Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah

Hoodoos in Devils Garden, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hoodoos_in_Devils_Garden.jpg
Author: Magnus Manske


Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is a protected nature site in Kane County and Garfield County, Utah. The national monument preserves the landscape of three main regions, namely the Grand Staircase, the Kaiparowits Plateau and the Canyons of the Escalante. Covering a total area of 1.9 million acres (7,689 sq km) and was proclaimed a US National Monument on 18 September, 1996 by President Bill Clinton.

The Grand Staircase is an immense sequence of sedimentary rock layers. It stretches from Bryce Canyon National Park through Zion National Park and includes part of the Grand Canyon. The outstanding feature of the Grand Staircase is that it provides the most detailed view of Earth history, period by period.

Grosvenor Arch, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grosvenor_Arch_%28317844728%29.jpg
Author: James Marvin Phelps


Encompassing the Grand Staircase, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument covers the area stretching from the towns of Big Water, Glendale and Kanab in southwestern Utah to the towns of Escalante and Boulder in northeastern Utah.

The central part of the area has a single long ridge. It is called the Kaiparawits Plateau from the west, but viewed from the east, it is the Fifty-Mile Mountain. It stretches from Escalante to the Colorado River in Glen Canyon. To the east of Fifty-Mile Mountain are the Canyons of the Escalante, which is adjacent to Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.

The earliest tribe to have settled here was the Basketmaker culture which was here around AD 500. Other groups of early Native Americans also lived here, among them the hunter-gatherer Fremont and the ancestral Puebloan peoples.

Metate Arch and Straight Cliffs in Devils Garden
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Metate_Arch_and_Straight_Cliffs.jpg
Author: Shamim Mohamed


In 2002, a 75-million-year-old dinosaur fossil was discovered here, close to the Arizona border. The dinosaur was pronounced as a Gryposaurus monumentensis, literally "hook-beaked lizard from the monument". The specimen measures at least 30 feet (9.1 m) in length and 10 feet (3.0 m) in height.

Visiting Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah

The visitor center of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is at Kanab, Utah, near the border with Arizona. You can reach it by taking US Highway 89.

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