Regulations for Paria Area camping and hiking.

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Paria Access & Regulations

Paria Canyon/Buckskin Gulch: The White House Trailhead of Lower Paria Canyon can be reached by driving 44 miles east of Kanab on U.S. 89. A sign between mileposts 20 and 21 directs you the Paria Ranger Station, located 0.1 miles south of the highway. A well-marked road leads 2.1 miles south from the ranger station to the White House Campground.

Lees Ferry can be accessed via a signed road that branches northeast from U.S. 89A at Marble Canyon, just north of Navajo Bridge.

The Buckskin and Wire Pass trailheads can be accessed via the unmarked House Rock Valley Road, which turns south from U.S. 89 between mileposts 25 and 26, 4.9 miles west of the Paria Ranger Station. Buckskin and Wire Pass trailheads are approximately 4 miles and 8.5 miles south of 89, respectively.

Overnight use of Paria/Buckskin is limited to 20 people per day, with 10-person/group size limit, at the fee rate of $5/person/day. Advance payment of fees is required for overnight use. Reservations, permits, and advance payment of fees can be taken care of over the Internet at http://paria.az.blm.gov; by mail: address envelopes to Paria Permits, NAU Box 15018, Flagstaff AZ 86011; by fax at 520-523-0585; or in person at the Paria Ranger Station and at BLM offices in St. George and Kanab.

Day use also requires a fee of $5/person/day with a 10-person/group size limit. Day use fees can be paid at trailhead self-serve fee stations.

Coyote Buttes: Coyote Buttes North can be accessed from the Wire Pass Trailhead, located 8.5 miles south of U.S. 89 on the House Rock Valley Road. Coyote Buttes South can be accessed via Paw Hole and Cottonwood Cove trailheads, which are located along the 4WD Lone Tree Reservoir road that branches west from the House Rock Valley Road a few miles south of Wire Pass.

Day use only: 10-people/day use limit in Coyote Buttes North, ditto for Coyote Buttes South, at the fee rate of $5/person/day with a 6-person/group-size limit. Permits are issued for only one area at a time. Reservations can be made over the Internet at http://paria.az.blm.gov; by mail: address envelopes to Paria Permits, NAU Box 15018, Flagstaff AZ 86011; by fax at 520-523-0585; or in person at the Paria Ranger Station and at BLM offices in St. George and Kanab. Fees are due at time of reservation.

When you pick up your little yellow Paria Canyon permit/parking tag you’ll notice that it is stamped with the triangular logo of the "Paria Canyon Project." What, pray tell, is the Paria Canyon Project? What my permit said was this: "Dear Golden . . . The Paria Canyon/Coyote Buttes Recreation Fee Demonstration Project implements a fee/permit system for Paria Canyon, the White House Campground, and Coyote Buttes, under the authority of Public Law 104-134. The Project uses visitor-generated fees to enhance and maintain wilderness resources and visitor services."

Joanne Shreiner of the Kanab BLM office translated the above Russian into the following slightly less obtuse English: The standard procedure at government-run recreation areas has been to deposit monies acquired through the payment of visitor use fees straight into the "Black Hole" of the General Treasury. The specific rec. area that contributed the money, say the Paria/Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness Area, could only hope to get 15% back at the beginning of the next budget year–maybe. Thus, a person paying $15.75 in permits and fees for a 3-day backpack through Paria Canyon could, under the old system, be funding just about any government project except the maintenance and upkeep of Paria Canyon.

The PC/CBRFD, managed by the BLM in partnership with the Arizona Strip Field Office, Kanab Resource Area, Northern Arizona University and the Arizona Strip Interpretive Association, seeks to keep the fee monies local. The money you pay to enjoy Paria Canyon stays on the premises to help keep Paria Canyon enjoyable.

The PC/CBRFD also studies user impacts and imposes limits on visitor use to help protect the resource. This is especially true in Coyote Buttes, where special rules designed to protect fragile sandstone wonders make it extremely difficult to even see the place.

"The strict regulations are absolutely necessary", says Paula Swenski, a PC/CBRFD intern and graduate student from NAU who helps the Paria ranger patrol the wilderness area and enforce the rules. I met her at the Wire Pass Trailhead, where she was fastidiously checking each parked vehicle to make sure it was displaying its yellow parking tag. "We tend to get a lot of gate-crashers, people who show up without a permit but are hell-bent on seeing The Wave. The culprits include a lot of Europeans, Germans with vague maps who’ve come half-way around the world looking for the ‘Coh-oh-te Boots,’ but there are a lot of guilty Americans too, people who understand the rules but consciously choose to disregard them. The resource is so fragile that people have to be more conscientious if they want to continue to enjoy it in the future."

Paria Access & Regulations

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