South Coyote Buttes is a vast and complicated area.  Our South Coyote Buttes Tour goes in at Cottonwood Cove, which offers the best “bang for the buck” and is amazing.  In fact, it is our guide’s favorite area due to the variety and quantity of formations.  A permit is required to enter this area.  There are two ways you can try to obtain permits: 1) Online three months in advance on a first-come-first-serve basis here, or 2) You, or Dreamland may attend a walk-in lottery the day before you want to go.  Learn more about the lottery here. 

The stone on the Paria Plateau has been eroded by wind and water over Eons into a myriad of forms. The minerals seeping and collecting along concentration gradients give the rock its sharply defined colored layers often packed within millimeters of each other. Wander and scramble in search of the best angles amongst the vibrant striations, weird hoodoos and buttes, balancing rocks, Moqui marbles, beehives, swirls, teepees, delicate and elaborate fins, mini arches, and more.

South Coyote Buttes Tour is broken into two main sections Paw Hole and Cottonwood Cove, accessed through deep sand roads in the Remote Paria Plateau which rests above the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. Both are remarkable for photography with never-ending compositions. Both can be visited on the South Coyote Buttes Tour, though we focus our attention on the Cottonwood Cove area for its vast expanse of incredible formations and colors. 

About South Coyote Buttes

Stunning, colorful and delicate sandstone formations define South Coyote Buttes, an area open only to 20 permit holders daily in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness. There are two main trailheads here: Paw Hole and Cottonwood Cove. Both are incredibly beautiful, though Cottonwood Cove is considered the more spectacular of the two sites. Paw Hole is marked by deep red sandstone teepees that rise out of the earth, while Cottonwood Cove is known for more variety in color, intricate, striped patterns in the rock and delicate sandstone ledges that break easily. Our South Coyote Buttes tour typically spends about 4-5 hours at Cottonwood Cove, though we tailor each day to the interests and hiking affinity of our guests. 

There are no actual trails at Cottonwood Cove or at Paw Hole. Our tours typically cover up to 6 miles of terrain at Cottonwood Cove. The entire South Coyote Buttes area is about 3 miles across from the north end to the south. We never cover the entire length on a tour. There is a lot to see out there.

Because there isn’t just one main feature everyone visits (like the Wave in North Coyote Buttes) South Coyote Buttes disperses other hikers. On most trips, we don’t see another person there.

South Coyote Buttes lies just south of the famous Wave, where permits are notoriously difficult to obtain. South Coyote has similarly styled sandstone buttes that are just as incredible as North Coyote Buttes, but it’s lesser-known, harder to get to, and a lot more variety.  In fact, you’ll see more variety here in a shorter hiking distance. The colorful stripes and otherworldly rock shapes provide infinite opportunity for photography. The view changes constantly. It’s really addicting to see what’s around the next corner. You will not want to leave.

Getting to South Coyote Buttes

South Coyote Buttes lies on the remote and rugged Paria Plateau in the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in Arizona, with the Cottonwood Cove trailhead just 2.5 miles from the Utah border.

Roads on the Paria Plateau are unmaintained and are comprised of deep sand with rocky sections scattered throughout. A four-wheel drive vehicle with good ground clearance and off road tires is a must. Some experience driving in deep sand can really come in handy, especially in the summer when the sand is dry, soft and deep. We lower our tire pressure to power through the sections of deep sand. It takes almost 2.5 hours from Kanab to get to Cottonwood Cove and the road to get here is a bit rougher than the road to White Pocket.

For folks who don’t have a capable four-wheel drive truck and don’t want to hire a tour company, the Paw Hole trail is accessible by foot, via a difficult, 2.5-mile (each way) hike to the trailhead. Some folks park off House Rock Valley Road at the Lone Tree Access Point and walk up to the top of the plateau. House Rock Valley Road is usually accessible with a two-wheel drive car as long as your vehicle has a decent amount of ground clearance, and the road is dry.

