National Parks and Monuments of the Colorado Plateau
Region: American Southwest
Logistical Difficulty: Moderate
Hiking Difficulty: Moderately High
Degree of Risk: Moderately High
Estimated time required (including travel and logistics): A week
No region on Earth truly compares to the American Red Rock Southwest, also known as the Colorado Plateau — perhaps America’s most iconic landscape. Known for its sandstone rock formations, curious arches, soaring mesas and mysterious slot canyons, the Southwest is an adventurers dream — but also a place of severe challenges. There are deeper canyons, hotter deserts, and weirder landscapes…but nothing else quite matches the sublime beauty of the red rock country.
Why Hike here?
- If you have to ask its obvious you’ve never seen a picture of this place
- Painted landscapes
- Unforgettable sunsets and rises
- Starry, starry nights
- Most of the world’s intact rock arches
- Native American ruins and petroglyphs
- Many hidden places to explore
- Impossible to take a bad picture here
- More wildlife than you’d expect in a desert
- Iconic landscapes protected by excellent US National Park System and strong regulations, present administration non-withstanding
- There’s this big hole in the ground everybody talks about
- Brian has in fact seen a road runner and coyote on same trip
But First Consider…
- The Southwest has been humbling the unprepared since the days of the Conquistadors
- It’s rugged high desert…don’t take it lightly
- Easy to get lost here
- Easy to get ‘ledged in’ (into a place you can’t get back out of)
- Easiest of all to get hit by the heat or dehydration
- Don’t be this guy, either
- Ironically, drowning from flash floods a major killer here
- Rattlesnakes are common (though bites fairly rare)
- Dams, mining has significantly changed many landscapes
- These are very remote areas
- Poor infrastructure, little public transportation outside developed National Park areas
- Hard to convey just how vast the American West is if you’ve never travelled through it
Hikes that we have done here…
- The Grand Canon North-South Traverse (Brian only)
- Observation Point, Zion Canyon NP
Hikes that we want to do here:
- The Narrows, Zion Canyon NP*
- Angel’s Landing, Zion Canyon NP*
- Havasu Falls, Havasupai Indian Reservation, Grand Canyon**
- Buckskin Gulch/Pariah Canyon
- The Wave
- Antelope Canyon (guided)
*On the Bucket List!
**Sylvia NEVER stops bugging Brian about this one.