The Grand Escalante/Staircase gets the name from the formation of the mountains that goes basically from northeast towards the southwest in a series of what appears to be giant stairs. The mountains are made of primarily sandstone and granite as near as we can tell. The area around Lake Powell is near the "head" of the Staircase and Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon and the Grand Canyon are all along it. The Colorado river flows from southwest Colorado through the southeast corner of Utah and through Arizona. The river pretty much flows along the southern part of the Grand Escalante, which ends near Las Vegas and Hoover Dam area. Just looking at the mountains here showed me the variety of terrain that this world can have if you look for it. :)