Situated on the Colorado Plateau in northwestern Arizona within the Colorado River drainage, the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument borders the Grand Canyon National Park to the south and the state of Nevada to the west, encompassing a portion of Lake Mead National Recreation Area. The Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument is under joint management of the BLM and the NPS. Covering over a million acres of remote and unspoiled public lands, this monument is a scientific treasure, containing many of the same values that have long been protected in the Grand Canyon National Park.
Deep canyons, mountains and lonely buttes testify to the power of geological forces and provide colorful vistas. Here Paleozoic and Mesozoic sedimentary rock layers are relatively undeformed and unobscured by vegetation, offering a clear view to understanding the geologic history of the Colorado Plateau. The monument encompasses the lower portion of the Shivwits Plateau, an important watershed for the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. Beyond the phenomenal geological resources, the monument also contains countless biological and historical values.
Introduction
The Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument is located on the Colorado Plateau in northwestern Arizona, within the drainage of the Colorado River. It borders Grand Canyon National Park to the south, the state of Nevada to the west and encompasses a portion of Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Elevations within the monument range from 2,300 to 8,000 feet above sea level. The map appended to the Proclamation sets out the boundaries of the land reserved for the monument. The outer boundaries of the area encompass over a million acres of federal land, of which the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages approximately 808,000 acres and the National Park Service (NPS) manages approximately 206,000 acres.
The monument contains valuable geological resources, including relatively undeformed and unobscured Paleozoic and Mesozoic sedimentary rock layers, offering a clear view to understanding the geologic history of the Colorado Plateau. Deep canyons, mountains and lonely buttes testify to the power of geological forces and provide colorful vistas. Fossils are abundant throughout the monument. Among these are large numbers of invertebrate fossils, including bryozoans and brachiopods located in the Calville limestone of the Grand Wash Cliffs and brachiopods, pelecypods, fenestrate bryozoa and crinoid ossicles in the Toroweap and Kaibab formations of Whitmore Canyon. There are also sponges in nodules and pectenoid pelecypods throughout the Kaibab formation of Parashant Canyon.
History & Culture
Archaeological evidence shows much human use of the area over the past centuries. Because of their remoteness and the lack of easy road access, the sites in this area have experienced relatively little vandalism. Their good condition distinguishes them from many prehistoric resources in other areas. Prehistoric use is documented by irreplaceable rock art images, quarries, villages, watchtowers, agricultural features, burial sites, caves, rockshelters, trails and camps. Current evidence indicates that the monument was utilized by small numbers of hunter-gatherers during the Archaic Period (7000 B. C. to 300 B. C.). Population and utilization of the monument increased during the Ancestral Puebloan Period from the Basketmaker II Phase through the Pueblo II Phase (300 B. C. to 1150 A. D.), as evidenced by the presence of pit houses, habitation rooms, agricultural features and pueblo structures.
Population size decreased during the Pueblo III Phase (1150 A. D. to 1225 A. D.). Southern Paiute groups replaced the Pueblo groups and were occupying the monument at the time of Euro-American contact. Archeological sites in the monument include large concentrations of ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi or Hitsatsinom) villages, a large, intact Pueblo II village, numerous archaic period archeological sites, ancestral Puebloan sites and Southern Paiute sites. The monument also contains areas of importance to existing Indian tribes.
Historic ranch structures and corrals, fences, water tanks and the ruins of sawmills are scattered across the monument and tell the stories of the remote family ranches and the lifestyles of early homesteaders. There are several old mining sites dating from the 1870′s, showing the history of mining during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The area in the monument has remained isolated and relatively undisturbed and is for the most part roadless. Most of the land within the outer boundaries of the monument is federally owned. The non-federal land is owned primarily by the State of Arizona in scattered 640 acre sections, the result of Arizona’s statehood land grant. Currently, the federal lands in the area are used primarily for scientific study, primitive recreation and livestock grazing.
In 1975, the Grand Canyon National Park Enlargement Act was signed into law. This Act continued, but did not complete, an historic effort to fully protect the Grand Canyon ecosystem. Preservation of the Grand Canyon area began with the creation of the Grand Canyon Forest Preserve in 1893, followed by the creation by President Theodore Roosevelt of the Grand Canyon National Monument in 1908. In 1919, Congress converted the Grand Canyon National Monument to a national park.
Additional lands were made national monuments by Presidential Proclamation in 1932 and 1969. Congress enlarged the park in 1975 to include these lands, but that Act left open the question whether several drainages north of the Grand Canyon, including much of the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, should be protected. The Act required that the Secretary study and issue a report on these lands. The report was completed in 1981, although no management recommendation was included.
In the late 1970′s, the area was evaluated for its wilderness characteristics under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and in 1984 Congress designated four wilderness areas, totaling about 95,000 acres, in the national monument boundary.
Nature & Science
The monument encompasses the lower portion of the Shivwits Plateau, which forms an important watershed for the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. The Plateau is bounded on the west by the Grand Wash Cliffs and on the east by the Hurricane Cliffs. These cliffs, formed by large faults that sever the Colorado Plateau slicing north to south through the region, were and are major topographic barriers to travel across the area. The Grand Wash Cliffs juxtapose the colorful, lava-capped Precambrian and Paleozoic strata of the Grand Canyon against the highly faulted terrain, recent lake beds and desert volcanic peaks of the down-dropped Grand Wash trough. These cliffs, which consist of lower and upper cliffs separated by the Grand Gulch Bench, form a spectacular boundary between the basin and range and the Colorado Plateau geologic provinces.
At the south end of the Shivwits Plateau are several important tributaries to the Colorado River, including the rugged and beautiful Parashant, Andrus and Whitmore canyons. The Plateau here is capped by volcanic rocks with an array of cinder cones and basalt flows, ranging in age from 9 million to only about 1000 years old. Lava from the Whitmore and Toroweap areas flowed into the Grand Canyon and dammed the river many times over the past several million years. The monument is pocketed with sinkholes and breccia pipes, structures associated with volcanism and the collapse of underlying rock layers through ground water dissolution.
Fossils are abundant in the monument. Among these are large numbers of invertebrate fossils, including bryozoans and brachiopods located in the Calville limestone of the Grand Wash Cliffs and brachiopods, pelecypods, fenestrate bryozoa and crinoid ossicles in the Toroweap and Kaibab formations of Whitmore Canyon. There are also sponges in nodules and pectenoid pelecypods throughout the Kaibab formation of Parashant Canyon.
The Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument contains portions of geologic faults, including the Dellenbaugh fault, which cuts basalt flows dated 6 to 7 million years old, the Toroweap fault, which has been active within the last 30,000 years, the Hurricane fault, which forms the Hurricane Cliffs and extends over 150 miles across northern Arizona and into Utah and the Grand Wash fault, which bounds the west side of the Shivwits Plateau and has approximately 15,000 feet of displacement across the monument.
Recreation
The remote Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument offers the hearty, outdoor adventurer miles of unpaved and often extremely rough roads. Visitors will enjoy viewing the unique combination of desert flora and deep canyons with exposed rock formations. Vegetation ranges from Mohave Desert sagebrush to ponderosa pine forest.
Traveler Facts
Contact Information
Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument
BLM Arizona Strip Field Office
345 East Riverside Drive
St. George, UT 84790-9000
Phone: 435-688-3200
Location
From the Arizona/Utah border, south of St. George, Utah, take BLM gravel road 1069. Obtain a map at the Interagency Information Center, 345 E. Riverside Drive. in St. George, Utah before visiting the monument.
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