Grand Staircase-Escalante NM

— Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is a sleeping giant. The park encompasses 1,880,461 acres (7,610 km2). According to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which now administers the park since September 18, 2021, “the Monument is a diverse geologic treasure speckled with monoliths, slot canyons, natural bridges, and arches.” If you take a drive, say, from Bryce Canyon NP to Capitol Reef NP, you will see “an outstanding biological resource, spanning five life-zones – from low-lying desert to coniferous forest,” says the BLM.

Unfortunately, we did not spend much time in the park. The only place we visited was Grosvenor Arches. The area featured here in these photos is at Powell Point and the Larb Hollow Overlook (the black and white photo). According to Wikipedia, humans — the Fremont and ancestral Puebloan people — did not settle in this area until AD 500. Using the canyons and natural rock shelters, these people lived off farming, growing corn, beans, and squash.

The park’s name had been in the news ever since it was created in 1996. More recently, during the Trump presidency, more controversy surfaced, when the former president “ordered that the monument’s size be reduced by nearly 47% to 1,003,863 acres (4,062 km2),” writes Wikipedia. Trump’s intent was to open the monument for mining. Fortunately, as of today (October 8, 2021), President Biden has restored the park to its full boundaries. Along with Grand Staircase-Escalante, Bears Ears NM also got its boundaries fully restored.