Blog

Updated for 2020

Escalante National Monument in southern Utah

The park lies between Bryce Canyon National Park, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Capitol Reef National Park and protects 1.8 million acres.  Most of the access is on dirt roads of various conditions and with varying regulations about street legal vehicles. The park contains a variety of natural features including slot canyons, waterfalls, unique rock formations such as hoodoos and arches as well as archeological and paleontological sites.

What has changed for Escalante

In 2017 this park was subject to massive changes. The park has been shrunk by 47% and fragmented into 3 sections. It has been opened up to mining, drilling, off-road vehicles as well as the removal of pinyon-juniper woodlands which are then replaced with invasive grasses. The white shaded areas on the map below are the areas no longer protected under National Monument status. The areas named or boxed in purple are places we have explored with our Great Danes in previous years. As you can see, some of the areas are no longer within the monument.

Update 2021 – Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was restored to its original 1996 boundaries and protections restored.

Pet regulations

The monument still gets a 4-paw rating but the regulations are no longer as clearly stated. Initially these were the only 3 pet regulations:

1. Dogs need to be leashed on the Lower Calf Creek Falls trail and if you enter the adjoining Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.
2. Dogs have been banned from Coyote Gulch since April 2005 which is now outside the Escalante monument but still in the Glen Canyon NRA.  
3. Dogs are not permitted in the Peek-A-Boo and Spooky slot canyons off of Hole-in-the-Rock Road. Update – This road and those canyons are no longer in Grand-Staircase Escalante National Monument.

A current search of online sources state that dogs need to be leashed in all of Escalante. However some only list the regulations I’ve noted above. All of the areas now removed from protective status may not have any pet regulations and may not remain accessible to the public. So far they are still accessible for humans and pets.

Parts of Escalante we have explored

Individual posts have been written for each of the areas we have visited so far.

Lower Calf Creek Falls

Devil’s Garden

Willis Creek Slot Canyon

Pahreah or Paria

The Toadstools

More information

The Grand Canyon Trust is fighting to save Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.