Escalante Butte

Escalante Butte is a 6,536 ft prominence adjacent the far eastern South Rim of the Grand Canyon, of Northern Arizona. Adjacent east is a lower elevation butte, Cardenas Butte. Both buttes, (and the South Rim), are part of the western drainage of north-trending Tanner Canyon into the Colorado River.

Geology – Escalante & Cardenas Buttes


Escalante Butte and Cardenas Butte lie upon the same Supai Group ridgeline. At the west, Escalante is separated by a ridge saddle (the drainage southeast into Upper Tanner Canyon). Escalante Butte prominence is a small, heavily eroded cliff and debris remainder of Coconino Sandstone, (on debris of Hermit Shale), on eroded ridges of the Supai Group. Cardenas Butte, is about 300 ft lower, 0.8 mi east, on an eroded ridgeline of Supai Group. Its small spire is a surviving cliff-former unit of the Supai Group.