Home Care In Cannonville, UT

Nicknamed “the Science Monument,” the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument in southern Utah features spectacular multihued cliffs and canyon systems that showcase millennia of sedimentary rock formations. Scientists come from all over the world to study Grand Staircase–Escalante’s unique fossil-containing sites, which offer an unparalleled window into the Late Cretaceous period. President Bill Clinton designated Grand Staircase–Escalante as a national monument in 1996, providing needed protection to its special geologic and historic treasures and its vividly beautiful landscapes.

Since its designation, research in the monument has flourished, yielding fossils of previously undiscovered dinosaur species and offering rare opportunities to study undisturbed desert ecosystems in situ. Yet the monument became a focus of the Trump administration’s anti-environmental agenda. On December 4, 2017, then president Donald Trump signed proclamations dismantling Grand Staircase–Escalante as well as the Bears Ears National Monument, also in Utah. Trump’s proclamation slashed Grand Staircase–Escalante by roughly half, leaving nearly a million acres of federal public land open to harmful developments—such as mineral exploitation, coal mining, new road construction, the use of mechanized vehicles, and oil and gas drilling—that could ruin vital parts of the paleontological record and the land's wild natural character.

NRDC—together with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and a coalition of other environmental groups represented by Earthjustice—immediately filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C. (We also filed a separate lawsuit over Bears Ears.) A coalition of paleontologists and other monument supporters filed a similar lawsuit, and the district court consolidated the two cases. Our lawsuits asserted that Trump had neither the constitutional nor statutory authority to dismantle national monuments. In January 2020, we moved for summary judgment.

While we were awaiting the district court’s decision, Trump’s presidency ended, and President Joe Biden—on his first day in office—issued an executive order initiating a review of Trump’s monument rollbacks.

Then, on October 8, 2021, President Biden issued a proclamation restoring Grand Staircase–Escalante to its pre-Trump boundaries. The Biden administration repudiated Trump’s rollback as “unprecedented,” observing that NRDC and our partners’ lawsuits “raised serious and fundamental questions as to whether a president has authority to reduce boundaries or core protections in a way that is tantamount to revocation of a monument.” President Biden restored Grand Staircase–Escalante, the White House explained, to uphold “the long-standing principle that America’s national parks, monuments, and other protected areas are to be protected for all time and for all people.”

In light of the Biden administration’s actions, the district court has “stayed” (paused) our litigation. But the monument still faces real threats from the Trump administration’s rollback, including from mining claims staked there on Trump’s watch. While our case is stayed, the federal government is still required to provide us with timely notice of potentially harmful developments. Separately, the state of Utah and other monument opponents have filed legal challenges to Biden’s restoration proclamation, and NRDC has intervened to defend the restored monument. We will continue to advocate alongside our partners to ensure that Grand Staircase–Escalante remains permanently protected, as it deserves.

The hotel is inspired by the Panorama Glass Lodge in Iceland and Memories Aicha Luxury Camp in Jordan’s Wadi Rum.

| Updated: 2:58 p.m.

Their upcoming resort in rugged Garfield County may be a first in America, but the developers don’t want anyone left in the dark about the tourist retreat’s star attraction: the night sky.

That’s why Hal Feinberg and Steven Mutsaers, co-creators of Clear Sky Resorts, are opening America’s first glass dome hotel on 80 secluded acres in Cannonville, just 15 miles southeast of Bryce Canyon in an area where dark skies help stargazers see the constellations in a whole new light.

“We want to give people a unique place to stay that they will never have experienced before,” Feinberg said about the Clear Sky Resorts Bryce Canyon, which will be opening this August.

An aquarium of stars

Inspired by the Panorama Glass Lodge in Iceland and Memories Aicha Luxury Camp in Jordan’s Wadi Rum, Clear Sky’s Bryce Canyon resort aims to combine the best elements of luxury outdoor camping, or glamping, and stays in opulent hotels.

(Clear Sky Resorts) A view of Clear Sky Resorts tents near Bryce Canyon National Park.

