Southern Utah Escalante

The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is two million acres. There are hree regions, the Grand Staircase, the Kaiparowits Plateau, and the Canyons of the Escalante.

Grand Staircase: The western edge of the Colorado Plateau results in broad, tilted terraces which form the Grand Staircase. From the south the terraces step up in great Technicolor cliffs: Vermillion, White, Gray, and Pink exposing 200 million years of the earth's history. Into this staircase of steps and terraces, the Paria River and its tributaries have carved a landscape of isolated mesas, deep valleys, towering buttes, and narrow canyons. Broad vistas and ever changing colors tempt the photographer as well as the mountain biker and hiker.

Kaiparowits Plateau: Rugged canyons and jagged cliffs make up 800,000-plus acres of some of the wildest and most remote country to be found in the lower 48. This central portion of the monument has been described as a "stony, desiccated maze of canyons," with few isolated springs and a handful of creeks. It is a land of broad canyons, sheer cliffs, red hills of oxidized rock created by underground coal fires, and soils poisonous to plants. But it is also a land of forested benches, thousand year-old junipers, and a rich variety of mammals and birds. There are few roads and no trails; it is a life or death test of your map reading and survival skills.

Canyons of the Escalante: The eastern third of the monument comprises large expanses of exposed Navajo Sandstone, known as slickrock, into which the Escalante River and its many tributaries have carved deep and convoluted canyons. As you descend into one of the countless canyons from the desert above, you find yourself locked into a world of sheer salmon colored cliffs and rich riparian habitats. Natural bridges and great stone arches appear around every bend, and deep slot canyons (some only inches wide) invite exploration. This is a backpacker's paradise of erosion, solitude, and ancient human history.