The Monument
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument’s vast and austere landscape embraces a spectacular array of scientific and historic resources. This is a high, rugged and remote region, where bold plateaus and multi-hued cliffs run for distances, defying human perspective. It was the last place in the continental United States to be mapped. These strikingly beautiful and scientifically important lands are divided into three distinct regions: the Grand Staircase, the Kaiparowits Plateau and the Canyons of the Escalante. The Monument encompasses 1.9 million acres of southern Utah canyons, cliffs and plateaus.
- Hikers on the south end of the Monument
Even today, this unspoiled natural area remains a frontier, a quality that greatly enhances the Monument’s value for scientific study. The Monument presents exemplary opportunities for geologists, paleontologists, archeologists, historians, and biologists.
The Monument has a long and dignified human history. It is a place where one can see how nature shapes human endeavors in the American West, where distance and aridity have been pitted against our dreams and courage.
These nearly 2 million acres were designated a national monument on Sept. 8, 1996. The Monument is administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and in 2000, the Monument became the first unit of BLM’s National Landscape Conservation System.
