(Piece of) Grand Staircase - Escalante
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Published: April 6th 2021
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Larb Hollow Overlook
Fantastic view towards east from the pass at the altitude of around 2700m. n.p.m. The visible red line is the Capitol Reef, while the mountains in the background are the ones around Mt. Ellen. This picture was taken on 15 July 2018 during my previous trip to the area. Date of the trip: 25 - 28 May 2019. One of the largest protected areas in the USA, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, extends along the southern border between Utah and Arizona. Similarly to national parks, national monuments are owned by the federal government, but the protection level is lower. I don’t know what exactly is protected and how but, for example, the rules for camping are much more lenient than in national parks. While the details depend on a monument as well as specific areas, the general rule is that camping is allowed in more remote parts of the park. It is always good to check the monument’s website for the rules and if the permit is required.
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was created in 1996 by President Clinton and it immediately became an object of political contention. It was argued that the protected area of over 7500 square kilometers is simply too large and the monument was created without consultations with the locals. In 2017 President Trump reduced its size by almost half and the current (as of April 2021) area equals about 4000 km^2.
Even with the decreased area, Grand Staircase-Escalante is a particularly diverse region.
Between Boulder and Escalante
View towards east from the road between Boulder and Escalante. The same Capitol Reef and mountains as in the previous picture. This time the snow present in late May is visible. The lowest part of the park stretches along the Colorado River serving as its southern boundary. At the elevation of about 1000m the landscape is dominated by deserts and steppes, with curvy canyons and cliffs. In the northern part, however, mountains 3000m high can hold snow all year round. I must stress that due to its immense size I have seen only a very small part of the monument. It is worth adding that Grand Staircase-Escalante is not a major tourist destination despite the breathtaking views. It may be due to the fact that the tourists simply do not know too much (yet) about what it offers and choose the bordering national parks of Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon instead.
First and foremost, when entering or leaving Grand Staircase-Escalant one simply must drive route UT-24 from Hanksville to Torrey and then UT-12 via Boulder to Escalante. This is one of the most fantastic routes I have ever traveled. While we leave Hanksville in short sleeves and in 30+ degrees heat, we should not forget a jacket and gloves. After one hour drive we find ourselves among snow patches on a pass with the elevation of 2700m. But the elevation
Road along the 50-Mile bench
A dirt road towards the Colorado River and the Reflection Canyon. The cliff on the right is the 50-Mile bench.
(photo by Łukasz) gain is not the whole story. During the drive we cross almost all climate zones and landscapes: from sandy deserts to Alpine forests. The first part of the route, from Hanksville to Torrey, can be seen
">here .
Reflection Canyon
The region we visited during out trip is the piece of a steppe stretching in the south-east direction from Escalante and squeezed between the Escalante River and the 50-Mile bench. As its name suggests, the 50-Mile bench is a 50-miles long cliff. Along the cliff there is a 50-mile long dirt road, which reaches the Escalante River about 15km from the point where it flows into the Colorado. We left our car a few kilometers ahead and started a 2-day hike to the Reflection Canyon and back.
The Reflection Canyon is quite unique in the sense that it is a very wavy canyon filled with water up to about half of its height. This happened because the Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River raised the water level in the Colorado River itself and its tributaries. Despite the remoteness and inaccessibility of the canyon, it became famous in 2012, when Apple used it to promote one
Towards the Reflection Canyon
The beginning of the trail passes through the typical steppe. of its products. Since in the US Apple has a status of an oracle, the canyon became popular.
It is not easy to reach the Reflection Canyon. Apart from the 30 km long loop in a difficult but amazingly beautiful terrain, one needs to reach the trail head first. In a good weather, the dirt road could be passable with a regular car, given a lot of time and careful driving. But it so happened that it started raining on the second day in the morning. The road turned into a sea of mud. Even in our 4x4 Jeep sometimes it felt more like sailing a boat than driving a car, sliding from side to side. It did not discourage people with limited imagination from driving up the road. And, as it turned out for some of them, it was a bad idea.
Escalante Petrified Forest
In the afternoon the rain stopped and the sky cleared. We reached Escalante in the car covered in mud and we drove to the excellent campground at the lake in a small state park. The next day we visited the Escalante Petrified Forest State Park itself. It turned out that
Towards the Reflection Canyon
Soon the steppe turned into petrified dunes. I don't know exactly how this happened, but the mud and sand at the bottom of the sea must have petrified and created fantastic smooth surfaces of dunes turned into stone. the nearby hill is covered by fossils of a Jurassic forest and a short loop leads through several points presenting very interesting specimens. These one can marvel at scattered, petrified remains of some conifers, filled with colorful agates. Most probably the trees fell into a river some 150 million years ago and got mineralized. Many of them still carry well-visible details such as the structure of the bark, small branches, or tree rings.
Pando Forest
At the northern part of Grand Staircase-Escalante an aspen forest stretches. At the first glance it is a rather boring grayish forest with nothing particularly interesting. However, the forest, called the Pando Forest, is an unusual organism. It turns out that all the aspen trees covering the area of over 40ha grow from a single root system. The entire forest together with the root system is a single living organism. It is the most massive organism on Earth, with the mass estimated of 6000 tons. It is also one of the oldest living things, being at least several thousands years old.
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