“This is literally like taking a four-and-a-half-star hotel room and dropping it in the [outdoors],” Feinberg said. “It will literally be like sleeping outside under the stars but in the comfort of a luxurious hotel room. You will be able to wake up during the night and look at an aquarium of stars through the windows, and the sunrises and sunsets will be just as amazing.”

Clear Sky’s Bryce Canyon resort will consist of 60 geodesic domes (or geodomes), which are structures constructed with interlocking hexagons or triangles that connect to form a strong and futuristic-looking half-sphere.

German engineer Walter Bauersfeld is credited with inventing the structure in the 1920s in his design for a planetarium that was perched atop an optic factory in Jena, Germany. A few decades later, American architect Buckminster Fuller patented and popularized geodome structures in the United States.

Not content to replicate past geodomes or the glass lodges in other countries, the developers believe their geodomes will take the concept to the next level. For starters, all the resort’s domes will have floor-to-ceiling, dual-pane “low E glass” windows coated with invisible metallic oxide that allows natural light in but deflects ultraviolet and infrared light.

Moreover, the “climate-controlled sky domes,” depending on their size, will accommodate two, four or as many as eight guests and feature luxury king-sized beds, linen and interior furniture. They also will come with privacy curtains and patios, kitchens equipped with microwaves and mini-refrigerators, opulent bathrooms and free Wi-Fi.

Disco nights and laser lights

Guests who want to fork out more — the prices will vary from $500 to $1,125 a night — can enjoy domes with two-bedroom suites, two bathrooms, a spiral staircase to access a loft, and a slide that guests can ride back to the ground floor. Pricier still are the domes that feature a dance floor, disco ball and laser lights, accompanying sound system and retro ‘70s furniture.

Lest that seem at odds with guests seeking solitude and stars undimmed by light pollution, the developers add that the sound-resistant domes are oriented and positioned far enough apart to ensure the activities at one don’t interfere with guests’ experience at another. Moreover, the disco becomes silent after 10 p.m., meaning revelers must don headphones to listen to the music.

“It’s not for everybody … ‚” Feinberg admitted. “It’s just a fun way to have something that you have never seen in a hotel room.”

(Clear Sky Resorts) A view of the sky from a Clear Sky Resorts tent near Bryce Canyon National Park.

If disco isn’t everyone’s proverbial cup of tea, the developers hope the food and drink with space-age names on the menu at their 3,000-square-foot glass dome restaurant — one of America’s largest — will be. Rounding out the resort’s amenities will be yoga lessons, stargazing tours, frisbee golf, cornhole and other golf games. There also are firepits where guests can gather each evening to swap stories and savor complimentary toasted marshmallow and chocolate s’more desserts.

In keeping with its otherworldly space and star ambiance, the resort will also have a projection dome where guests can watch movies projected at 360 degrees to provide them with an immersive, planetarium-like experience.

Still, Feinberg noted, the area’s dark skies are the resort’s signature attraction. Nearby Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef national parks and Kodachrome Basin State Park have been designated as International Dark Sky Parks by the International Dark-Sky Association. Dark skies are also prevalent over the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Scenic Byway 12.

Also captivating is the beauty of the area’s natural landscapes that guests can glimpse from the comfort of their domes.

“One one side there are beautiful red rocks that rival those in Sedona, Ariz.,” Feinberg said. “On the backside, there are beautiful white sandstone hoodoos.”

Tourism is a top-dollar concern

Clear Sky Resorts Bryce Canyon is a welcome sight for officials in Garfield County, which is heavily reliant on tourism dollars. In 2021, for example, more than 2.1 million tourists visited Bryce Canyon and spent about $195 million, which led to the creation of nearly 23,000 jobs, according to Headwaters Economics and the National Park Service.

(Clear Sky Resorts) A Clear Sky Resorts tent near Bryce Canyon National Park.

Falyn Owens, executive director of Garfield County Office of Tourism, noted about 70% of the county is tied to tourism. Last year, the county collected nearly $3 million in transient room taxes. All told, she noted, there are roughly 2,500 hotel rooms spread out over the county’s nearly 5,000 square miles and more are needed.

