Grand Staircase

The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is just under two-million square acres of remote land in the southeast corner of Utah.

It's one of those places where you can get lost in nature because the deep portion of the Grand Staircase - the portion where few people travel because the roads are "impassable" or just plain rough - is very remote. 

A drive into this part of America feels very much like a trip back in time. There are still undiscovered fo

ssil beds and I watched Peregrine Falcons swoop

 from the ridges onto their prey below. 

You can spend many weeks here and never cover the same ground twice. However it's never a bad idea to have a winch and full range of recovery gear onboard because you'll inevitably need it when (not really "if") you get stuck.

There is a sense that comes with true isolation of

 kinship with the world that surrounds you. Coyotes call in the night and the stars are so bright and vivid in the dry night air free of light pollution that you can almost reach out and touch them. Food tastes 

better. Water tastes sweeter and all senses resort to the primeval. 

Grosvenor Arch (right) is on the edge, the borderline of the monument and you can get there without much trouble. Even so, it's worth a visit - worth a moment in a life - to sit, and look at as clouds drift overhead against the cerulean sky.