just happened to be a nice drop in the canyon where a waterfall fit in very nicely.

The canal that flows into Water Canyon has the gawd-awful name of Tropic Ditch, something best left off of the tourist brochures. If you pull up a the National Park map of Bryce Canyon, you can see how the canal runs from the river to Water Canyon. Its one of the very few places where you will see the name “Tropic Ditch” in print.

To get to the falls, you leave the tourist section of the park and drop down towards Tropic on Highway 12. Soon you will reach the Mossy Cave Trail parking area. Park there and hike up Water Canyon about 1/2 mile to the falls.  

As you might guess from looking at the photo, the walk offers some spectacular views of another section of Bryce Canyon. It is an easy walk to the falls, although if you want to go all the way to Mossy Cave, it gets fairly steep (really not worth it either).

I have no idea why no one ever gave a name to the falls. Maybe we should hold a contest. How about Tropic Falls, or Water Canyon Falls? Being a simple person, my favorite is Water Falls. Now that would be unique.