A Grand Staircase!

We just took a quick trip to a truly grand staircase: Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, that is.

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is part of a huge section of the southern Utah landscape that rises in a series of steps, east to west, climbing some 6,000 feet across 150 miles. Each successive plateau over this landscape represents a stairway tread, and each successive cliff is a riser - hence the name "Grand Staircase."

We're happy to be back in town, and looking forward to Stairway Walks talks we'll be giving at several King County libraries over the Spring and Summer (go to the "Walks and Events" page for more info).

Here are a few pictures from our visit. We saw natural "staircases" like this:

And sort-of stairways like this (maybe more of a ramp?):

After a mile's walk down a side canyon we came to this. No natural stairs here, and without ropes and rappelling skills, we just made up lunch and turned back!