Vermilion Cliffs

The Vermilion Cliffs are one of the long, stepped escarpments that make the Colorado Plateau look like a staircase built for giants. In the Grand Staircase — the sequence of cliff bands rising northward from the Grand Canyon towards Bryce — they form the second step, a wall of red rock that runs westward from the Page area along the Arizona–Utah border. Their colour is the point: iron oxide stains the sandstone every shade from brick to rose, with streaks of bluish grey where manganese comes through, and at sunrise or sunset the whole face seems lit from within.

The rock is Lower Jurassic sandstone and siltstone of the Moenave and Kayenta formations, laid down as river silt and desert dunes and later cemented by carbonates carried in by groundwater. Because it resists erosion better than the soft beds below, it stands up as a sheer rampart, broken into buttresses, alcoves and fins. Behind the Arizona section rises the Paria Plateau, whose slickrock hides some of the most photographed sandstone in the Southwest — the striped, swirling domes of Coyote Buttes and The Wave — as well as the long slot canyon of the Paria River.

The land around the cliffs was protected in stages: the Paria Canyon–Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness in 1984, then the much larger Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in 2000. The cliffs also have a famous population of birds. Since December 1996 captive-bred California condors have been released from their ledges in a recovery programme run with the Peregrine Fund; from just 22 birds in 1982, the species now numbers more than two hundred in the wild, and the huge black birds can often be picked out roosting high on the rock.

History runs along the base of the wall too. The Mormon pioneer Jacob Hamblin ranched in House Rock Valley beneath the cliffs, and the present highway through the valley follows the route of the old pioneer wagon road. Driving it, the cliffs keep you company for mile after mile, changing colour with the light.

Getting there

The western, Utah end of the escarpment lies about 50 km from Hurricane; St George Regional Airport (SGU) is about 60 km away. In Arizona, US Highway 89A runs beside the cliffs for most of the way between Jacob Lake and Marble Canyon, where it crosses the Colorado on Navajo Bridge near Lees Ferry. The BLM condor viewing site, with interpretive panels and shelter, lies about 3 miles (5 km) north of 89A on the unpaved House Rock Valley Road; Kanab, Utah, and Page, Arizona, are the nearest towns on this side. Access to Coyote Buttes and The Wave is by permit.