Could I but see the original I certainly could identify the route from here on, having been over the region so often.

As Escalante was obtaining what information he could from the natives, it seems to me that his first course "south-east" was to Pipe Spring along the foot of the Vermilion Cliffs, then his "north-east" was up toward Kanab and through Nine-Mile Valley to the head of the Kaibab, where a trail led him over to House Rock Valley, on his "south-east" tack, skirting the Vermilion Cliffs again.
But they lost it and struck the river at Marble Canyon, through a misunderstanding of the course of the trail, which bore easterly and then northerly around the base of the cliffs to what is now Lee's Ferry, where there was an ancient crossing.

Another trail goes (or did go) across the north end of the Paria Plateau and divides, one branch coming down the high cliffs about three miles up the Paria from the mouth, by a dizzy and zig-zag path, and the other keeping on to the south-east and striking the river at the very point for which Escalante was evidently now searching.

Perhaps the Pai Utes had told him of this trail as well as the one he tried to follow, which would have taken him to the Lee's Ferry crossing about thirty-five miles below.

He seems to have reached the brink of Marble Canyon, perhaps half-way between the Paria and the Little Colorado,** and followed up-stream first north and then (beyond Paria) north-east, hunting for a ford.