[Rockhounds] How a wild corner of southern Utah became the last place to be mapped in the US

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

Somewhere in the backcountry outside Escalante, a small Utah town of
drive-by diners and dust devils, and down a cramped slot canyon, adventure
guide Rick Green is exploring a strange frontier so wild and unknown that
it remains one of the most mysterious places on Earth.

The ravine drops 30m from an apron of mountainous land to a desert floor,
shrinking in width from around 100ft to barely 1ft, twisting and turning
before entering a labyrinth of uncharted canyons where the rock is a
streaky orange, the colour of a perfect sunset. All around, it is heavy
with quiet.

With the temperature pushing an extreme 40C and the canyon providing relief
from the stifling heat, Green presses on, aided by a helmet, harness,
climbing rope, rappel rings and carabiners that help him descend further
into the concealed valley. Beyond, there are few exits.

"No one was interested in this place for a very long time," said Green,
co-owner of Excursions of Escalante <https://www.excursionsofescalante.com/>.
"This is where the last range of mountains in America, the Henrys, were
named. It's home to the last-named rivers. It was the last place in America
to be explored in the 1870s. Everyone kept passing it by because it was so
darn dangerous."

Today, southern Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
<https://www.blm.gov/programs/national-conservation-lands/utah/grand-staircase-escalante-national-monument>
is
among the most treacherous and inaccessible swathes of land in the US. It
is a concertina, rippling with complicated plateaus, ridges, cliffs and
escarpments that have never been fully conquered nor understood by any
American, Indigenous or otherwise. It is bigger than some US states –
Delaware and Rhode Island, for instance.

And, crucially, for cartographiles, it was the last place to be mapped in
the continental US.

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240130-how-a-wild-corner-of-southern-utah-became-the-last-place-to-be-mapped-in-the-us