The park is best known for its backpacking opportunities in the canyons around the Escalante River, but there ... to start a first visit is Hole-in-the-Rock Road, outside the town of Escalante.

On January 26, 1880, twenty-six wagons camped at the top of Hole-in-the-Rock were lowered through ... higher than the original Colorado River, much of the road down to the river's edge is below ...

But their way was blocked by the towering sandstone cliffs at the Colorado River ... Hole in the Rock, you drive east five miles from Escalante on paved Utah Highway 12 to the Hole-in-the-Rock Road.