South along the plateau
Hat Shop
A cluster of narrow pinnacles with large boulder caps below Bryce Point, reached by a steep trail.
Illustration
MeasuredThis page explains a named landscape feature. A model position is not an established trail, parking place or permission to approach the formation.
Conditions & official access sources · Compare walking distance and climb
DerivedHat Shop slopes: the 2018 USGS lidar surface, seen at an angle from above. The site’s collection has no modern photograph of this place; surface color and lighting are drawn, not measured.What you’re looking at
Below Bryce Point, the Hat Shop is a cluster of narrow pinnacles with large boulder caps. The caps are small against the long slope that carries them.1
Across Bryce, NPS explains, harder caprock preserves softer rock beneath it as the land erodes. Here the caps sit on narrow necks of rock, the same arrangement that makes a hoodoo.2,1
NPS describes the Hat Shop trail as 4 miles round trip with 1,380 feet of climbing, strenuous, taking three to four hours. The NPS viewpoint and the mapped pillar group are about 137 metres apart; neither marks the exact edge of the group.1,3,4
Maurice Cope photographed three hoodoos from the Hat Shop Trail. The museum catalog dates his negatives only broadly, between 1920 and 1940.5
Turn it in 3D
Turn the surface, cut a section across it, and compare the aerial color with the laser returns the aircraft recorded. The 3D view loads only when you open it.
Section and skyline
DerivedHat Shop slopes: the slope beneath the forms. The ground-class packet describes the surrounding slope. It cannot represent both a cap and its narrower column at the same horizontal position. Ground classification may omit the standing formations themselves. A 480 m line at equal horizontal and vertical scale; heights 2,170–2,262 m.6 Section data (JSON) · Drawing (SVG)Then and now
Early photographs of the same ground. They record a view, not a measured change; the camera positions are not known exactly.
Walks from here
- Hat ShopBalanced rocks below Bryce Point. NPS: 4 mi, 1,380 ft of climbing, strenuous.
Trail figures are the National Park Service’s. They are not current conditions; check NPS notices before a hike.
Living things here
Habitats: Rocky breaks & rim. The trail descends through exposed breaks, where NPS notes that rocky ridges support trees adapted to difficult growing sites.11,12
Living Bryce entries for these habitats:
Care
NPS asks visitors to stay on trails, avoid climbing hoodoos, leave natural objects where they are and avoid feeding or disturbing wildlife. Walking toward a hoodoo’s base can disturb the clay-rich slopes that help protect its foundations, so enjoy the formations from established trails and overlooks.9,10
Read without 3D
The 3D view covers a square about 480 metres on a side. Heights in the lidar returns range from 2,137 m (7,012 ft) to 2,278 m (7,474 ft). The surface is built from what an aircraft could see from above: undersides, overhangs and narrow gaps are not reconstructed.
Data and sources
Datasets
Sources
- National Park Service · Hat Shop · 2024-10-10
- National Park Service · NPS: Life of Hoodoos wayside (Sunrise Point) · 2023-09-22
- NPS National Geospatial Program · NPS public points of interest
- US Geological Survey · Geographic Names — Landforms
- Bryce Canyon National Park Museum and Archives · Nitrate negative of three hoodoos from the Hat Shop Trail in BRCA. Forested area in background. ; BRCA Museum and Archives Image BRCA8875_001_023 ; BRCA 8875
- USGS data; public Entwine organization maintained by Hobu · USGS 3DEP LiDAR Point Clouds · 2018 acquisition; LAS published 2019
- US Geological Survey · USGS Lidar Point Cloud UT Southern QL1 2018 12SUG9562 LAS 2019 metadata · 2019-06-03
- USDA FPAC / Farm Service Agency · USDA conterminous US NAIP imagery service · 2024 Utah acquisition, exact flight dates per crop
- National Park Service · Protect the Hoodoos · 2018-10-16
- National Park Service · Hiking · 2024-10-11
- National Park Service, Bryce Canyon · Plants · April 30, 2023
- National Park Service, Bryce Canyon · Limber Pine · March 3, 2025