So the opening of a year-round attraction like Clear Sky Resorts Bryce Canyon, Owens added, is a “big deal,” especially as the county tries to encourage more visitors to stay longer than one or two days in the area.

“We are trying hard to get people to understand that [Garfield County] is a bucket list destination,” she said. “We are not just about national parks. We have so many other things to do.”

Luxury outdoor resorts are increasingly viewed as a great complement to traditional hotel stays. Glamping was a $2.35 billion global industry in 2021. The number of glamping resorts across the country soared from 91 in 2015 to 230 in 2022, according to the North American Glamping Report.

Clear Sky Resorts, which also has a non-glass sky dome resort near the Grand Canyon, is trying to locate resorts next to national parks to take advantage of the lack of development and dark skies in such areas and to acquaint visitors with nearby and less familiar attractions.

Jaden Wood, who enjoys hiking the Grand Staircase and Garfield County’s backcountry, said over-development and overcrowding is ruining Utah’s national parks.

(Clear Sky Resorts) A view of Clear Sky Resorts tents near Bryce Canyon National Park.

“Like a lot of locals, I don’t even hike Zion anymore,” the Hurricane resident says. “I worry that all these new resorts that are being developed will destroy what’s left of the wilderness experience in other areas of southern Utah.”

Feinberg said Clear Sky’s resort in Cannonville, much of which is nestled in a secluded canyon and is not visible from the town, will preserve the area’s wilderness characteristics.

“We really are trying to be respectful to the environment that surrounds us,” he said.

Editor’s note • This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.

Trump cuts removed protection from key fossil beds

The Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin reported on April 19 that new findings on the behavior of tyrannosaurs are supported by fossil evidence uncovered in Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument over the last few years. Experts determined the tyrannosaurs whose remains were discovered in the monument (from the Teratophoneus genus) were likely social predators, meaning they may have hunted in packs like wolves, upending the traditional notion of the solitary stalking predator.

The fossils were unearthed in what scientists refer to as the “Rainbows and Unicorns Quarry”--so named because it’s been a reliable source of surprising and paradigm-shifting discoveries.

As Dr. Philip Currie, a dinosaur expert, told Fox 13 Salt Lake City, "Localities [like Rainbows and Unicorns Quarry] that produce insights into the possible behavior of extinct animals are especially rare[.]”

Grand Staircase-Escalante the site of numerous fossil discoveries

Grand Staircase-Escalante has long been considered an usually rich source of fossils, including of dinosaurs. The Rainbows and Unicorns Quarry is found on the Kaiparowits Formation, a sedimentary rock array that is somewhere between 72 and 83 million years old. By some accounts, it could contain "the best and most continuous record of Late Cretaceous terrestrial life in the world” (part of the reason President Bill Clinton protected it under the Antiquities Act).

Grand Staircase-Escalante is an unusually rich source of fossils—and Trump’s unlawful rollbacks left more than 700 scientifically important sites with reduced protection

Indeed, though only a tiny fraction of the area has been excavated by paleontologists, it has already proven unusually fruitful, yielding the only known specimen of a new Triceratops ancestor in 1998 among other fossils. Experts think there are many more bones waiting to be unearthed in the once-swampy region, as attested by the 2013 discovery of a brand new species closely related to Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Trump rollbacks made space for development, threatened fossils and research

When then-President Trump unlawfully rolled back protections for Grand Staircase-Escalante in 2017, it paved the way for coal, oil, gas and tar sand development in many areas with enormous potential for fossil finds.

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Maps based on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) data reflect that early half (46 percent) of the lands eliminated from Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument have high or very high fossil potential, and nearly 250,000 acres of these lands directly conflict with energy development areas:

In many areas, the “Trump boundaries” were drawn almost exactly along the lines of energy development areas eyed by industry. More than 700 scientifically important fossil sites were cut out of those new monument boundaries. The new tyrannosaur findings were not made on land cut from the monument by Trump, but they do illustrate the dangers of his rollbacks, and of attacks on public lands more broadly.

Similarly, and even more dismaying, in 2018, it was announced that a unique and scientifically important cache of Phytosaurs, crocodile-like reptiles, had been found on lands eliminated from Bears Ears National Monument.

