Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument

Here we go again for another drive!  This time we went to explore the southern area of the Grand Staircase.  Pretty formations of the staircase can be easily seen from highway 89, but we wanted to actually get closer to get a better idea of what the formations were like.  There is only a small visitor center in the town of Kanab, where we stopped to get more information of areas we could get close to.  There are no scenic loops or paved roads in the monument area.  You have to be adventurous and willing to drive down winding, bumpy, up and down dirt roads.  We can do that!  Always up for a little adventure!  The views and formations are awesome and will worth eating a little bit of dust! 

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The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, designated in 1996, is a US National Monument protecting 1,880,461 acres of land in southern Utah. There are three main regions: the Grand Staircase, the Kaiparowits Plateau, and the Canyons of Escalante - all of which are administered by the Bureau of Land management. Grand Staircase-Escalante encompasses the largest land area of all U.S. National Monuments, encompassing 1.9 million acres.  The western part of the Monument is dominated by the Paunsaugunt  Plateau and the Paria River, and is adjacent to Bryce Canyon National Park.  Since 2000, numerous dinosaur fossils over 75 million years old have been found at Grand Staircase-Escalante.

Our first dirt road took us to the trailhead of a hike into a slot canyon with a fee of $6.  It was a 3 mile hike just to the entrance of the canyon.  We will keep that in mind for another time.  But still enjoyed the scenery among the rocks. 

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We headed down Highway 89 back towards Paria Gulch and another dirt road we were assured would handle our truck.  Yep, more dust!  Thank goodness we hadn’t cleaned up the truck lately!  This took us deeper into the Grand Staircase.  This was exactly what we had wanted to experience.  We were just amazed at the unusual yet still gorgeous rock colors and formations.  Pictures just can’t show the true open massive areas these formations cover. 

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The Grand Staircase refers to an immense sequence of sedimentary rock layers that stretch south from Bryce Canyon National Park through Zion National Park and into the Grand Canyon.  In the 1870s, geologist Clarence Dutton first conceptualized this region as a huge stairway ascending out of the bottom of the Grand Canyon northward with the cliff edge of each layer forming giant steps. 

The further we went, the dirt road wound up and over,  and down and around as we saw vista after vista.  Note all the different colored rock layers. 

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We stopped several times just to take more pictures outside the truck. 

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The road stopped at an open area with picnic tables and restrooms.  It is the perfect area for staging hikes and dirt biking.  We were surprised that a few other people were out in this same remote area.  This tall sandstone monolith seems to be the icon of the area.  Everybody was taking pictures of themselves in front of it.  Of course, we did too!!  There was a small fenced area that used to be an old western movie set, but vandals burned it down in 2010. 

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We were brave enough to continue on the dirt road out of curiosity to see if it would take us down to the Paria River.  The road became very narrow and very sandy, but we kept going.  That was our mistake!

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When we tried to leave we almost got stuck!  That’s what you get with a big heavy truck on thick loose sand!  Thank goodness we had some blocks of wood we sometimes use under the RV jacks.  We dug the sand out and slipped the blocks as close to the wheels as possible.  After some more wheel spinning, the tires grabbed and we made it out.  Whew, that was close!  That was the real adventure part of our day! 

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That was enough for one day, so we headed back to the main highway with more interesting views from our reverse direction.  Worth a visit!  That dirt road took us through some quite unique places! The whole area around Kanab is surrounded by such beautiful scenery.  We sure hope to return and spend even more time exploring the area. 

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