The Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument (GSENM) is a
United States national monument protecting the
Grand Staircase, the
Kaiparowits Plateau, and the
Canyons of the Escalante (
Escalante River) in southern
Utah
Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...
. It was established in 1996 by
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
*'' Præsident ...
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
under the authority of the
Antiquities Act
The Antiquities Act of 1906 (, , ) is an act that was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt on June 8, 1906. This law gives the president of the United States the authority to, by presidential proclam ...
with 1.7 million acres of land, later expanded to .
["National Landscape Conservation System National Monuments"](_blank)
(archive). ''blm.gov''. Bureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...
. April 2012. Retrieved December 10, 2017. In 2017, the monument's size was reduced by half in a succeeding
presidential proclamation
In the United States, a presidential proclamation is a statement issued by the president of the United States on an issue of public policy. It is a type of presidential directive.
Details
A presidential proclamation is an instrument that:
*s ...
, and it was restored in 2021.
The land is among the most remote in the country; it was the last to be mapped in the
contiguous United States
The contiguous United States, also known as the U.S. mainland, officially referred to as the conterminous United States, consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the District of Columbia of the United States in central North America. The te ...
.
["Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument"]
''blm.gov''. Bureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...
. 2017. Retrieved December 10, 2017.
The monument is administered by the
Bureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...
(BLM) as part of the
National Conservation Lands system. Grand Staircase–Escalante is the first and largest national monument managed by the BLM. Visitor centers are located in
Cannonville,
Big Water,
Escalante, and
Kanab
Kanab ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Kane County, Utah, United States.[Find a County]
". ' ...
.
Geography
The monument stretches from the towns of
Big Water,
Glendale, and
in the southwest to the towns of
Escalante and
Boulder
In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In ...
in the northeast. The monument is slightly larger in area than the state of
Delaware
Delaware ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic states, South Atlantic regions of the United States. It borders Maryland to its south and west, Pennsylvania to its north, New Jersey ...
. After a reduction ordered by presidential proclamation in December 2017, the monument encompassed ,
[ but it was restored to in 2021.
]
The western part of the monument is dominated by the Paunsaugunt Plateau and the Paria River, and is adjacent to Bryce Canyon National Park
Bryce Canyon National Park () is a national park of the United States located in southwestern Utah. The major feature of the park is Bryce Canyon, which despite its name, is not a canyon, but a collection of giant natural amphitheaters along ...
. This section shows the geologic progression of the Grand Staircase. Features include the slot canyon
A slot canyon is a long, narrow channel or drainageway with sheer rock walls that are typically eroded into either sandstone or other sedimentary rock. A slot canyon has depth-to-width ratios that typically exceed 10:1 over most of its length and ...
s of Bull Valley Gorge, Willis Creek, and Lick Wash which are accessed from Skutumpah Road.
The center section is dominated by a single long ridge, called the Kaiparowits Plateau from the west, and Fifty-Mile Mountain when viewed from the east. Fifty-Mile Mountain stretches southeast from the town of Escalante to the Colorado River
The Colorado River () is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The river, the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), 5th longest in the United St ...
in Glen Canyon. The eastern face of the mountain is a escarpment
An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations.
Due to the similarity, the term '' scarp'' may mistakenly be incorrectly used inte ...
. The western side (the Kaiparowits Plateau) is a shallow slope descending to the south and west.[
East of Fifty-Mile Mountain is the Canyons of the Escalante. The monument is bounded by Glen Canyon National Recreation Area on the east and south. The popular hiking, backpacking, and canyoneering areas include Calf Creek Falls off Utah Scenic Byway 12, and Zebra Canyon, ]Harris Wash
image:UTMap-doton-HarrisWash.png, Location of Harris Wash within Utah
Harris Wash is a long tributary of the Escalante River located in Garfield County, Utah, Garfield County in southern Utah, in the western United States. Over long with a drai ...
, and the Devils Garden. The latter areas are accessed via the Hole-in-the-Rock Road, which extends southeast from Escalante, near the base of Fifty-Mile Mountain. The Dry Fork Slots of Coyote Gulch and lower Coyote Gulch are also located off the Hole-in-the-Rock Road.[
]
Paleontology
Since 2000, numerous dinosaur fossils over 75 million years old have been found at Grand Staircase–Escalante.
