Driving Paria Canyon, Utah (Grand Staircase)

For the adventurous, Paria Canyon, near Kanab, Utah, is a wonderful 4-wheel day drive. Here is Awesome Joan and her hubby deflating tires as we begin our caravan trip over the graded dirt Skutumpah Road that begins in Johnson Canyon and heads to Paria Canyon.

Bull Gorge is a narrow deep ravine on the Skutumpah Road. There's a trail head here and it looks like it would be an interesting hike.

After an hour or so driving on the Skutumpah Road, we reach Paria Canyon and begin driving south down the stream bed. Today, we will drive as far as the old movie set and exit on Highway 89 about 20 miles east of Kanab.

This gorgeous canyon is mainly white sandstone. The river bed is flat in most places. We criss-cross the river, driving back and forth on the river banks. About half the trip is driving in the streambed itself. October is a great time of year to make this trip because it's usually dry weather--a must in this rugged canyon country where flash floods can be deadly!

Deeper into the canyon, we pass huge cross-bedded sandstone walls. Bordering the river are rows of golden cottonwoods. At the river's edges, crusty white patches of alkali appear wherever the water has evaported on the sandy river bottom.

About half way down the canyon, there's an unnamed slot canyon on the west side of the main canyon that's short, but worth exploring. The sculpted walls depict the power of flash floods to carve and chisel sandstone into wierd and wonderful shapes.

At last we arrive at the Pahreah townsite where a few structures still remain. Here, the canyon is wide, the vibrantly colored canyon walls amazing, and the isolation is still incredible. In the end, despite all their efforts to outlast the flash floods, heat, cold, and deprivation, the people left and the river remains.

Buttes of colored clay tower above the movie set built in the (?) 1960s. You can drive a car to this site on a good dirt road from Highway 89. If you continue up-canyon, north of the movie set, you'll need a high clearance vehicle & all the usual emergency gear.

Vandles torched the movie set a few years ago and only the foundation piles remain. But the scenery is still magnificent and well worth the trip to see the site. This area is part of the Grand Staircase-Escalante Nat. Mon. BLM offices in St. George, Cannonville & Escalante have maps & other information about this trip.