Kodachrome Basin State Park: Panorama Trail Short Loop

The Panorama Trail in Kodachrome Basin State Park is a fairly easy trail. You have an option to do a shorter 3 mile loop, or a longer 6 miles loop. There are a number of interesting things to see along the way.

Panoramic of the cliffs you hike below.

Sedimentary Pipes along the trail.

Quick Details:

Length: 3 or 6 mile loop.
Difficulty: DR3. Easy when the weather is fine, might be more tough on hotter days.
Elevation Gain: Not much.
Restroom: No, but there is one a little further down the road near the picnic area and campground.
Dogs? Yes, must be leashed at all times. Please clean up after your furry friends.
Other Info: You are in the desert. Be sure to have appropriate gear and plenty of water. Also, for your first time I recommend bringing along the map as there are quite a few trail splits.

To Get Here:

On the main Kodachrome Road head to the main trail parking lot. If you pass the Laundromat you went too far. You will need to cross the street to access the trailhead.

The Trail:

Trailhead Sign.

Behind us we can see the prominent sedimentary pipe in the park you can see it from all of the trails we did today.

Looking back towards the parking lot you can see a couple other pipes.

Red wall.

I like that super tall skinny arch.

The main pipe.

You will cross several washes along the trail.

Loving the rock formations.

Panoramic view.

More pipes.

The arch again.

The main pipe. I want to say this one has a name but it isn’t listed anywhere that I saw.

The trail is fairly wide and sandy.

Another fun pipe.

And two more. I like the rings on these ones.

From different angles.

And the other one. Man, there are a lot of pipes on this trail.

Again.

You can see some plant life growing on top of it.

From behind.

Neat monolith.

You can see Bryce Canyon from here.

Another cool formation.

Another pipe.

This one has an itty bitty window.

Another one.

The first main trail split, this is for the inner loop. So whether you want to do the shorter loop, or the longer one, it really doesn’t matter which way you go. We decided to go right.

The white cliffs above the basin.

This is the feature that made me decide to do this trail today, Indian Cave.

Not so much a cave as it is an alcove.

But here is the interesting thing. The worn away hand prints located near it.

I couldn’t find much information about them. I do know there is a somewhat similar feature at Freemont Indian State Park (which has been on my list for a while, but we have yet to make it there) called the cave of 100 hands.

The deepest one is a good 3-4 inches deep.

.

It is truly bizarre.

The entire panel.

From what I can tell, this is still kind of a mystery.  But I think it is pretty neat. Anyway, on to the rest of the trail.

Another pipe.  This one kind of has a face on the left side. This just made me think of Liberty Cap in the Mammoth Hot springs area in Yellowstone.

Even from the front it still looks like a face that is puffing out his cheeks.

The next named feature is Ballerina Spire. It really does look like an outstretched leg with a pointed toe in a ballerina slipper.

This one is pretty neat too!

The cliffs above.

And not far from the ballerina is the next named feature, the Hat Shot.

This is a couple of hoodoos that have harder stone caps.

Here you can see a couple of the different stone material piled around it. There is a similar feature in Bryce Canyon called the Hat Shop that I thought about exploring this trip, but didn’t.

Another wash.

The cliffs above. I love the pink stripes.

Ballerina Spire doesn’t quite look like a leg from here.

Looking back at the Hat Shop.

I’m not 100% sure, but I think this is petrified wood.

Ballerina Spire again.

Another wash.

Another pipe and I think I see a smaller one on the top of the cliffs.

A little tiny pipe.

With me for size comparison.

I’m glad I wanted to get the size comparison shot because I’m not sure I would have noticed the hand prints if we hadn’t. Wasn’t expecting that at all.

More pipes.

Big rock again.

This one is kind of neat looking. I was sad to see the trail didn’t get close to it.

I think this is an example of the crytobiotic crust or soil. This is a very fragile community of organisms that live in desert soils. This is one of the main reasons they ask to please stay on the trail. It can be nearly invisible in early stages as well so even if you cant see it, you want to stay on the path.

This is why I recommend bringing the map with you. I thought I had the plan correct in my head: I wanted to take the short loop out to Secret Passage, not the longer loop to Cool Cave.However, when we got here I mixed them up so we skipped this loop and ended up adding extra. Oi.

Anyway, you can add this to the shorter 3 mile loop if you want. it doesn’t look like much extra, otherwise stay left to do the main loop.

Cliffs above.

Here is where my aforementioned mix-up struck again. This is the fork that determines how long your hike will be. The shorter loop is to the left. The longer one is to the right. Again, I confused myself so we went right. Lucky for us, there is another trail split so we only ended up adding probably another mile to our intended hike.

This took us down into this weird little valley.

With some neat formations.

Nice view.

Cool band of color.

Another nice view. Oh, and what is this?

Digital Crop: I  thought this might be Big Bear Spire, it does kind of look like a bear waving at us from this angle, but this is in the shorter loop, and I think Big Bear Spire is in the longer loop.

Another nice view.

More cliffs and what looks like a small set of narrows.

More cliffs.

Pile of fallen rocks.

Another rock face that has a face. Yes, I am aware of pareidolia: the phenomenon of seeing patterns that don’t exist, particularly faces.

Another big spire.

More cliffs.

I like the white pipe against the red cliffs.

It was about this point that I began to suspect we had inadvertently put ourselves on the longer loop. While I did want to see cool cave, there were other trails in the park I wanted to explore as well. So, we turned back and took the second split which had a sign stating to TH, so we surmised (correctly) that was the shortest route back.

More cryptobiotic crust.

Fun formations.

Another spire.

There is a little trail out to it.

Nice view from here too.I’m not sure where this trail goes, so we decided to head back to the main trail.

It does allow you to get close to the big spire.

The south end of the loop is not as exciting as the north end, but it is still pretty and offers a nice view.

Dead tree.

Looking back towards the cliffs.

What I thought might have been Big Bear Spire, but is not.

Back to the cliffs.

A view of Bryce Canyon again.

Digital crop.

Getting closer to that big rock.

Cool rocks.

We passed the trail spur to Panorama Point and decided to skip it. I am sure it offered a great view but, meh. We wanted to see what else Kodachrome Basin had to offer.

Closest view of the big rock.

Looking towards the trailhead.

And the white cliffs to the north.

You can see Ballerina Spire from here.

Crossing another wash. I imagine the trails must close during rainstorms as it is very dangerous/deadly to cross a wash when it is raging.

Looking back towards the big rocks.

Bryce Canyon again.

And we are back to the trail before the loop split.

A familiar pipe.

Familiar formations.

The main prominent pipe again. better lighting now.

Now we are in the main basin again.

Interesting plant.

More rocks.

Cliffs near the trailhead.

That trail was incredible! So many interesting formations and views. And pretty easy going. I don’t think I would recommend doing this on a hot summer day as there was not much shelter but it was awesome on this cooler blustery day. Looking back at the map I am kind of kicking myself for not just continuing to Cool Cave as we had pushed on to almost halfway there, but I think if we had done that we would not have had the time or energy to do the couple of other trails we ended up doing. All in all, I enjoyed what we did. And I again suggest taking the map with you if it is your first time. Going with 9 out of 10 squirrels.

As for difficulty, This trails was pretty easy going. A couple ups and downs, some sandy spots, and a smidge of slick rock. Pretty easy peasy.

Dogs are allowed, leashed. Be aware of temperatures though as it might be too hot for your pups feet.