Marked with a stark desert beauty, the Paria Canyon-Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness Area is a land awash in scenic wonders and loaded with photographic opportunities. This small section of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument is accessed from Utah's U.S.Route 89. This region of the Vermillion Cliffs, spanning the Utah and Arizona border, is famous for its amazing natural sandstone sculpture called The Wave in the North Coyote Buttes. Receiving the most attention, The Wave has overshadowed some of the area's other outstanding destinations. Also included within the Wire Pass-House Rock Valley Road area are sites at South Coyote Buttes, Cottonwood Teepees, Buckskin Gulch, and this striking scene at White Pocket.
   One of Arizona's infrequent rain showers has filled this reflective pool, creating a marvelous wilderness image. White Pocket's artwork, painted with swirling contours and soft pastel hues, is centered on a fragile environment of tiny rock fins and petrified waves interspersed among massive sandstone buttes. Only exercising great care where you walk will preserve this desert scene for future generations.
   Open for day use only, permits are not required to access this section of the Paria Canyon-Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness Area. High clearance 4-wheel drive or AWD vehicles are strongly recommended in order to navigate rough, rocky and sandy roads to the trailhead. And believe the experts when they tell you that roads are impassable for all vehicles when wet.

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