Follow Barry Goldwater to the Canyon's Kolb Arch

Arch A lone hiker dares a treacherous trail to revisit the isolated natural bridge by Tom Kuhn

You can plainly see Kolb Arch from the helicopter landing spot where Sen. Barry Goldwater set out in 1954 on his exploration of the more than 150-foot-high natural bridge. Usually the arch lies hidden in shadows inside the Grand Canyon. It's not on any list of recommended hike destinations, and even now, few dare climb past the tumble of carsize boulders and the sheer dropoffs to go there. But some canyoneers seek that sort of challenge. So, on a day in mid-October-the same month Goldwater chose-Elias Butler of Flagstaff set off with enough stuff on his back for six days in the bush. In his pack he carried a copy of Goldwater's account published in the February 1955 issue of Arizona Highways. Goldwater-Arizona's nativeson U.S. senator and 1964 presidential candidate, outdoorsman, pilot and photographer-discovered the bridge in 1950 while flying over the Grand Canyon.

The old article triggered Butler's interest in the adventure hike. Most Grand Canyon National Park trails, even the primitive ones, are well worn. But this one, judging from Goldwater's own ordeal, was simply too tough for the usual crowd. Later, Butler said, "I contacted anybody who knew anything about Kolb Arch, which was almost no one."

Nankoweap Trail is not an easy hike to talk anyone into taking, but Butler, a free-lance writer and photographer, talked Richard Danley, a Flagstaff free-lance photographer, into going with him. The worst summer heat was past as they started up the Saddle Mountain Trail, then down the narrow, acrophobic Nankoweap, a cliffhanger of a trail with a history of repulsing the fainthearted, including this writer.

Camping twice along their 12-mile, three-day haul from the Saddle Mountain trailhead, Butler and Danley let their packs slide to the ground and, near their base camp, located the spot where Goldwater's helicopter landed to begin his push to the natural bridge. “We camped as close as we could to where Goldwater had marked on the photograph,” Butler said. “Where he landed, there's a confluence of Nankoweap [Creek] and an unnamed side canyon comes in from the north.” It looked like they had arrived at the very spot.

They climbed a slight hill, stumbled upon a small ancient ruin and got their first glimpse of Kolb Arch about 3.5 miles away, cast in sunshine so it stood out from the surrounding red rock. In his account, Goldwater warned of one bad spot along the way to the natural bridge, but he made the rest sound easy enough.

It didn't take long during a reconnaissance to confirm that the bad spot, a sheer 150-foot-high pouroff, was every bit as daunting as Goldwater reported. After an exhausting first attempt to get around the pouroff, Danley announced he would remain in base camp. If Butler wanted to reach Kolb Arch, he would have to go alone. Interviewed afterward, he described the arduous climb.

Butler said he rose before first light, packed a few energy bars and 2 quarts of water, hefted a big camera and tripod and began a race with the sunlight. He had to reach the natural bridge by noon or it would dissolve into the shadows and evade his lens.

Goldwater had also packed a camera and been driven by the same urgency. “Once the sun has passed the peak of noon,” he wrote, “the shadows completely hide the bridge, and it is impossible to distinguish it from its neighboring cliffs.” He had timed the sunlight during several flights over the arch in the four years between its discovery and its exploration, and had formed in his mind a rough route to the bridge. He even gave “what we thought were adequate instructions to find it” to some adventurers headed down the Colorado River.

“This party explored both Little Nankoweap and Big Nankoweap canyons for this bridge,” he wrote, “but my instructions were apparently not sufficient, for they failed to find it.” Now, following the directions in the Goldwater article, Butler said he rockhopped up Nankoweap Creek past springnourished tule thickets and cottonwood trees and into a forest of low junipers, beneath the finlike formations of Bourke Point and Woolsey Point on his right and the rocky knob of Mount Hayden on his left. As rough as the creek bottom was, the slopes above were less inviting, clogged with juniper tangles and manzanita bushes.

Others had preceded Butler on the route to the natural bridge over the years. Rock climbers Donald P. Peterson, 75, and his wife, Adair, 71, of Albuquerque, N.M., had climbed to Kolb Arch several years before. The Petersons had made two runs at the natural bridge, once with a group that “lost heart” at the big pouroff, and succeeded a third time with rock climbers who had no problem going the whole way. They recalled seeing rock cairns and ropes at the bridge.