Related

Fossil discoveries show paleontology depends on protecting places like Bears Ears

In late 2017, as some of the unearthed fossils were being analyzed by researchers, Trump made his legally dubious decision to shrink Bears Ears by 85 percent, putting the fossil bed outside of the monument-protected area and threatening the dig's funding.

Read

Trump’s cuts happened while some of those unearthed fossils were being analyzed by researchers, suddenly putting the fossil bed outside of the monument-protected area and threatening the dig's funding. Highlighting some of the dangers facing such fossil sites absent monument status, researchers uncovered one specimen that bore telltale signs of looting.

Learn more: we answer 6 questions about what’s happening to Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monument.

CANNONVILLE, Utah – There’s a very colorful state park in southern Utah that gets overlooked, despite its distinctive rock chimneys from long-dead petrified geysers.

Kodachrome Basin State Park gets little respect, lost amidst the glitter of its more famous neighboring national parks: Bryce, Zion, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands and Arches. It is also surrounded by Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument that covers 1.9 million acres.

But Kodachrome Basin is a desert gem. At an elevation of 5,800 feet, the park lies 22 miles east of Bryce Canyon National Park and nine miles south of Cannonville. It is in the heart of Utah’s “color country.”

Kodachrome Basin offers remoteness, desert solitude and reddish cliffs, along with its distinguishing features: 67 rare, whitish monolithic limestone towers.

The tallest chimney or sand pipe is 170 feet high and the shortest is 6 feet. They appear to stand as rock sentries towering above the park. Most are 30 to 50 feet tall and are more than a little surreal. The basin has more spires of its kind that any other place in the world.

The views of the rock formations change with the sunlight, as does the contrast. Some jut upward from the valley floor. Others tower above surrounding cliffs and outcrops.

Geologists believe that the spires formed when liquefied sand hardened inside ancient geysers. That may have resulted from earthquakes or the remnants of ancient springs.

The calcite and feldspar inside the geysers’ pipes remained after softer exterior rocks of Entrada sandstone eroded away.

Kodachrome Basin is believed to have been very similar to Yellowstone National Park – with hot springs, geysers and boiling mud pots.

Visitors from the National Geographic Society in 1948 suggested naming the 2,241-acre park for the color film. The society led a photo tour via automobiles in 1947 into the little-known Escalante Lands of southern Utah. Society members suggested changing the name of Thorley’s Basin or Thorny Pasture, as the place was locally known, because of the contrasting colors in the pretty little valley.

The film had been introduced commercially in 1935 and was first used in the society’s famous magazine in 1936. Eastman Kodak in Rochester, N.Y., proudly agreed to the name change in 1949. Kodachrome Basin became a state park in 1963.

The park’s green color comes from the dominant juniper, plus pinion pine.

It features eight short hiking trails. They include a half-mile nature trail and Panorama Trail, a three-mile loop that is the longest in the park. Panorama Trail includes a second loop of two miles and several side trails. It leads to Panorama Point.

The Panorama Trail takes you to Ballerina Slipper spire, the wide-brimmed pedestals of Hat Shop and Secret Pass, a narrow passage between red-rocked walls. It also takes you past a rock spire that looks like cartoon and film character Fred Flintstone. Mountain bikes are permitted on the Panorama Trail and on park roads.

The Grand Parade Trail stretches 1.7 miles on the canyon floor and past two box canyons, and Cool Cave Trail is two miles long with stops at Big Bear Geyser and Cool Cave.

Eagle’s View Trail climbs a quarter-mile via a steep, narrow path to provide an up-high look at the park.

Shakespeare Arch is 20 feet across and 90 feet high in a small out-of-the-way cove. It is a one-mile round trip to get there. Angels Place Trail is a one-mile loop that offers great park vistas from atop a butte. The Nature Trail offers a look at rock formations and desert plants.

The park is classified as semidesert in the Upper Sonoran Zone, with plants and animals that must adapt to drought as well as extreme heat and cold.

