This is another in the series by Michael Kelsey for those who enjoy hiking and climbing. This book is unique in that every canyon described requires the use of ropes and rapelling to get all the way through. There are hundreds of maps and pictures, as well as directions and descriptions of the many small canyons available for exploration. Mr Kelsey's books have sold and continue to sell well in the Rocky Mountain region.

The Colorado Plateau is America’s western treasure, home to the country’s highest concentration of national parks, monuments, wilderness areas, and state parks, and a near-endless bounty of wild, stunning landscape. Discovering the Colorado Plateau will explore this region through beautiful maps, full-color photography, and detailed descriptions of the area’s geography, history, and geology, as well as signature activities that encapsulate the best each locale has to offer. By purposefully shifting the focus away from the national parks, this book introduces readers to the various public lands and protected areas that are as exciting and wonderful as any of the major parks. Unlike any other book published recently about the Plateau, this book not only acts as a source of great information and imagery, but as a practical guide and a true celebration of one of America’s most beautiful and endangered lands.

Framing Meinzer's work in elegant historic context, preeminent Panhandle historian Frederick W. Rathjen gives us a rare appreciation of the topographic majesty of the Periman Red Beds that 230 to 280 million years ago lay below a shallow sea and through subsequent millennia and riverine deposit, erosion, and redeposit would gain 'variegated walls and formations of gray, yellow, maroon, lavender and orange shown most conspicuously in the lovely Spanish Skirts."

"Includes a history of the San Rafael Swell by Dee Anne Finken (expanded by Michael R. Kelsey) and geology of the San Rafael Swell by Lynn Jackson (updated by Michael R. Kelsey & Utah Geological Survey)"--Title page.