1988 Map of Horsethief Canyon

About this map

The Green River carves a winding path through this desert landscape at the meeting of Wayne, Emery, Grand, and San Juan counties. In the late 1980s, this area was defined by the overlapping boundaries of Canyonlands National Park and the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. The river's serpentine course creates distinct alluvial benches known as bottoms, including Fort Bottom, Potato Bottom, and Beaver Bottom, which sit beneath towering features like the Orange Cliffs and Bighorn Mesa. The transition from the high-walled Labyrinth Canyon into Stillwater Canyon highlights the dramatic vertical relief of the White Rim and the expansive tablelands of The Spur. This survey captures a wild stretch of river and rimrock before the proliferation of modern GPS mapping, showing the intricate network of canyons like Horsethief Canyon and Millard Canyon that drain into the Green.