The Escalante plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
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0° on Nov. 11, 1924, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1901. Next is 2° in 1964.
Escalante’s center stands about 5,820 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,670 ft to 6,850 ft, a difference of 1,180 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Griffin Point, about 10,360 ft, 14 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium and colluvium (unconsolidated), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 7×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Middle Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 145 to 175 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone, sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 94 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.5 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in Escalante reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Escalante and the Colorado: about 950 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
290 miles of the trip are on the Colorado.
Seldom reaches the sea. Dams and canals now take nearly all of the Colorado before its old delta in Mexico.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Escalante; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Escalante has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in January. A normal year brings about 26 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 11 inches of water.
On November 14 Escalante normally reaches 54° and falls to 27°. The record high is 71°, in 2017; the record low 7°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.95 in, fell in 1909.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1901 at Escalante, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
