CNN called Grand Staircase-Escalante an underrated destination. What makes the monument special?

On Sept. 4, CNN Travel published a list titled “25 of the USA’s most underrated destinations.” Included on this list is the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument located in south-central Utah.

“Disney World, Times Square and Yellowstone National Park can be packed to the rafters with tourists. But there are plenty of other places across the United States that continue to fly beneath the travel radar,” according to CNN Travel.

Places featured on the list includes cities, national parks and regions. There are also entire states.

Grand Staircase-Escalante is the only place in Utah included on the list.

What is special about the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument?

According to CNN , Grand Staircase-Escalante is the largest national monument in the continental United States. The monument spans almost 1.9 million acres of wilderness.

“The park takes its name from the remote Escalante Canyons and a sequence of huge plateaus that descend like a giant staircase between Bryce Canyon and Zion,” per CNN.

According to the Bureau of Land Management , the monument features five biological life-zones, including low-lying desert and coniferous forest.

Per Visit Utah , “This area boasts a mixture of colorful sandstone cliffs soaring above narrow slot canyons; picturesque washes and seemingly endless slickrock; prehistoric sites and abandoned old Western movie sets, among many other treasures.”

Grand Staircase-Escalante also features land of the Ancestral Puebloan and Fremont people who left behind occupation sites, campsites and granaries. The descendants of these people include the Navajo, Paiute, Zuni, Hopi and Navajo tribes.

The monument also contains the sites of fossil excavations that have contributed more to the understanding of the end of dinosaur-era ecosystem change than anywhere else in the world.

According to Visit Utah, the monument and the surrounding area contains many hiking trails that take visitors to the slickrock of Escalante and through the slot canyons of Grand Staircase.

“The Monument’s size, resources, and remote character provide extraordinary opportunities for geologists, paleontologists, archeologists, historians, and biologists in scientific research, education, and exploration,” the BLM notes.

What other places are on CNN’s ‘25 of the USA’s most underrated destinations’ list?

Here are some other Western U.S. destinations included on CNN’s list :

• Tacoma, Washington: Visitors can see famous glass art and enjoy Tacoma’s close proximity to Mount Rainier and Olympic National Parks. They can also go cold-water scuba diving at the nearby Hood Canal.
• Channel Islands National Park, California: Off the coast of Santa Barbara, “the five-island park preserves paleolithic digs, frontier-era ranches and relics of Spanish exploration,” CNN reported. Visitors can see whales, dolphins, sea lions and the rare Island Fox.
• North Park, Colorado: Three hours northwest of Denver, North Park sits between the Medicine Bow Mountains and Park Range. The area features the Continental Divide trail and habitats for moose, trout and migratory birds.
• White Sands National Park, New Mexico: “Like something created for a sci-fi movie rather than a quirk of nature, White Sands feels like visiting an alien planet. That’s how strange it is to explore the world’s largest gypsum dune field,” CNN reported.

The list also includes the entire state of West Virginia, notably the country’s newest national park, New River Gorge, which is “renowned for whitewater sports, hiking and mountain biking, and Bridge Day BASE jumping from the humongous New River Gorge Bridge,” per CNN.

Other cities featured on the list include Durham, North Carolina; Buffalo, New York; and Flagstaff, Arizona.

The list isn’t limited to the continental 48 states and includes Alaska and Hawaii. The Kaʻū District in Hawaii is highlighted as the place where people first arrived in Hawaii 1,000 years ago and Alaska’s Matanuska Valley is also featured.