Pink Cliffs, Limestone cliffs in southwestern Utah, United States

The Pink Cliffs are a geological formation of pink- and red-colored Claron Formation limestone that appears as multiple sets of rock formations across Garfield, Iron, and Kane counties in southwestern Utah. They form the upper riser of the Grand Staircase and trace a rough, wide U shape spanning three counties, from the Markagunt Plateau near Cedar Breaks National Monument to the Paunsaugunt Plateau around Bryce Canyon National Park.

Geologist Clarence Dutton named these formations in the 1870s as part of the Grand Staircase, a sequence of cliffs extending from Utah toward the Grand Canyon. The layered rocks tell the story of an ancient sea that once covered this region, depositing sediments that eventually hardened into these visible stone formations.

The name Pink Cliffs was given by geologist Clarence Dutton in the 1870s, when he named this layer of the Grand Staircase along with the others. The pink and red tones come from hematite, an iron oxide in the Claron Formation limestone. Visitors can see the same Claron layer forming the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon.

The cliffs lie mostly within Bryce Canyon National Park, Cedar Breaks National Monument and Dixie National Forest, so access is by the marked roads, trails and viewpoints of those areas. The formations run in a wide U shape across Garfield, Iron and Kane counties, from the Markagunt Plateau west to the Paunsaugunt Plateau east, and are cut by Long Valley and Kanab Creek. Much of the land is high plateau, where the air is thinner and walking slowly helps.

Rather than forming a single continuous wall, these cliffs consist of separate limestone units created at different times with distinct erosion patterns. Each formation displays its own color variations ranging from pale pink to deep red, making the landscape a complex patchwork rather than a uniform ridge.