Grand Staircase Kanab
From the bottom step
The Grand Staircase, from the Kanab side.
Kanab sits under the Vermilion Cliffs at the bottom of a stack of cliff steps that climbs all the way to Bryce Canyon. This is the country east and north of town: the drives, what a passenger car can honestly do on them, and where the monument boundary now stands.
Start here
Kanab sits at the bottom of a staircase.
The Grand Staircase is a real geological feature and not a marketing name. From the Grand Canyon in the south to Bryce Canyon in the north, the land climbs in a series of enormous cliff steps, each one a different rock and a different colour. Geologists named them the Chocolate Cliffs, the Vermilion Cliffs, the White Cliffs, the Grey Cliffs and the Pink Cliffs.
Kanab sits on that staircase, under the Vermilion Cliffs, which is the red wall you can see from almost anywhere in town. Drive north on US-89 and you climb through the White Cliffs. Keep going and you eventually top out in the Pink Cliffs at Bryce. It is one of the few places on earth where you can drive up through a couple of hundred million years of rock in an afternoon and see the layers change colour as you go.
That staircase is why this country looks the way it does, and none of it depends on what any given piece of ground is currently designated as. The cliffs were here first.
Read this before you plan
The monument boundary is changing.
This section is dated on purpose. It was accurate on 3 August 2026 and it is the part of this page most likely to move.
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was established in 1996 at close to 1.9 million acres. A presidential proclamation signed on 13 July 2026 reduces it to about 181,541 acres in two units, named the Canyons of the Escalante Unit and the Kaiparowits Horizon Unit. The proclamation takes effect on 11 September 2026.
Both of the retained units sit well east of Kanab. The country described on this page, the Vermilion and White Cliffs country and the Johnson Canyon and Skutumpah corridors, falls outside them.
The land removed from the monument stays public. It does not become private and it does not close. It remains under federal management and loses monument level protection, which opens it to uses that the monument designation restricted. Conservation groups and tribal nations have said they will challenge the proclamation in court, and litigation over the earlier 2017 reductions has still not fully resolved, so the position may change again.
What this does not change: the roads, the cliffs or the need for a road report. Whatever the designation says on any given month, Johnson Canyon Road is still dirt at the top, Skutumpah is still impassable when wet, and the BLM visitor center on the east side of Kanab is still the only reliable source for what the road is doing today. Plan around conditions, not around headlines.
The honest part
What a normal car can actually do.
This is the question everybody actually has, and most guides dodge it. Johnson Canyon Road is paved for its first stretch north from US-89 and any car will manage that. It is a lovely, easy drive with the cliffs on both sides, and for a great many visitors it is enough on its own.
Past the pavement it becomes dirt, and from there north over Skutumpah toward Cannonville it is a long unmaintained route that wants high clearance, a spare, and a dry forecast. Every dirt road in this country turns to something close to grease when the clay gets wet, and that includes roads that were perfectly firm two hours earlier. Recovery out there is slow and expensive because there is nobody nearby.
The practical rule: drive the paved section freely, treat the dirt as a genuine backcountry commitment, and ask somebody who knows what it looks like today before you commit. Cell coverage drops away fast once you leave the highway, which is the other thing worth planning around.
A dry dirt road out here is easy. The same road two hours after a storm is a different road, and it does not care what your plan was.
Keep reading
More of Kanab on The Local.
Three parks
Zion, Bryce and the North Rim
Three parks in three directions, with the honest drive times.
Read the guideAfter dark
After dark in canyon country
An ordinance rather than a certificate, and where to actually go.
Read the guideThe shelf
Kanab, from a local
The town itself: the position, the film years, the permit culture and the seasons.
Read the pageQuick answers
The staircase, answered.
A real geological feature rather than a marketing name. Between the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon the land rises in a series of enormous cliff steps, each one a different rock and colour, named the Chocolate, Vermilion, White, Grey and Pink Cliffs. Kanab sits on that staircase beneath the Vermilion Cliffs, which is the red wall visible from most of town.
Yes. A proclamation signed on 13 July 2026 reduces the monument from close to 1.9 million acres to about 181,541 acres in two units, the Canyons of the Escalante Unit and the Kaiparowits Horizon Unit, taking effect on 11 September 2026. Both retained units sit well east of Kanab. Conservation groups and tribal nations have said they will challenge it in court, so the position may change again.
No. Land removed from the monument remains public and stays under federal management. It does not become private and it does not close to visitors. What it loses is monument level protection, which opens it to uses the designation had restricted. The roads, the cliffs and the access described on this page are unaffected.
The first stretch north from US-89 is paved and any car will manage it, and for many visitors that easy drive between the cliffs is enough on its own. Past the pavement it turns to dirt, and continuing north over Skutumpah toward Cannonville is a long unmaintained route that wants high clearance and a dry forecast.
The clay turns slick and roads that were firm two hours earlier become genuinely difficult. This applies across the whole area, including House Rock Valley Road on the permit side. Recovery is slow and expensive because there is nobody nearby and cell coverage drops off quickly once you leave the highway. Check conditions the same day rather than relying on how it was last week.
The designation moves. The cliffs do not.
Political boundaries around here have changed three times in a decade, and the country has not noticed. If you want the honest version of what living next to it is like, that is a conversation I am always glad to have.