The Colorado Plateau: Barrier to Travel,
Land to Be Savored

By Gary George, Hondoo Rivers and Trails

The Colorado River system has sculptured a maze of rugged tablelands in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah (the fabled Four Corners area) known as the Colorado Plateau – the canyonlands. 

It is a landscape of deep canyons, punctured by mesas, buttes and wildly eroded monoliths. The explorer John Wesley Powell aptly described this region in 1870 when he said, “All the scenic features of this canyon land are on a giant scale, strange and weird. Every river entering the drainage has cut a canyon; every lateral creek has cut a canyon; every brook runs in a canyon; every rill, born of a shower and living only during these showers, has cut a canyon; so that the whole upper basin of the Colorado River is traversed by a labyrinth of these deep gorges." Powell put the Colorado Plateau on the map in his heroic expedition down the Colorado River.

This region was the last explored section in the continental United States. To this day it remains sparsely settled and contains the continental U.S.’s largest tracts of unspoiled wilderness.

From Hoover Dam on the south to Flaming Gorge Dam on the north, the Colorado River system is dissected by only a handful of road crossings, making access difficult even for the most adventuresome traveler. The plethora of national parks and recreation areas, state and tribal parks, world-renowned historic and archeological sites, and formally designated wilderness areas draws tourists from around the world. Yet to experience the heart of the Colorado Plateau requires abandoning your touring car for more unconventional transportation – foot, horse or 4x4 vehicle.

The uninitiated visitor to the canyonlands isn’t aware of the immensity of the country and often tries to see too much in too little time.  The Colorado Plateau’s geology, archeology, history and scenic beauty can not be experienced in a day, week, month, year or even a lifetime. Nor is the Colorado Plateau best experienced at a certain time or in a particular season. The texture and colors of the landscape are too diverse and sensitive to subtle change in lighting to offer “the definitive view.”

This is a land that invites you back time after time for deeper and deeper exploration.  Visual surprises await each turn in the canyon bottom and at the summit of every slick rock ridge.  The Colorado Plateau is an evocative land that must be savored.