Coyote Buttes South Advanced Permit

Coyote Buttes South lies in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness in Arizona, on Bureau of Land Management ground. The photographs show banded sandstone rising straight out of open desert in cones and domes, cross-bedded in swirling layers of red, orange, cream and yellow. Some stand alone above the flats; others cluster into low ridges of fluted, tilted rock. Between the formations the ground is red sand and bare slickrock scattered with small green shrubs. One hollow at the foot of a cone holds a shallow pool of standing water. The views run long and open, out across the flats to layered cliffs and distant mesas on the horizon. One photograph shows the approach in wet conditions: a four-wheel-drive vehicle sunk past its wheel rims in deep red mud, on a rutted dirt track pooled with water.