In 2002, a volunteer at the Monument discovered a 75-million-year-old dinosaur near the Arizona border. On October 3, 2007, the dinosaur's name, '' Gryposaurus monumentensis'' (hook-beaked lizard from the monument) was announced in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society
The ''Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering zoology published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Linnean Society. The editor-in-chief is Maarten Christenhusz (Linnean Society) ...
. ''G. monumentensis'' was at least long and tall, and has a powerful jaw with more than 800 teeth. Many of the specimens from the Kaiparowits Formation
The Kaiparowits Formation is a sedimentary geological formation, rock formation found in the Kaiparowits Plateau in Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument, in the southern part of Utah in the western United States. It is over 2800 feet (8 ...
are reposited at the Natural History Museum of Utah
The Natural History Museum of Utah is a museum located in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The museum shows exhibits of natural history subjects, with an emphasis on Utah and the Intermountain West. The mission of the museum is to illumina ...
in Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...
.
Two ceratopsid
Ceratopsidae (sometimes spelled Ceratopidae) is a family of ceratopsian dinosaurs including ''Triceratops'', '' Centrosaurus'', and '' Styracosaurus''. All known species were quadrupedal herbivores from the Upper Cretaceous. All but one species are ...
(horned) dinosaurs, also discovered at the monument, were introduced by the Utah Geological Survey
The Utah Geological Survey is based in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It also has an office in Cedar City, Utah.
It is a division of the Utah Department of Natural Resources and is an applied scientific agency, which creates, interprets, ...
in 2007. They were uncovered in the Wahweap Formation, which is just below the Kaiparowits formation, where the duckbill was extracted. They lived about 80 million or 81 million years ago. The two fossils are called the Last Chance skull and the Nipple Butte skull. They were found in 2002 and 2001, respectively. Both were later identified as belonging to '' Diabloceratops''.
In 2013 the discovery of a new species, '' Lythronax argestes'', was announced. It is a tyrannosaur that is approximately 13 million years older than ''Tyrannosaurus
''Tyrannosaurus'' () is a genus of large theropod dinosaur. The type species ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' ( meaning 'king' in Latin), often shortened to ''T. rex'' or colloquially t-rex, is one of the best represented theropods. It lived througho ...
'', named for its great resemblance to its descendant. The specimen can be seen at the Natural History Museum of Utah.
Human history
Humans did not settle permanently in the area until the Basketmaker III Era, around AD'' ''500. Both the Fremont and ancestral Puebloan
The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as Ancestral Pueblo peoples or the Basketmaker-Pueblo culture, were an ancient Native American culture of Pueblo peoples spanning the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southe ...
people lived here; the Fremont hunted and gathered below the plateau and near the Escalante Valley, and the ancestral Puebloans farmed in the canyons. Both groups grew corn, beans, and squash, built brush-roofed pithouses, and took advantage of natural rock shelters. Ruins and rock art
In archaeology, rock arts are human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type al ...
can be found throughout the Monument.
The first record of white settlers in the region dates from 1866 when Captain James Andrus led a group of cavalry to the headwaters of the Escalante River.
In 1871 Jacob Hamblin of Kanab
Kanab ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Kane County, Utah, United States.[Find a County]
". ' ...
, on his way to resupply the second John Wesley Powell
John Wesley Powell (March 24, 1834 – September 23, 1902) was an American geologist, U.S. Army soldier, explorer of the American West, professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions. He ...
expedition, mistook the Escalante River for the Dirty Devil River and became the first Anglo to travel the length of the canyon.
In 1879 the San Juan Expedition crossed through the region on their way to a proposed Mormon colony in the far southeastern corner of Utah. Traveling on a largely unexplored route, the group eventually arrived at the sandstone cliffs that surrounded Glen Canyon. They found the only breach for many miles in the otherwise vertical cliffs, which they named Hole-in-the-Rock. The narrow, steep, and rocky crevice eventually led to a steep sandy slope in the lower section and eventually down to the Colorado River
The Colorado River () is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The river, the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), 5th longest in the United St ...
