Decades ago, a buddy and I were driving from Arizona to Escalante for a camping trip in Utah’s canyon country. The shortest paved route to our destination would have required a long, looping, out-of-the-way drive. Studying the highway map, my buddy found a possible shortcut, which was shown as one of those dashed gray lines mapmakers use to signify asphalt-free routes of unknown condition. If passable, it would save us 90 miles of driving. If not, we could be candidates for a future Survivor episode.

“Let’s try it,” my buddy insisted, knowing full well that it would be my car taking the punishment if his shortcut turned out to be one of those white-knuckling pathways that make Jeep owners cringe.

The route, known as the Cottonwood Canyon Road, or simply Road 400, turned out to be a nicely graded roadway cutting through what is now the Grand Staircase- Escalante National Monument. I’ve driven the route several times since, generally taking it from north to south. Google claims it takes two hours to complete the 47-mile route if driven nonstop, but few of us ever do it that way.

From the top, the drive begins off Utah Highway 12 with a turn down Main Street in Cannonville. The visitor center there can provide handout maps and the latest road conditions.

The first seven miles to Kodachrome Basin State Park are paved. One of my favorites, Kodachrome offers campsites and hiking trails in a sprawling realm bounded by multicolored cliffs and studded with rocky monoliths known as sedimentary pipes. A National Geographic photo crew named this picturesque basin after that once-popular color film, but it still appears equally impressive in today’s digital, cell-phone images.

Beyond Kodachrome, the road becomes graded gravel and dirt, and in dry conditions, it can be negotiated in Grandma’s Buick. The most annoying impediment occurs when the road surface becomes corrugated with rippling, car-jarring washboards, which can make folks fear their fillings will fall out. The route becomes impassable in wet conditions when the roadbed’s clay underpinnings turn into a muddy goo capable of miring even your brother-in-law’s 4x4.

There are no 7-Elevens, Starbucks or gas stations along the route. Drivers should start with a full tank of fuel and bring along a healthy supply of snacks, water and warm clothing in case the unforeseen happens. With sparse traffic and spotty cell coverage, one must always be prepared.

Ten miles from Kodachrome Basin lies the turnoff to Grosvenor Arch, named by those Kodachrome photographers for their boss, Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, president of the National Geographic Society. The span arcs atop a sandstone cliff, 150 feet above the ground with the largest of its twin openings stretching almost 100 feet wide. The BLM provides parking, picnic tables and the last restroom one will find along the scenic drive. 

From Grosvenor, the road turns south. Ahead rises a sharp, twisted monocline known as the Cockscomb. This towering rooster comb of rock displays a marble-cake mottling of hues ranging from cinnamon red to cappuccino beige with occasional globs of chocolate brown dappling the mix.

A pair of roadside pullouts here serve as trailheads for folks stopping to hike the Cottonwood Narrows. This family-friendly, 1½-mile long slot canyon features a sandy-bottomed passage through a stream-carved corridor in the sandstone. Open stretches offer dollops of leafy greens and scarlet paintbrush.

Cottonwood Canyon Road continues south, its route sandwiched between the Cockscomb and wash. About 11 miles past the narrows, the road reaches the gaping mouth of Hackberry Canyon. A 5-mile hike from here leads to a rustic log cabin built around 1914 by hopeful miner Frank Watson.

The wash soon joins the Paria River. The valley broadens, and the road begins traversing the rolling, wide-open terrain. In the springtime, ground flowers blanketing the countryside transform this softly undulating landscape into a condiment-slathered platter of mustard yellows and relish greens. 

After a few more broad turns, Road 400 meets U.S. 89. From here, drivers can continue west to Kanab or east to Glen Canyon. Or they can do like me and simply make a U-turn and go back the way we came. After all, the scenery always looks different when viewed from the opposite direction.



On to Paria

Those yearning for a bit more backcountry adventure can follow the U.S. 89 west to the historical marker between mile posts 30 and 31. From here, a five-mile drive up BLM Road 585 leads to the bygone townsite of Pahreah, or Paria. Mormon pioneers settled near here in 1865, planning to use water from the Paria River to irrigate their crops.

In 1870, they moved their settlement upstream and founded the town of Pahreah in what they hoped was a better location. A decade later, major floods washed away fields and buildings. Folks departed and by 1892, the town was nearly deserted. Today, little more than a few foundations and the cemetery remain.

The location, however, proved to be so scenic that Hollywood built a movie set a mile from the bygone townsite. Here, they filmed Westerns such as The Cisco Kid, Mackenna’s Gold and The Outlaw Josey Wales. After flash flooding damaged the set in the late 1990s, volunteers helped to move, replace and restore the structures. The movie set was ultimately destroyed in 2006 when vandals set it on fire, but the land is still a site to behold.