Animals include mule deer, mountain lions, coyotes, bobcats, gray foxes, black-tailed jack and cottontail rabbits, rock squirrels and chipmunks, along with birds, snakes and lizards.

Kodachrome Basin is not big or fancy. It offers 27 tent and recreation vehicle sites with restrooms, showers and a sewage disposal station. The campground is open from April through September.

A park concessionaire, the Trail Head Station, rents cabins in the heart of the park, sells supplies and offers guided horseback and stagecoach rides in season. The cabins include full baths and showers and air conditioning. Call 435-679-8536 or 435-679-8787 for information.

The park charges $6 admission for day use. The overnight camping fee is $15.

One nearby attraction is Grosvenor Arch, a double arch 10 miles south of Kodachrome Basin off Cottonwood Canyon Road. It is one of the largest arches in Utah and is found in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Contact Kodachrome Basin State Park at 435-679-8562. Camping reservations: 800-322-3770. Cabin rentals: 435-679-8536.

State Route 12 is a major route through southern Utah, a land that is a geological playground. It is a National Scenic Byway, one of 120 in the United States. It is also an All-American Road, one of only 31 so designated by the Federal Highway Administration.

The federal designation stretches 124 miles between U.S. 89 in the west and Torrey in the east at Capitol Reef National Park.

Its most striking feature may be the Hogback, a narrow ridge with steep drops on both sides of the road between Escalante and Boulder.

There are turnoffs for motorists to stop and admire the sandstone Escalante Canyons carved by the Escalante River and its tributaries. Nearby are Upper and Lower Calf Creek Falls.

You can hike to Upper Calf Creek Falls. It is a slickrock round-trip hike of four miles. The trail is marked by stone cairns. It is a hot, scrubby, exposed landscape.

It leads to the 88-foot-high cascade in a shaded, green alcove at the head of the canyon. The Escalante River and its tributaries were the last streams in the United States to be discovered, named and mapped.

Lower Calf Creek Falls, where the stream drops 126 feet into a green pool in a cliff-bound canyon, attracts more visitors. It is at the end of a 3.1-mile one-way hike.

At its western end, the highway bisects the popular Red Canyon in Dixie National Forest, a one-time hideout of outlaw Butch Cassidy. There are 14 trails that stretch 34 miles in that 41,400-acre tract.

It skirts must-see Bryce Canyon National Park, a beautiful place with thousands of hoodoos, the eye-popping red-orange spires or pillars of rock that are the park’s most defining feature. The 35,835-acre park offers a spectacular badlands landscape that is bewitching.

You can admire the park’s distinctive rock formations from an 18-mile scenic drive on Rim Road off state Route 12 – with dozens of overlooks. You can also hike into the hoodoos.

The powerful blend of rock and color shifts with the light. What you see in the morning is different from what you will see in late afternoon or at twilight. There are warm yellows, browns, oranges, pinks, reds, greens, whites and purples that spill from the bizarrely shaped spires, monoliths, fins, mazes, fluted walls, sculptured pinnacles and deep ravines.

Early settler Ebenezer Bryce said of the oddly shaped terrain: “It’s a helluva place to lose a cow.” Bryce visitors will agree.

The park offers a visitor’s center, lodge with three suites, one studio, 70 motel rooms and 40 cabins (open April through October), two campgrounds, restaurant and general store. Admission is $20 per car.

For information, call 435-834-5322 or see http://www.nps.gov/brca. The lodge is managed by Xanterra. Call 303-297-2757 or 888-297-2757 for reservations and information. See http://www.xanterra.com and http://www.brycecanyonlodge.com.

From Bryce, Route 12 then runs along the northern edge of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

You can get off Route 12 onto dirt roads that are designated scenic backways; these will take you to less traveled scenic areas. That includes Hole-in-the-Rock Scenic Backway and Burr Trail Scenic Backway.

Grand Staircase-Escalante has visitor centers in Cannonville, Escalante and Boulder.

Willis Creek Narrows is another attraction. The stream narrows to 4 feet with cliffs more than 200 feet high. It is a colorful world of rock, water and shadows. It is one of many slot canyons in the national monument.