. With winter settling in, the company decided to go down the crevice rather than retreat. After six weeks of labor, including excavation and using explosives to shift rock, they rigged a pulley system to lower their wagons and animals down the resulting road and off the cliff. There they built a ferry, crossed the river, and climbed back out through Cottonwood Canyon on the other side.
National monument
A national monument was initially proposed in 1934, but the project floundered until several decades later. It was on September 18, 1996, at the height of the 1996 presidential election campaign by President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
*'' Præsident ...
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
, that the national monument was declared and was controversial from the moment of creation. The declaration ceremony was held at Grand Canyon National Park
Grand Canyon National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States located in northwestern Arizona, the 15th site to have been named as a national park. The park's central feature is the Grand Canyo ...
in Arizona
Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...
, rather than in Utah.
Local officials such as Democratic U.S. Representative Bill Orton from Utah objected to the designation of the national monument, questioning whether the Antiquities Act allowed such vast amounts of land to be designated. However, United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...
decisions have long established the president's discretion to protect land under the Antiquities Act, and several lawsuits filed in an effort to overturn the designation were dismissed by federal courts.[The Monumental Legacy of the Antiquites Act of 1906](_blank)
, Mark Squillace, Georgia Law Review, 2003. The area's designation as a monument also nixed the Andalex Coal Mine that was proposed for a remote location on the Kaiparowits Plateau.
Wilderness
Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plurale tantum, plural) are Earth, Earth's natural environments that have not been significantly modified by human impact on the environment, human activity, or any urbanization, nonurbanized land not u ...
designation for the lands in the monument had long been sought by environmental groups; however, the designation of a monument is not the same as wilderness designation, as activities such as motorized vehicle and mountain bike use are allowed in National Monuments.
There are contentious issues peculiar to the state of Utah. Certain plots of land were assigned when Utah became a state (in 1896) as School and Institutional Trust Lands (SITLa, a Utah state agency), to be managed to produce funds for the state school system. These lands included scattered plots in the monument that could no longer be developed. The SITLa plots within the monument were exchanged for federal lands elsewhere in Utah, plus equivalent mineral rights and $50'' ''million cash by an act of Congress, the Utah Schools and Lands Exchange Act of 1998, supported by Democrats and Republicans, and signed into law as Public Law 105–335 on October 31, 1998.
A more difficult problem is the resolution of United States Revised statute 2477
Revised Statute 2477, commonly known as RS 2477 was enacted by the United States Congress in 1866 to encourage the settlement of the Western United States by the development of a system of highways. Its entire text is one sentence: "the right-of- ...
(R.S. 2477) road claims. R.S. 2477 (Section 8 of the 1866 Mining Act) states: "The right-of-way for the construction of highways over public lands, not reserved for public uses, is hereby granted." The statute was repealed by the Federal Land Policy and Management Act
The Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) is a United States federal law that governs the way in which the public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management are managed. The law was enacted in 1976 by the 94th Congress and is ...
(FLPMA) of 1976, but the repeal was subject to valid existing rights.
A process for resolving disputed claims has not been established, and in 1996, the 104th United States Congress
The 104th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from January 3, 19 ...
passed a law that prohibited the R.S. 2477 (proposed resolution regulations) written by the Clinton Administration from taking effect without congressional approval.
The right to maintain and improve the many unpaved roads in the national monument is disputed, with county officials placing county road signs on the roads they claim and occasionally applying bulldozers to grade claimed roads, while the Bureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...
tries to exert control over the same roads. Litigation between the state and federal government over R.S. 2477 and road maintenance in the national monument is an ongoing issue.
Reduction in size, restoration, and lawsuits
On December 4, 2017, President Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
ordered that the monument's size be reduced by nearly 47% to , with the remainder divided into three areas, two of which border one another along the Paria River. Bears Ears National Monument was significantly reduced in size at the same time. Conservation, angling, hunting, and outdoor recreation groups filed suit to block any reduction in the national monument, arguing that the president has no legal authority to materially shrink a national monument.[Environmental, conservation groups sue Trump over monument changes](_blank)
CNN
Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...
