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Hike · Aztec Butte trailhead

Aztec Butte

Distance
0.3 mi
Vertical
200 ft
Summit
6,125 ft
Difficulty
Easy

Aztec Butte rises about 200 feet of white cross-bedded Navajo Sandstone from the high sagebrush flats of Island in the Sky, sandstone that began as a sea of wind-driven dunes during the Jurassic period roughly 170 million years ago. The pyramidal shape lent the formation its…

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About Aztec Butte

Aztec Butte is a sandstone summit, elevation 6,312 feet, located in the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands National Park, in San Juan County, Utah. Aztec Butte is composed of white cross-bedded Navajo Sandstone, which is the remains of wind-borne sand dunes deposited approximately 170 million years ago during the Jurassic Period. It resembles the Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico, which was built by the Aztecs.

Summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.

View south from a granary alcove at the top of Aztec Butte across the Island in the Sky mesa.
Wing-Chi Poon · CC BY-SA 3.0
Aztec Butte's pyramidal Navajo Sandstone form rising above sagebrush and juniper.
Ken Lund · CC BY-SA 2.0
Looking up the slickrock ascent — the final quarter-mile climbs bare sandstone marked only by cairns.
G. Edward Johnson · CC BY 4.0
Dry-stone Ancestral Puebloan granary walls tucked under a sandstone alcove on the lower butte, dated to AD 1200–1300.
G. Edward Johnson · CC BY 4.0

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