Thor's Hammer (Bryce Canyon)

Thor's Hammer is located in Bryce Canyon National Park in southern Utah, visible from the Navajo Loop Trail which begins at Sunset Point on the park's main rim road. It is one of the most photographed individual hoodoos in the park because of its distinctive hammer-like silhouette.

Thor's Hammer is carved from the Claron Formation, a sequence of sedimentary limestone and sandstone layers deposited in ancient lakes and floodplains roughly 50 million years ago. The different hardness of layers within the Claron Formation creates the stepped, columnar shape as softer layers erode faster than harder ones.

Like all hoodoos in Bryce Canyon, Thor's Hammer formed as vertical fractures in the Claron Formation were progressively enlarged by freeze-thaw weathering, where water enters cracks, freezes, expands, and breaks the rock apart over thousands of years. Rain and acidic runoff further sculpt the remaining rock into the narrow columns topped by broader caps of more resistant stone.

The Navajo Loop Trail, which descends from Sunset Point into Bryce Amphitheater, offers the closest and most dramatic views of Thor's Hammer. Visitors can see the formation from above at Sunset Point before hiking down to see it from below along the trail.