Lower Calf Creek Falls and Fremont Pictographs

East of Escalante, a lush side canyon called Calf Creek hides one of the desert's great surprises, a one hundred twenty six foot waterfall that pours over a stained sandstone wall into an emerald pool. The name is said to come from the days when ranchers used the box canyon as a natural pen to hold calves. The roughly six mile round trip hike follows the creek upstream through a green ribbon of willows and cottonwoods, past beaver ponds, before the falls come suddenly into view, ringed by hanging gardens of maidenhair fern.

But the canyon holds more than water. High on the cliff wall across the creek, you can spot pictographs painted by the Fremont people, who lived across this region for roughly a thousand years, until about the year thirteen hundred. Red human figures, some apparently wearing headdresses, gaze out over the canyon.

Nearby, tucked into alcoves, sit stone granaries the Fremont built to store their corn, safe from rodents and floods. The Fremont were farmers and foragers who raised maize, beans, and squash in these canyon bottoms, and their rock art and ruins are scattered throughout the Escalante country, a reminder that people have found this hidden water worth the journey for well over a thousand years.