We don’t really recommend hiking to Paw Hole because the hike is steep and very sandy. It’s an exhausting 2.5 miles just to get to the starting point of your South Coyote Buttes adventure. It really makes sense to maximize your time by hiring a guide who can drive you there and show you the best this area has to offer. And we’re not just saying that because we sell tours.

South Coyote Buttes Geology

Back 190 million years ago, this area was much closer to the equator than it is today. The land was a hot, dry, windy desert. South Coyote Buttes is comprised of Navajo sandstone that got its start as towering dunes back in the early Jurassic Period. As the dunes were buried under more and more sand, they became saturated with groundwater. Slowly, groundwater minerals cemented the sand grains together, turning the dunes to stone. The thin slanting lines in the rock, called cross-beds, represent the steep faces of dunes as they advanced downwind.

There are many shades of red, pink and yellow that are caused by the oxidation of iron-bearing minerals. Colorful stripes appear in the rock throughout Cottonwood Cove, as if someone dipped a brush into rainbow paint and graced the sides of the buttes with color. Pink hues in the rock often indicate the presence of hematite, while limonite appears yellow or brown.

There are several theories about how the polygonal cracks in the “brain rock” came to be, including thermal contraction, moisture cycles and drying processes of the sandy sediments and tensile forces. Similar cracks have been observed elsewhere on the Colorado Plateau, especially at nearby White Pocket.

Also scattered throughout South Coyote Buttes are Moqui marbles. The marble-like concretion has a sandstone center encased in an iron oxide shell. Scientists say iron was dissolved into ground water 50 million years ago and collected to form sphere shaped iron concretions. In 2004, two Mars rovers landed on the Red Planet and sent back images of BB sized formations similar to Moqui marbles. NASA scientists call them Martian blueberries. NASA studied Moqui marbles on the Colorado Plateau to learn how they form, wondering if this could provide evidence of water on Mars. Results are inconclusive. The Martian blueberries may have been caused by meteorites. But it’s fun to imagine a far out connection between the Arizona desert and Mars. Rock gathering here is prohibited.

Fossilized dinosaur footprints can also be found at Cottonwood Cove for those willing to venture down into a steep canyon. Toenail imprints are actually visible in the Otozoum tracks that were made by heavy, bipedal prosauropod dinosaurs that roamed this area in the early Jurassic, long before raptors, T-rex or Stegosaurus came on the scene.

Human History

Humans have probably been passing through South Coyote Buttes since the ice age when nomadic hunters wandered the expansive landscape in search of large game. The Paria Plateau is also home to Native American ruins dating back to the Pueblo Periods from about 750 A.D to 1250 A.D. Pottery fragments and arrowhead flakes can be found scattered throughout Cottonwood Cove. There is an incredible concentration of arrowhead flakes in the “museum” area of Cottonwood Cove where Native Americans may have sheltered in the canyon out of the wind and used the hard sandstone to shape chert into arrowheads.

 More recently, ranchers settled and grazing began somewhere around 1840. On the dry Colorado Plateau, ranchers often drew water from underground springs using pumps powered by windmills. One such windmill, now out of commission, can be seen at Poverty Flat between Cottonwood Cove and White Pocket. The windmill is out of commission, but ranchers still pump water from a well into a water tank on the hilltop.

An old corral still stands near a water pocket at Paw Hole. Ranchers named the area Paw Hole when they discovered horses had dug a shallow hole with their hooves where a water pocket lies just below the surface of the sand.

Grazing is still practiced on the plateau but it is not allowed in wilderness areas such as South Coyote Buttes. Congress designated the 112,500-acre Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness in 1984 to remain undeveloped and in its natural condition. When you get there we encourage you to find a quiet place. Sit down. Put away your camera. Look out across the incredible landscape and just take it in. Listen to the breeze rushing through the sagebrush. There is nothing you can see or hear that is manmade. Find peace in knowing untouched places such as South Coyote Buttes still exist. We sure do!