Paria River Valley

August 26, 2018 tarannosaurus

Epic Travel → North America → Mountain States → Utah → Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument → Paria River Valley

Location: East of Kanab, Southern Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah

Distance: 6 mile drive (dirt road)

Time Required: 1 hour

Red Tape/Notes: Road may be impassable during/after heavy rains, but is generally fine for 2WD vehicles (at least as far as the former Paria movie set)

What’s Nearby?: Johnson Canyon Movie Set, ⊗ Catstair Canyon (Complete), Upper Catstair Canyon, Toadstool Hoodoos

Most places have this spot listed as the “Paria Ghost Town”, causing people to be invariably disappointed upon arriving to find that the “ghost town” (which was actually a movie set) has been burned to the ground by arsonists. The site now contains some information boards and old pictures of what the site used to be, and there are some picnic tables and a restroom. However, the drive is still very well worth doing since the scenery is beautiful. If you’ve visited the Artist’s Palette in Death Valley and thought the rock colors and striations there were beautiful, the Paria River Valley makes that drive look like child’s play. It’s definitely a shame about the loss of the movie set, because I imagine it was charming to see the buildings in such a lovely backdrop, but perhaps they’ll rebuild the set again (I say again, because they’ve already rebuilt them once…apparently arsonists have a difficult time resisting burning the place down). You can continue driving past the movie set until you reach the river. Apparently an actual ghost town was once across the river (this is the Pareah Ghost Town), but all that remains now are reportedly some fence posts and foundations. I crossed the river and wandered around looking for these things and didn’t even find a fence post, so who knows. You will definitely drive past the cemetery, though, which contains about 20 graves and is an interesting stop.