, December 4, 2017 The cases were still pending at the 2020 election. The Trump administration subsequently approved logging within the national monument and coal mining in the area that was removed from the monument.
On his first day in office, President Joe Biden
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who was the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice p ...
signed an executive order calling for a review of the reduction of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase–Escalante monuments. On October 8, 2021, he restored the original boundaries.
Two lawsuits, ''Garfield County v. Biden'', filed by the state of Utah and two Utah counties, and ''Dalton v. Biden,'' filed by a mining company and recreationalists, seek to overturn the reaffirmed original boundaries and attack the Antiquities Act
The Antiquities Act of 1906 (, , ) is an act that was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt on June 8, 1906. This law gives the president of the United States the authority to, by presidential proclam ...
. The tribes filed motions to intervene.
On August 11, 2023, U.S. District Judge David Nuffer dismissed both cases, explaining that "the Antiquities Act gives the president broad authority to designate national monuments and that courts cannot second-guess that authority." The state of Utah and other parties have since appealed the dismissal, but no such challenge has been successful in 100 years of the Antiquity Act's history. The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (in case citations, 10th Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:
* District of Colorado
* District of Kansas
* Dist ...
heard the case in September 2024.
See also
* List of national monuments of the United States
The United States has 138 protected areas known as national monuments. The president of the United States can establish a national monument by presidential proclamation, and the United States Congress can do so by legislation. The president's a ...
* Cottonwood Canyon Road
* Dixie National Forest
Dixie National Forest is a United States National Forest in Utah with headquarters in Cedar City. It occupies almost two million acres (8,000 km2) and stretches for about across southern Utah. The largest national forest in Utah, it ...
* Escalante Petrified Forest State Park
* Grosvenor Arch
* Kodachrome Basin State Park
Kodachrome Basin is a state park of Utah, United States. It is situated above sea level, south of Utah Route 12, and southeast of Bryce Canyon National Park. It is accessible from the north from Cannonville by a paved road and from the sou ...
* Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness
* Silvestre Vélez de Escalante Silvestre is a Spanish and Portuguese given name or surname, or a French surname. Notable people with the name include:
Surname
* Cindy Silvestre (born 1993), French kickboxer
* Franck Silvestre (born 1967), retired French footballer
* Isac Sil ...
Footnotes
References
* Paul Larmer (editor), ''Give and Take: How the Clinton Administration's Public Lands Offensive Transformed the American West'' (High Country News Books, 2004)
* Bureau of Land Management, Grand Staircase–Escalante NM, ''Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument Management Plan'' (U.S. Dept. of the Interior Bureau of Land Management, 1999)
* David Urmann, ''Trail Guide to Grand Staircase–Escalante'' (Gibbs Smith, 1999)
* Robert B. Keiter, Sarah B. George and Joro Walker (editors), ''Visions of the Grand Staircase–Escalante: Examining Utah's Newest National Monument'' (Utah Museum of Natural History and Wallace Stegner Center, 1998)
* Julian Smith, "Moon Handbooks Four Corners" (Avalon Travel Publishing, 2003)
* Fleischner, Thomas Lowe, ''Singing Stone: A Natural History of the Escalante Canyons'' (University of Utah Press, 1999)
External links
Bureau of Land Management: official Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument website
Grand Staircase Escalante Partners
support for public awareness, interpretive, educational, scientific, scenic, historical, and cultural activities.
*
*
*
* United States. Congress. House. (1997)
Establishing the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument: Oversight Hearing before the Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands of the Committee on Resources, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fifth Congress, First Session, On Establishment ... by President Clinton on September 18, 1996: April 29, 1997
Washington. D.C: G.P.O.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
Bureau of Land Management national monuments
Bureau of Land Management areas in Utah
Colorado Plateau
Natural arches of Utah
Rock formations of Utah
Landforms of Kane County, Utah
Landforms of Garfield County, Utah
Protected areas of Garfield County, Utah
Protected areas of Kane County, Utah
Protected areas established in 1996
1996 establishments in Utah
Units of the National Landscape Conservation System
Badlands of the United States