Lee's Ferry and Marble Canyon

In an earlier column, I decribed my first choice for a day long outing --- the one I select for our visitors to Kanab. This jaunt offers a variety of ghost town, back roads, river, and canyon. The first stop is Paria, ghost town and old western movie set, and that I covered in an earlier column, along with mention of the next lap, House Rock Road.

From Paria Road, 4.9 miles further east, House Rock Road takes off to the right. The exit is just at the beginning of a guardrail as highway 89 makes a wide left turn, and the road can be easily seen, running southerly down a broad canyon. It runs parralel to the Paria Canyon/Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness Area, which is accesible for hiking only.

There are two trailheads allowing entrance to the wilderness area from House Rock Road. They are Buckskin Gulch and Wire Pass. (The hikes are the long, backpacking variety, so I haven't, and probably never will, make them). It's 26 miles down House Rock Road from highway 89 (the road to Page, Arizona), to 89A which which runs from Jacob Lake, on the Kaibab Plateau, to reconnect with highway 89 beyond Marble Canyon.

Approaching 89A on House Rock, you "pick up" the awesome Vermillion Cliffs on the left, and pass the area where the California Condors are nurtured and released. You turn left on 89A and follow the huge, colorful cliffs all the way to Marble Canyon, our next destination.

More on those cliffs --- Vermillion is the name, but that is only one of many, many colors. These and the crazy, eroded forms and shapes call for the camera to come out and go to work. The shapes I can capture, but the colors, as at Paria, defy me.

Crossing Marble Canyon is the Navajo Bridge. Cross the bridge, park, and walk out on the seperate pedestrian way. From there, the view of the great Colorado, far below, both upstream and downstream, is awe inspiring. Equally fascinating is the seemingly lacy, delicate arch of the bridge itself, a marvel of engineering --- great strength, though fragile in appearance.
Then let's go recross the bridge, turn right, (stop at the Navajo Museum, if you like), and go down the 7 miles to Lee's Ferry. Scenery on the way down is spectacular, but what fascinates me is to arrive right down on that same river that seemed so unreachable from the bridge.

There's much to see down by the riverside --- The Paria Ripple, where the Paria joins the Colorado, but strives to retain its own identity for as far downstream as it can, There's the launching area for river runners, and RV campground, historical panels covering the ferry operated by John D. Lee, old cabins, and the ill-fated Lee's Lonely Dell ranch a short distance up the Paria Valley. Advice: Go to Lee's Ferry with time to look around.
 

 

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