The Escalante River (Garfield) originates five miles southwest of Escalante at the junction of Upper Valley, Birch, and North Creeks. The river drains southeast into the Colorado River. This was the last river in the United States to be discovered and added to maps. It is considered one of the most crooked rivers in the United States. Geologist Herbert E. Gregory measured a fourteen-mile straight line sector of the river and found it to be thirty-five miles long. The river was named by Almon Thompson of the Powell surveys to honor the first white man to have crossed this wilderness area, even though Escalante never entered this locality. Thompson also provided an earlier name of Potato Creek or Potato Valley Creek after the valley the river drained. Today, sections of the river have been set apart as a wilderness area.