Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument contains some of the country’s most remote and rugged lands, whose beauty comes from geologic artistry. Over many millions of years, rock layers built up—limestones, on top of sandstones, on top of shales—only to be eroded by the forces of water, wind, and time. The sculpted landscape you see today is a showcase of sinuous canyons, striking cliffs, and broad vistas.
Three adjoining units make up this massive monument from west to east: the Grand Staircase, the Kaiparowits Plateau, and the Canyons of the Escalante. Roads are few, but adventure is limitless. Read about the main attractions below.
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is exceptional in both size and terrain. At 1.9 million acres, it’s the largest national monument in the contiguous United States and the first to be managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Since Scenic Byway 12 cuts through the heart of the monument, many tourists pass through on their way to/from nearby Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, and Zion national parks. The scenery from the car is amazing, but the backcountry in Grand Staircase is unsurpassed. If venturing into the more remote parts of the monument, be prepared for big, open country.
Accomodations
Hotels, motels, RV campgrounds, and state park campgrounds fill quickly during peak tourism season (spring and fall). The monument offers dispersed camping, but the BLM asks you to camp in already disturbed areas. You can find good campsites along many of the dirt roads (Hole-in-the-Rock Road, Burr Trail Road, Cottonwood Canyon Road). Free permits for dispersed camping can be obtained at the visitor centers or trailheads.
Gateway towns include: Page and Fredonia (Arizona); and Big Water, Kanab, Mt. Carmel, Orderville, Glendale, Alton, Hatch, Panguitch, Bryce Canyon City, Henrieville, Cannonville, Tropic, Escalante, and Boulder (Utah).
Visitor centers: Cannonville Visitor Center | Escalante Interagency Visitor Center | Kanab Visitor Center | Big Water Visitor Center | Paria Contact Station | Anasazi State Park Museum
Trails: Boulder Mail Trail | Upper Calf Creek Falls | Lower Calf Creek Falls | Golden Cathedral Trail | Peekaboo, Spooky & Brimestone Canyons | Coyote Gulch via Crack-in-the-Wall | Willow & Fortymile Gulch Loop | Cottonwood Narrows Trail | Hackberry Canyon & Yellow Rock | The Toadstools | Wahweap Hoodoos
Don’t expect to find a Walmart, Target, or even a true supermarket in or near Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The monument itself has no services, save for the visitor centers, but the small gateway communities usually have gas stations, convenience stores, and/or small markets. Keep an eye on your supplies and fuel up when you have the chance. If you plan to explore the monument’s backcountry roads, bring a good map of the area or pick one up at a visitor center. Cell phone service is spotty within the monument; carry extra gas, water, food, and a spare tire.
Dirt roads access most of the trailheads in the monument, and their conditions vary. Some are graded, others washboarded. But all are prone to frequent flash floods that can make them impassable to even 4WD vehicles. Call or visit the Escalante Interagency Visitor Center for the latest road reports before you leave; plan accordingly.
2WD vehicles: Good on Hwy 12 (paved), Burr Trail Road (paved) and possibly the upper stretches of Hole-in-the-Rock Road (call ahead for recent conditions).
High clearance: Needed for most of the dirt roads in the monument.
4WD vehicles: Necessary for travel on the Kaiparowits Plateau, Cottonwood Canyon road and Hole-in-the-Rock Road after recent floods, and most spurs off of the main dirt roads.
The Grand Staircase, named in the 1880s by geologist Clarence Dutton, refers to a stairway of rock formed by alternating cliffs and terraces. Harder, more resistant layers like limestones and sandstones make up the vertical “risers,” while softer, more easily eroded rocks make up the flat “tread.” And so the landscape climbs in steps, from the Grand Canyon all the way to the top of the Aquarius Plateau.
Few places offer views of the entire staircase, but the western third of the monument encompasses a portion of it and provides access to several layers. Cottonwood Canyon Road, which runs between Hwy 89 and UT 12, follows the East Kaibab Monocline and marks the eastern edge of this unit. Along the road, ridges of bent, uplifted red and white rock jut out of the ground in near vertical slabs reminiscent of a rooster’s cockscomb. Excellent hikes in the area include Cottonwood Narrows Trail and Hackberry Canyon & Yellow Rock.
Kodachrome Basin State Park, another geologic gem with unusual vertical “pipes” of colorful rock, is at the northern end of Cottonwood Canyon Road near Cannonville, Utah (see Panorama Point Loop Trail).
The Kaiparowits Plateau occupies the middle section of the monument, a wedge of high country that starts near the town of Escalante and fans out in a triangle to the south. Lake Powell and its tributaries create an incised and rugged southern boundary of the Kaiparowits, while the Straight Cliffs form a more linear eastern flank.
Few people venture onto the Kaiparowits Plateau; travel is rough and services are nonexistent. Juniper and piñon trees punctuate the plateau, with hidden riches below its surface. Over 62 billion tons of coal lay in beds deep underground. Exploratory drilling boomed in the 1960s, along with plans to develop an underground mining operation and power plant. The establishment of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996, however, stopped industry from taming the Kaiparowits’ wild nature.
If you drive up the rugged Smoky Mountain Road to the top of the plateau, you may see—and smell—smoke spiraling out of rock crevices. Coal seams burn naturally underground, collapsing and cracking to expose the earth’s innards. There are also hundreds of archaeological sites on the plateau. Although maintained hiking trails are hard to find, the Kaiparowits offers some of the most difficult and isolated terrain in the country for hiking. Be sure to bring spare tires, extra water and gasoline, and emergency supplies if you are exploring here.
The best known and most visited part of the monument is defined by blankets of Navajo Sandstone cut by the Escalante River and its tributaries to form an intricate network of sculpted canyons. The small towns of Boulder and Escalante are gateways for adventures in this region, including Calf Creek, Death Hollow, Willow Gulch, Peekaboo Canyon, and other delights in the Escalante River watershed.
Hole-in-the-Rock Road begins a few miles east of Escalante and follows a historic Mormon wagon route southeast to Lake Powell. In the late 1870s, church leaders called upon Mormon followers to establish a settlement near Bluff, Utah. In response, a Mormon wagon train of more than 230 people left from Panguitch, Utah, in 1879 on what was called the San Juan Expedition. They followed the Straight Cliffs to Glen Canyon, where they blasted a route down the cliffs, crossed what was then river, and continued to their destination. Their journey is one of the most remarkable in the settling of the West. Hole-in-the-Rock Road, as it’s called today, accesses several trailheads. This gravel road can deteriorate with weather, so be sure to check the latest road report before starting your trip.
On UT 12 between Escalante and Boulder, Calf Creek Recreation Area has a campground and the only maintained hiking trail in the entire monument. There are fees for the day use area, hiking trail, and campground. The trail goes to Lower Calf Creek Falls, an easy walk to a 215-foot tall waterfall.
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The endless expanses of slickrock in Grand Staircase seem like unlikely places for cattle to graze. But cattle roam across more than 95 percent of the monument, destroying biological soil crusts, introducing invasive species, eroding stream banks, and trampling sensitive species.
The Grand Canyon Trust is measuring problems on the ground and proposing a comprehensive alternative that can change how and where cattle graze this 1.9 million acre treasure. Learn more about our work in Grand Staircase ›