Northern Bryce
Tower Bridge
A named hoodoo formation with an opening in the rock, reached by a side trail from the southern part of the Fairyland Loop.
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
DerivedAround Tower Bridge: 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
Tower Bridge is a named hoodoo formation reached from the southern part of the Fairyland Loop. The formation includes an arch: an opening through the rock.1,2
NPS describes the trail to Tower Bridge as about 3 miles round trip with 760 feet of climbing, moderate in difficulty, taking two to three hours. The roadside wayside and the trail are separate from the rock itself.1,2
The 2018 aircraft recorded the ridges around the formation, but not the underside of the arch. The 3D model leaves a deliberate gap there instead of guessing at the shape of the opening.3
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
DerivedTower Bridge context: an honest break in the line. The source deliberately omits a footprint around unresolved arch, pillar and underside geometry. The hatched interval is withheld data, not a measured opening. Neither the plan nor the section fills this gap. A 512 m line at equal horizontal and vertical scale; heights 2,190–2,268 m.3 Section data (JSON) · Drawing (SVG)Walks from here
- Tower BridgeA side trail with a destination of its own. NPS: 3 mi, 760 ft of climbing, moderate.
- Fairyland LoopAround Boat Mesa, above and below the rim. NPS: 8 mi, 1,900 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 formation stands in the exposed breaks below the rim; NPS notes that rocky ridges there support trees adapted to difficult growing sites.8,9
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.6,7
Read without 3D
The 3D view covers a square about 512 metres on a side. Heights in the lidar returns range from 2,177 m (7,144 ft) to 2,295 m (7,530 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 · Tower Bridge · 2024-10-10
- National Park Service · Fairyland and Tower Bridge Wayside · 2024-10-10
- 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