Bears Ears National Monument encompasses most of the canyon country between Blanding and the Colorado River, including Cedar Mesa, Grand Gulch, and hundreds of Ancestral Puebloan sites. The monument is named for the twin buttes — unmistakable flat-topped mesas that protrude above the plateau like a pair of ears — visible from most of the surrounding landscape. The buttes are sacred to several Native American tribes, and the monument's creation in 2016 was supported by an unusual coalition of tribal nations.
The monument has had a complicated political history — its boundaries were substantially reduced by the Trump administration in 2017 and partially restored by the Biden administration in 2021 — but the landscape is unchanged by whatever boundaries are drawn on a map. The canyon country here is remote, largely roadless, and among the finest hiking terrain in the continental United States. The Bears Ears buttes themselves can be viewed from overlooks on SR-95; reaching them requires a longer drive and some off-road travel.