The Grand Staircase Escalante is huge! It’s bigger than the Great Salt Lake. The largest lake in the U.S. that’s not a great lake.
A short 45 minute drive from Bryce Canyon is the enormous Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. It spans from the eastern boundaries of Bryce Canyon to Lake Powell Recreation Area.
To be honest we knew very little about what to do at the monument. Luckily we passed by an open visitor center on the way and a friendly staff member gave us more than enough information to keep us busy for weeks. We planned for about 4 full days including a day to sit at our campsite and rest. With our time we were only able to explore a section of the far Northwest corner and the far Northeast corner.
This vast land is made of canyons, plateaus, dessert life, rivers, waterfalls, ancient ruins, and dinosaur bones.
GSENM is apart of the Grand Staircase, duh. A vast area of land that stretches South from Bryce Canyon to Zion to The Grand Canyon forming a sort of sequence of steps. GSENM encompasses several of these “steps” aka layers of sedimentary rock. Refer to the photo below for a visual or our last post.
By Laura and Camrin – Full Story at Free Wheel Drive