Kane County: Nature, History and Hiking Destinations

When planning your trip to Kane County, it helps to first decide what you want to focus on: striking landscapes, hikes with varying levels of difficulty, or insights into regional history. The places and activities described offer a range of options. For tours that require permits, factor the applicable requirements into your plans before booking your stay.

Landscapes and Hiking

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument encompasses cliffs, canyons, plateaus and badlands. Five life zones range from low-elevation desert to coniferous forest. Activities include hiking, camping, off-road driving and exploring. Two paved roads provide access to the monument: Highway 89 to the south and Highway 12 to the north. The landscape and wide range of life zones offer several possible ways to focus your visit.

Coyote Buttes North, also known as The Wave, is in a wilderness area with striking geological sandstone formations. The recommended route to The Wave is a challenging 6.4-mile round-trip hike through wilderness terrain. A permit is required to visit the Coyote Buttes North permit area, which includes The Wave. The route and permit are therefore important details to plan for before your hike.

Paria Canyon offers opportunities for primitive recreation and access to one of the world's longest and deepest slot canyons. The Paria Canyon / Buckskin Gulch permit area, and therefore access to Buckskin Gulch, can be reached via four trailheads: Wire Pass, White House, Buckskin Gulch and Lees Ferry. Day-use permits for Paria Canyon can be purchased at any trailhead using a QR code and smartphone; check the current process before your trip. Overnight access to the canyons is limited to 20 people per day.

The hiking trails also vary in length and layout. The Angel’s Palace Trail in Kodachrome Basin State Park is a 1.5-mile loop. The park has 67 colorful monolithic rock spires, known as sediment pipes. By comparison, the recommended hike to The Wave is a much longer 6.4-mile out-and-back route and is explicitly rated as challenging. The distances can be compared, but no difficulty rating is given for the Angel’s Palace Trail.

The Tilted Mesa Trail System is also relevant for cycling and hiking: it comprises about 13 miles of interconnected singletrack trails specifically designed for mountain biking. The system is open to mountain biking, Class 1 e-bikes and hiking. In the Duck Creek area, outdoor activities include exploring caves, lakes, waterfalls, canyons, cliffs and meadows.

Visitor Centers and Practical Information

The visitor centers have different areas of focus. The Big Water Visitor Center focuses on early geological and paleontological discoveries and displays paleontological specimens discovered locally in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. At the Kanab Visitor Center, interpretive exhibits cover the geology and archaeology of the monument. Staff provide weather forecasts, hiking recommendations and road reports. Since these services can change, check the latest information in advance if you need these details for your planning.

Permitting rules are a separate planning consideration for Paria Canyon and Buckskin Gulch: day-use permits, trailheads and the overnight limit concern different aspects of a visit. When choosing a tour, match the route you want to take with the applicable permit and conditions. A permit is also required for Coyote Buttes North; the challenging route to The Wave is also clearly different from a shorter loop like the Angel’s Palace Trail.

History and Culture

Cultural traces in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument include rock art panels, settlement sites, campsites and granaries left by the Anasazi and Fremont cultures. In Kanab, the Kanab Museum preserves thousands of artifacts and archival materials. The Kanab Heritage House was completed in 1894 as a residence for Henry Bowman and his family.

Film history is another important cultural theme. Kanab made its film debut in 1924; since then, the region's landscapes have been used in more than 100 Hollywood productions. The Little Hollywood Movie Museum focuses on original film sets in its presentation of Southern Utah film history. In downtown Kanab, plaques commemorate actors and other film professionals associated with the nickname Little Hollywood.

Orderville offers a different historical connection: the town was founded in 1870 under the so-called United Order. The Orderville Kane County DUP Museum preserves artifacts as well as the history of local families and early settlers. The cultural and historical points of interest therefore vary, from film history and collections to the history of early settlement.

Plan More Activities

At Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, guests can explore the grounds on guided tours and trails; there are also opportunities to volunteer. As tour schedules and trail availability may change, check the current offerings before your visit. This gives you options beyond hiking and museum visits, with activities that offer a different focus.

If you're looking for a hotel in Kane County, plan your trip around the activities that matter most to you. For tours that require permits, take the relevant requirements and current procedures into account. For hikes, the listed distances and any explicitly stated difficulty rating can help you distinguish between the routes described.

Discover more destinations: Kanab, Orderville, Big Water, Duck Creek Village, Davis, Beaver County, Box Elder County, Utah County.

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