Hiking Coyote Buttes, Coyote Wash, and Coyote Valley

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Hiking Coyote Buttes

By Golden Webb

So there I was, driving down Coyote Valley, next to Coyote Wash, and a coyote crosses the road in front of me. No kidding. I figured it was a good omen, since I was on my way to Coyote Buttes, the most photogenic expanse of slickrock and sandstone on earth.

Apollonius of Tyana said that God made the beauties of nature like a child playing in the sand. Perhaps no other place on earth illustrates the validity of that statement more profoundly than Coyote Buttes. It is a wondrous landscape formed completely of petrified sand and calcified dunes, layer upon layer frozen in time and sculpted by the elements into fantastic shapes that resemble the spires and domes a child might create on an ocean beach.

Central Turkey boasts of a surrealist’s dream of an earthscape, the world-famous plateau of Cappadocia. There wind and water have sculpted the earth into bizarre tuff cones that the locals call "fairy chimneys." Coyote Buttes is the Southwest’s own version of Cappadoccia. But where the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia were sculpted out of the soft tufa of volcanic ash, the spires and hoodoos of Coyote Buttes are made up of crosshatched Navajo sandstone. Where Cappadocia is a bleak moonscape of monotone gray, Coyote Buttes is a petrified ocean in which each and every wave displays serried bands of glorious color.

Coyote Buttes is part of the Paria Plateau, a section of the Cockscomb that straddles the Utah-Arizona state line. Melted and carved by rain, buffed to a smooth and flowing finish by wind, it is a landscape that stimulates the imagination. Rock pyramids grow in organic clumps and resemble the barrows ancient peoples used to raise over the graves of kings. Swells of undulating slickrock mimic the rise, crest, and fall of liquid waves. Stony troughs between the swells shelter still rain-water pools. Rounded domes bleed into each other to form fluted passageways, chambers, and amphitheaters. Mineral deposits drench the slickrock in every hue of yellow, orange, red, and violet. The rock is veined and banded, a thousand separate formation seams distinguishing a thousand separate lenses of sandstone.

The crenelated sandstone is so exquisite, so delicate, that the BLM has imposed a limit on the number of Vibram soles allowed to tread it. The limit is about 40, assuming all 20 people have only two feet. That’s right, only 20 people per day are allowed into this mysterious desert terrain.

Coyote Buttes is managed as two units, Coyote Buttes North and Coyote Buttes South. On December 24, 1997, each unit was mandated with a visitor use limit of 10 people per day. This is up from the 4 people per day limit established in 1986. Coyote Buttes North is the most popular of the two units. It contains the Wave, a wondrously sculpted sandstone formation that every professional nature photographer worth his salt is required by conventional wisdom to have in his portfolio. The Wave lies on the northwestern tip of a prominence called Top Rock, along the eastern edge of Sand Cove. This formation is so sought after that reservations for the peak seasons of March-May and September-November must be made months, even years in advance. Much easier to access is the south section, which is just as beautiful but can only be reached by negotiating a sandy 4WD road.

When you see Coyote Buttes in the flesh, with your own eyes, all the rules and regulations, visitor use limits and fees, crystallize in your mind and start to make sense. This is a landscape that truly must be preserved in situ, an incredible jewel that some people consider to be the most beautiful place on earth.

Hiking Coyote Buttes

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