Unseen Utah: The 5 Best Grand Staircase Hikes
Photo by Michael Kunde, courtesy of Visit Utah
“Get Out There” is a column for itchy footed humans written by Paste contributor Blake Snow. Although different now, travel is better than ever. Today we visit Southern Utah’s Grand Staircase National Monument.
Southern Utah is well-known, if not sometimes overrun, for its five otherworldly National Parks. But most travelers have yet to discover nearby Grand Staircase National Monument, which is actually larger than the five neighboring parks combined and legitimately just as eye-popping. As a bonus, Grand Staircase is a lot less crowded, regardless of season.
Although best-known for The Wave—the iconic, permit-only, and Mars-inspired day hike on the state border—Grand Staircase is filled with similarly inspiring hikes that are as good as just about anything you’ll find in a more “prestigious” National Park. If you’re looking for something a little more wild, look no further than these five hikes.
Peek-a-Boo & Spooky Slots
Millions of visitors come to Utah every year for its narrow and towering red rock canyons. But two of the state’s most stunning and funnest slot canyons are actually found inside Grand Staircase National Monument. Better yet, Peekaboo and Spooky are next door to each other and pair nicely for a moderate, if not slightly challenging, family-friendly 4 mile loop.
That said, these slot canyons are no joke. To get there, you’ll need to travel on an incredibly bumpy gravel road for about an hour. Once there, larger hikers will need to squirm or suck in to shimmy through the tight squeeze. And everyone must scramble, climb, and likely require a rope at the start, if the rangers remove the ones hikers normally leave behind (which they often do). To further complicate matters, the trail is poorly marked, so it’s easy to veer off course unless you download an offline map.
But if you can manage all of that, you’re in for a real, off-the-beaten path treat.