Uploaded January 2021 | Updated September 2026, 4 hours ago
The short 3-mile section of the Great Western Trail (GWT) shown here starts near Lamb's Canyon above the Mountain Dell Golf Course. This portion was personally significant to me as it connected all ~166 off-pavement GWT miles between Provo and Eden on my longer-term goal to section hike/bike all of Utah's GWT miles by nonmotorized means.
The abandoned railroad grade overlapped by this section presents an interesting history in and of itself. For more details on the history of railroads and other transit through Parley's Canyon, visit:
utahrails.net/articles/parleys.php
Music by:
Galerie Stratique
"Quinze Noeuds"
The short 3-mile section of the Great Western Trail (GWT) shown here starts near Lamb's Canyon above the Mountain Dell Golf Course. This portion was personally significant to me as it connected all ~166 off-pavement GWT miles between Provo and Eden on my longer-term goal to section hike/bike all of Utah's GWT miles by nonmotorized means.
The abandoned railroad grade overlapped by this section presents an interesting history in and of itself. For more details on the history of railroads and other transit through Parley's Canyon, visit:
utahrails.net/articles/parleys.php
Music by:
Galerie Stratique
"Quinze Noeuds"










![S6 E8 Hayduke Trail Section 6 Part 3, Glen Canyon NRA Utah April 2018
This report summarizes the final part of a 72-mile section hike of the Hayduke Trail. The original route of Section 6 as outlined in The Hayduke Trail by Joe Mitchel and Mike Coronella spans 72 miles between Lower Muley Twist Canyon in Capitol Reef National Park and the Hurricane Wash Trailhead near Coyote Gulch passing through Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and 28 miles of the Escalante River.
The Hayduke Trail is an extremely challenging, 800-mile backcountry route through some of the most rugged and breathtaking landscapes on earth. Located entirely on public land, the trail links six of the National Parks on the Colorado Plateau in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona with the lesser known, but equally splendid, lands in between them. Encompassed in the route are Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon and Zion National Parks as well as Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and numerous National Forests, BLM Districts, Primitive Areas, Wilderness Areas, and Wilderness Study Areas.
The Hayduke Trail is not intended to be the easiest or most direct route through this incredibly varied terrain but is rather meant to showcase the stunning Red Rock Wilderness of the American Southwest. Named after George Washington Hayduke III, a fictitious character in Edward Abbeys novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, the trail seeks to pay homage to Abbey for his tireless defense of these fragile and threatened public lands and to heighten awareness and promote the conservation of the wild places that he and so many other people have come to need and love.
Here in Utah, feelings run strong and deep as to how public lands should be managed. While weighing both sides, its important to keep in mind that the Colt Mesa property is located on lands that were purchased by U.S. taxpayers as a part of a larger congressional land exchange for Grand Staircase in 1998. We spent $50 million from the U.S. Treasury to ensure that this and other parcels would be transferred from the state of Utah to Bureau of Land Management ownership to be permanently protected — not mined.
On June 13, 2018, a Canadian company, Glacier Lake Resources, announced that they’d acquired copper and cobalt mining claims at Colt Mesa, inside the original boundaries of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
The company’s press release detailing the acquisition is loaded with cheerful optimism, and the company’s web page on the project states benignly that: “The Colt Mesa mine area was sterilized from exploration and development in 1996, when President Clinton created the ‘Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument,’ However, the size was recently reduced by Presidential proclamation in December 2017, which put Colt Mesa outside the new boundaries of the restructured national monument.”
The release claims that “[s]urface exploration work will start during the summer of 2018 on the Colt Mesa property and drill permitting will be initiated shortly.” As it so happens, these lands are the subject of several lawsuits asserting that President Trump acted unlawfully in attempting to gut Grand Staircase. And because that action was unlawful and void from the get-go, any mining claims staked in the area removed from the monument are void too.
After staking a claim, a mining company must, at the very least, notify the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) of its mining plans and give the BLM a chance to demand more safeguards for our public lands. The BLM must sign off on plans to mine more than five acres.
In the meantime, you can share your views by email with the BLM at:
blm_ut_so_public_room@blm.gov
Some of the text in this description was sourced from the following locations:
https://www.grandcanyontrust.org/blog/new-mining-claims-filed-grand-staircase-escalante-national-monument
http://www.hayduketrail.org/index.html
Special thanks to Joe Mitchel and Mike Coronella for piecing together this route and sharing it through their book The Hayduke Trail.
Special thanks to Alex Maier at Five Aces Media for his gorgeous night sky photos captured along the Hayduke Trail during the Spring of 2018. For more info on his adventures visit:
https://youtu.be/-7jOVeMqOWY
http://fiveacesmedia.net/
Additional media sourced from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Desert_Bighorn_Barna_Cropped.jpg
https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g56980-d8372112-i230438046-Coyote_Gulch-Escalante_Utah.html
Special thanks also to Nick Barth for sharing GPS tracks for this route. His resources can be found here: http://ncbarth.com/Hayduke.htm
Thanks to Nate Prudhon for help with voiceover work.
Soundtrack by:
Lojo Russo
Blue Dreams
Lojo Russo
Secret Fear
Boards of Canada
5.16.78
Chill
Remember
Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0
#Hayduketrail #hikingutah #escalante S6 E8 Hayduke Trail Section 6 Part 3, Glen Canyon NRA Utah April 2018](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VIkloQ2hsAQ/mqdefault.jpg)