Grand Staircase-Escalante

Wow - what an area! We hadn't heard much about this National Monument with the Utah's Mighty 5 taking most of the attention. We hiked Bryce and plan to go to Zion (as well as Red Canyon) later in the week. Next week we will be closer to Arches, Capitol Reef and Canyonland. We past by several Information stations for it - that was odd not to just see one at the entrance. Turns out there are 6 in various areas around the 1.9 million acres called Grand Staircase- Escalante!

So we decided why not go see it. The drive started out very tan cliffs. They were interesting but not spectacuarly so but we kept driving. We could tell we were going up and over them. Then we went down long narrow roads to the bottom of the canyon. That's when things started to get very interesting. The rocks had various shapes, sizes, twists and color variations. It was beautiful! Our favorite part was the Singing Slot Canyon where a short walk brought us into a very tall slot canyon - something I have wanted to do. The acoustics were amazing. Those with great voices were singing or one lady was playing a violin. The light coming in was just perfect. The road in and out was not fun with a very narrow road and no guardrails but the canyon was worth it.

After we left the slot canyon we drove up the road a bit further. We noticed that Grand Staircase had a massive deep canyon (like the Grand Canyon), Hoodoos (like Bryce), cliffs (like Zion), a few arches (like Arches), monoclines (which are bends in the rock - like Capital Reef) AND flat top Mesa's with panoramic overlooks (like Canyonland)! This one park has it all! We also saw a condor flying above us.

All in all a wonderful surprise and a very fun day!