But it was enough time to give us a good sense of this spectacular place. The lodge, opened by area tourism pioneer Mark Austin in 1994, is a compound of ocher stucco buildings, including Hell's Backbone Grill. On our first day out, we drove about 10 miles down Highway 12 to a small parking area where the road crosses the Escalante River, which we hiked along between towering sandstone cliffs streaked with dark mineral stains. We waded across the river several times, pushing our way through willow thickets on the banks along the sandy trail. After lunch under a spectacular sandstone arch connecting two cliffs hundreds of feet above, we hiked for a couple of miles into another canyon to Upper Calf Creek Falls, where the creek crashes about 70 feet into a deep, green pool.
Vines cover the cliffs at the bottom of the canyon like a hanging garden.
The Straight Cliffs, on the eastern side of the plateau, run for almost 42 miles. To the west, the nearly impenetrable Grand Staircase drops to the Arizona state line. Built by Mormon settlers in 1880, the road stretches for 57 grueling miles across the sagebrush-covered Kaiparowits to Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. But skip the slot canyons if you are prone to claustrophobia. In some places, they're barely wide enough to walk through.