THE WAVE, NORTH COYOTE BUTTES, ARIZONA + UTAH
Looking straight out of a default Microsoft Windows desktop, this incredible sandstone formation known as “The Wave” is situated on the Utah-Arizona border, halfway between Page, Arizona and Kanab, Utah in the Paria Canyon/Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness and only accessible via a permit via a lottery.
There are two permit lotteries held by the Bureau of Land Management. Due to extreme popularity, the BLM limits to only 20 people per day for the entire area (112,500 acres) to protect the integrity and beauty of the landscape and wildlife in and around The Wave.
There are two types of daily lotteries-
Online Lottery: held online on the 1st of every month @ 9am for the entire future month. Only 10 online permits are drawn 3-4 months in advance per day. Online Applications can be made for 30 days before each monthly draw.
In-person Lottery: The other 10 permits are drawn in an in-person lottery at 9am the day before at the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Visitor Center in Kanab, UT. Only 10 people are given permits each day during the walk-up lottery.
Odds are better during the week, winter, and with smaller groups. Would recommend to enter the online lottery on the last day right before the draw on the 1st, so on the last day of the month before the draw. Won’t help chances by much, but you’d be able to view the number of people applying for each day and pick the day(s) with the least amount of applicants.
We did this and after applying 3 times that year, we finally won a permit for Wednesday, October 28th, 2015!
We went on an approx. 10 mile hike on an unmarked trail lead by our tour guide Dallas from Paria Outpost & Outfitters. We experienced an overwhelming stretch of rippling patterns and what looked like swirls of taffy candy and giant pink puddles of melted strawberry ice cream. Marbleized dusty desert tones from cinnamon to paprika surrounded. And just to make sure we knew that these lines and shapes were formed in the Jurassic Period, Dallas led us to a set of perfectly preserved fossilized dinosaur prints.