Grand Staircase Escalante

Tuesday we booked a tour of The Grand Staircase Escalante. The Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument is a 1.7 million acre (slightly larger than the state of Delaware) remote area requiring a four wheel drive vehicle to travel the dirt roads. It is one of the most remote areas in the country and the last to mapped in the lower 48. We were at the top “stairs” with the bottom of the staircase being the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

During wet weather, the roads can be completely impassable. The road was a bumpy washboard with deep ruts and crossed several streams. However, it was totally worth it, the area offers some of the most breathtaking views of the state’s colorful sandstone cliffs and narrow slot canyons.

We started our tour at 8am and our first stop was a breathtaking vista overlooking the cliffs.

Our second stop was at Bull Valley Gorge. Here we could view a slot canyon from above. Stuck in the canyon was a 1950s ford pickup truck. The legend goes, high school kids were in the canyon when a flash flood came through. Their truck was unable to travel up the muddy sides of the canyon and became caught in the flood. The kids survived. No doubt they got a good whooping!

We continued to drive down the mountain and arrived at Willis Creek. We walked down the icy creek to view the slot canyon. It was incredible.

We booked our tour through Dreamland. (Same organization as our Wave Hike) Our tour guide was Jaron. He was fantastic. Not only an excellent driver, also a superb photographer and very knowledgeable about the area.

We continued our journey and arrived at Kodachrome Basin State Park. Here we enjoyed a picnic lunch before hiking up to Angels Palace. It was a short hike to the top of the rock formation to view the sand spires and get a panoramic view of the basin. The park has 67 sand spires ranging in a variety of sizes. Big and small. So many jokes about all of these phallic features. The views of the different staircase steps was truly breathtaking.

Our next stop was at the sandstone rock formation, Grosvenor Arch. It is located is in the western corner of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The arch is named after Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, president of the National Geographic Society, the publisher of the National Geographic magazine. The arches were a mix of Henrieville Sandstone (165 million years old) and Dakota Sandstone (95 million years old). Weathering created a stunning natural marvel.

We continued on to the Cottonwood Narrows and took a short hike down into the slot canyon. It was unreal to see the size of boulders that are moved by flash flood waters.

I couldn’t get over the different rock colors. They seem so random.

As our tour came to a close, we made a couple more stops. One of them to see the mushroom hoodoos. It was another short hike to observe them from above. Can rocks be cute? These sure were!

Our final stop was close to Kanab. This vista was absolutely stunning.

Throughout the day, we encountered only one other group of explorers and passed maybe 5 cars. The area was gorgeous, quiet and completely mesmerizing. We obviously didn’t see the entire 1.7 million acres, but what we saw was captivating and made my nerdy science heart so happy. As always, thanks for reading!