The canyon itself is the destination. The full Buckskin Gulch to Paria River traverse is one of the great slot canyon hikes in North America — 13 miles of continuous narrows, boulder falls, and red-rock passages that no photograph quite captures. Day-hikers tackle the shorter Wire Pass loop; backpackers string together multi-day routes through the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness.
The area around the gulch holds other extraordinary landscapes. The Wave, just across the Arizona border, is one of the most photographed sandstone formations in the American West. Coyote Buttes North (which contains The Wave) and Coyote Buttes South both require separate permits and lottery entries.