Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

The Grand Staircase is a giant flight of cliffs and terraces that steps up more than a mile in elevation over roughly a hundred miles, from the depths of the Grand Canyon far to the south up to the rim country near Bryce. Geologists prize it because the layers are so cleanly exposed, one atop another, that you can read hundreds of millions of years of the earth's history simply by walking or driving from the bottom step to the top.

Each cliff band is named for its color, the Chocolate, Vermilion, White, Gray, and Pink Cliffs, and each records a different ancient world of seas, deserts, and river deltas. The Escalante half of the monument, cut by the Escalante River and its side canyons, is where much of that rock has been carved into the slots, arches, and hidden falls that draw hikers today.

People have lived in and traveled this country for thousands of years. The Ancestral Puebloan and Fremont peoples farmed the canyon bottoms and mesa tops, and their granaries, dwellings, and rock art still survive in quiet corners of the monument. This is the ancestral homeland of the Southern Paiute and Ute peoples as well, whose descendants remain in the region and hold deep ties to the land. Please leave every site and artifact exactly as you find it.

The Escalante River was among the last rivers in the lower forty-eight to be found and named by American explorers, a measure of how remote this country stayed. Mormon settlers reached the area in the 1870s and founded the little towns of Escalante and Boulder, ranching and farming in the narrow valleys. Boulder was so isolated that mail came in by mule train into the twentieth century, and a paved road did not connect it to the outside world until the 1980s.

The most beloved way in is the hike to Lower Calf Creek Falls, an easy walk up a green side canyon to a tall, cool waterfall dropping into a pool, past hanging gardens and ancient rock art on the cliffs. Elsewhere the Escalante country hides famous narrow slots, where the sandstone walls squeeze so close you turn sideways and the sky becomes a thin ribbon overhead. Some are short and gentle, others demand real skill and route-finding.

For those who would rather ride than walk, Scenic Byway 12 threads the whole region, climbing over a knife-edge ridge with drop-offs on both sides, winding through red rock and aspen, and opening onto vast overlooks. It is a destination in itself, and many visitors experience the monument mostly from its pullouts and short spur trails, which is a fine way to see it.

For all its bare stone, the monument teems with life. Mule deer, pronghorn, and desert bighorn range the country, coyotes and foxes hunt the flats, and mountain lions move unseen through the canyons. Golden eagles and peregrine falcons ride the cliffs, and the streams support cottonwoods, hanging gardens of ferns, and the occasional beaver.

Spring and fall are the prime seasons, with mild days and manageable water in the canyons, while summer brings fierce heat and the very real danger of flash floods during monsoon storms. Winter is cold and quiet, with snow on the higher plateaus and few visitors. In every season, the defining experience here is solitude, the chance to stand in a great empty landscape with only the wind for company.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.