For information, contact the Cannonville Visitor Center, 435-679-8981, http://www.ut.blm.gov/monument.

There are numerous outfitters in Escalante and Boulder (the two towns are 29 miles apart) that provide guided trips, shuttles and one-day excursions to slot canyons and other nearby attractions.

The prime seasons to visit are mid-March through May and again in September and October.

For information about Route 12 and its attractions, there are two contacts:

-Garfield County Travel Council, 800-444-6689; http://www.brycecanyoncountry.com.

-Wayne County Travel Council, 800-858-7951; http://www.capitolreef.org.

You can also contact the Utah Travel Council, 800-200-1160, http://www.utah.com, and Utah State Parks and Recreation at 801-538-7220, http://www.stateparks.utah.gov.

On April 5, Gov. Spencer Cox declared April Dark Sky Month in Utah. Though you wouldn’t know it from the light-polluted urban centers, Utah is actually one of the best places in the world to observe the night sky, no telescope required. The state’s declaration committed to preserving dark sky places—plus the health benefits and tourist dollars they bring.

Utah has 23 locations accredited by the International Dark Sky Association. The sheer number of dark sky parks in Utah—the highest concentration in the world—makes Utah an unofficial stargazing capital. Recognition from the IDA isn’t a simple task. Officials go through a lengthy application process to earn the distinction, which, according to the association, goes to “land possessing an exceptional or distinguished quality of starry nights and a nocturnal environment that is specifically protected for its scientific, natural, educational, cultural heritage and/or public enjoyment.”

If you are part of the public who wants to take part in that enjoyment, there are plenty of options for dark sky stargazing throughout the state.

In March, two new Utah parks joined the prestigious International Dark Sky club, making them the newest Utah spots to earn the title. Goosenecks State Park (Mexican Hat) offers spectacular views of the San Juan River 1,000 feet below, and Fremont Indian State Park (Sevier) holds centuries-old artifacts, petroglyphs and pictographs from the Fremont tribe who inhabited the land. They join three other parks awarded by the IDA earlier this year. Jordanelle State Park (Heber City) and Rockport State Park (Peoa) are scenic reservoirs near Park City—paddleboard during the day and stargaze after the sun goes down. Further south, Kodachrome Basin State Park (Cannonville) offers sweeping views surrounded by Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Luckily for us, the mountains surrounding the Salt Lake Valley helpfully block urban light pollution, which means several dark sky parks are just short drives from major cities. If you want to take in the Milky Way a little closer to home, try Antelope Island State Park (Syracuse), East Canyon (Morgan), North Fork Park (Eden) or Timpanogos Cave (American Fork).

As if we need another excuse to visit one of Utah’s five national parks, four of them pair jaw-dropping landscapes with nighttime sky views. Take in the desert mesas of Canyonlands (Monticello), sandstone formations of Arches (Moab) and the colorful cliffs of Capitol Reef (Torrey) against a backdrop of endless constellations. Bryce Canyon (Bryce) has been a longstanding stargazing favorite, and the park even holds a yearly Astronomy Festival.

It’s no surprise that southern Utah is a particularly great area for dark sky parks—the more sparsely populated area boasts both breathtaking views and quiet landscapes. In the southeast is Utah’s first IDA-designated park, Dead Horse Point State Park (Moab). Continue stargazing at Goblin Valley State Park (Green River), Hovenweep National Monument (Bluff) and a pair of Lake Powell favorites: Natural Bridges National Monument and Rainbow Bridge National Monument. In the southwest, Cedar Breaks National Monument (Brian Head) offers summer stargazing programs led by park rangers.

The IDA also names International Dark Sky Communities, which are “cities and towns that adopt quality outdoor lighting ordinances and undertake efforts to educate residents about the importance of dark skies.” Two Utah cities hold the title: the former mining town Helper and Torrey, which used city ordinances to reduce light pollution.

Do you really need anyone to tell you what’s cool about a place called Dinosaur National Monument (Jensen)? (On the way stop at Vernal’s Steinaker State Park.)

Get more information on astro tourism at visitutah.com. Our newest print issue is available on newsstands May 1.