Vermilion Cliffs National Monument

The country of the Vermilion Cliffs has been home to native peoples for thousands of years, from the ancestral Puebloan cultures whose granaries and rock art dot the canyons to the Southern Paiute, who knew the springs and hunting grounds of this arid land. The nearby Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians has a reservation to the west, and the vast Navajo Nation lies across the Colorado to the east and south. The land holds their history in its rock art, its ruins, and its place names.

For later travelers this was formidable country. The Colorado River blocked passage for hundreds of miles, until the ferry at nearby Lees Ferry, established in the 1870s, opened a crossing that Mormon settlers and others used to move between Utah and Arizona. The cliffs marked the edge of the habitable world for these travelers, a barrier and a landmark both. Today the monument preserves not only the geology but this deep human layering, from ancient dwellings to pioneer ruins.

The Vermilion Cliffs are one step of the Grand Staircase, an immense series of cliffs and terraces that climbs northward from the Grand Canyon into Utah, each step exposing older or younger rock. The cliffs themselves are cut into sandstones laid down when this region was a vast field of dunes in an ancient desert, and the red and orange colors come from iron in the rock, stained and streaked over millions of years.

The swirled slickrock of The Wave and the Coyote Buttes formed from those same fossilized dunes, where the crossbedding of the ancient sand, the sweeping lines left by shifting winds, was frozen into stone and later exposed and sculpted by erosion into flowing, banded curves. The effect is almost liquid, a landscape that looks poured rather than carved. Because the rock is soft and the formations easily damaged, access is tightly limited to protect them, which is why the permits are so scarce and so prized.

The Vermilion Cliffs are one of the great conservation success stories in North America. The California condor, the largest land bird on the continent with a wingspan approaching ten feet, had dwindled to a mere handful of individuals by the 1980s, all of them taken into captivity in a last-ditch effort to save the species. Captive-bred condors were released at the Vermilion Cliffs beginning in 1996, and a wild flock now soars over this country once again.

Watching a condor ride the thermals along the cliffs, or roost on the girders of the Navajo Bridge downstream, is one of the monument's signature experiences. The birds are tagged and monitored, and biologists work continually to keep the flock healthy, with lead poisoning from spent ammunition remaining a serious threat. Their comeback is fragile but real, and to see one of these enormous birds wheeling over the red cliffs is to witness a species pulled back from the very brink.

Beyond the famous formations, the monument offers the Paria Canyon, a long and celebrated slot-canyon backpack, along with the White Pocket, a stunning and less-permit-restricted expanse of brain-like swirled rock, and countless quiet corners for those willing to travel rough roads and carry their own water. This is serious backcountry: services are few, the roads can be treacherous when wet, and the heat can be deadly, so preparation is everything.

Spring and fall are the ideal seasons, mild enough for hiking and kind to the exposed slickrock. Summer brings punishing heat and, in late summer, monsoon storms that can send flash floods roaring through the slot canyons, a genuine danger to be planned around. Winter is cold and quiet, and a light snow on the red rock is unforgettable, though high roads may be impassable. In any season, the monument rewards those who slow down, respect its harshness, and take in the immense, silent grandeur of the place.

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