The Toadstools

The Toadstools Trail is a quick and easy hike found along Highway 89 in the southern part of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, situated between the towns of Page, AZ and Kanab, UT. The casual stroll up a wash ends in magnificent examples of toadstools, formations of harder rock perched atop softer rock, rising above the sandstone landscape.

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Toadstools Trail Description

The Toadstools Trail is quite easy to follow as it guides you through an otherworldly landscape of sandstone. Simply hike along the wash where the trail starts, and continue to look out for the cairns to guide you on your way. If you’d prefer to leave less impact on the fragile landscape, you can hike the entirety of the wash until it becomes too steep to climb out, about half a mile in, where you’ll also see a cairn marking the way up.

Though the Toadstools are the destination, the oddly eroded sandstone hills are also certainly worth paying attention to. As you head deeper into them, the familiarity of a normal landscape begins to fade away as the bizarre and abstract begins to make up the entirety of your surroundings.

Upon reaching the cairn at the back of the wash, you’ll make a short and easy scramble up to a slightly higher elevation, where the trail bounces up and down over small rises toward a relatively larger mesa, until it reaches the namesake toadstools on a sprawling sandstone plateau.

Feel free to explore and discover in this remarkable landscape and when you’re ready, head out the same way you came in.

Getting to The Toadstools Trailhead

From Kanab, UT, head south (the highway heads west throughout this segment) on Highway 89 for 44.5 miles and the trailhead will be well-marked on the north side of the road.