“We saw all kinds of old rope around there,” Adair said, describing how some hikers may have used ropes to climb to the roof of the natural bridge from above. “And the size of them!” Adair exclaimed. “One hanging down was what I'd call a nautical hawser.” The cairns had apparently been removed by the time Butler made his climb. He located the side canyon leading up to Kolb Arch and turned into it. It began gently enough but quickly turned steeper. Boulders and brush crowded the canyon's bottom. After about 2.25 miles, he came to the big pouroff that had almost stopped Goldwater.

“We came to a waterfall [that] was impossible for us to climb,” Goldwater wrote, “because we did not have rope with us and I was afraid that the moss that covers the face of that fall would prove too slippery for safe ascent. This unforeseen obstacle necessitated our walking back approximately a half mile” where a “most difficult climb” up the north side of the narrowed canyon got him past the pouroff. Butler, also without ropes, said he started up the steep talus slope following "as close as I could his route, and found it very difficult getting up there.

"It felt like every shrub and branch and rock was fighting me. It's all loose. There was minor cliff work. It's crumbly and steep and not very reliable, and there are places where you have to do some handand toehold stuff while leaning backward. You just have to fight the whole way [up]."

Butler now realized that "the climb was more strenuous than I anticipated." It wasstill hot on the floor of the Grand Canyon. Butler felt himself tiring. Grit rising from the canyon wall mixed with sweat and painted him cinnamon brown.

"You think once you get on top you can go back to the creek bed," Butler said. But at that point he discovered "at least a quartermile of traverses, really loose, steep scree slopes, and you're looking down a drop the whole time.

"Coming down off the traverses was just as difficult as going up," Butler continued. "Brushy slopes, very steep, loose footing."

After circumnavigating the big pouroff, Goldwater encountered some smaller ones. Butler was grateful to find clear, cool water trapped in the potholes they formed.

"I dipped my head in; I still had plenty of water left at that point," he said. It was about 8 A.M., three hours after leaving base camp, and the way ahead did not look easy. "My concern was getting to the bridge while there was still light on it."

From time to time, runoff gushes from the cliffs below 8,803-foot Point Imperial, sending powerful floods sluicing down through the tributary canyon where Kolb Arch still skulked out of Butler's sight

behind a bend blocked by huge boulders. "It's a good workout between the top of that bluff and the bridge," Butler said, "because it's real steep and, at the same time, you're forced to climb over these very large boulders and lots of pouroffs of maybe 15 to 20 feet high. The farther up the canyon, the harder and steeper the terrain becomes." Goldwater glossed over this part of the trek, but added a hopeful comment "that subsequent parties will find an easy way to get around this fall and so make the trip to the bridge a relatively simple one." So far, Butler had found the trek anything but simple. He was developing a growing appreciation for Goldwater's staying power. "Not many senators today could make that hike," he said. As Butler closed the distance to Kolb Arch, he checked the light. Still plenty remaining, but the going was slow. "I was hurrying as fast as I could, and it took about an hour to cover three-quarters of a mile," he recalled. Not until he stood directly under the bridge that now towered overhead did Butler arrive at an uncluttered place that was washed clear by the flow from a seasonal waterfall. All around, cliffs slanted "straight up and down." In a moldering heap lay the hawserlike rope the Petersons saw, but all the other dangling ropes had by then disappeared. Goldwater wrote about this place, "I was exhausted, and every muscle in my body ached, but a great peace and calmness came over me [and]... I sat there and wondered if any other white man had ever looked upon this thing from such a close vantage point. "I suspected that Indians in the past had traveled up here because we found pottery down below and because we know that Indians at one time lived at the mouth of Nankoweap." He later proposed to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names that the bridge be named after pioneer canyon photographers Ellsworth and Emery Kolb. On his climb out, Goldwater stayed to the north talus slope around the big pouroff, only "lower than on our hike up," and found the going somewhat easier. Going back, Butler said he chose instead the south slope and found it "not any worse than the north side, not more stable, just less brush. If I did it again, I would go up that way." He had beaten the sun to Kolb Arch, captured it on film and covered 7 hard miles in about eight hours. Mission accomplished, but the adventure wasn't over yet. The grind back up Nankoweap Trail still lay ahead. Al ARIZONA HIGHWAYS PHOTO WORKSHOPS: There's no better way to explore the Grand Canyon than to raft through it on the Colorado River. We've arranged not only to take a nine-day raft trip in June but to conduct a photo workshop headed by naturalist Ralph Lee Hopkins on the way. For details and prices, call toll-free (888) 790-7042, or see friendsofazhighways.com.

The Poor Old Editor Bids Farewell—But Not to His Beloved Arizona

BY NOW, MOST READERS KNOW Arizona Highways has a new editor. The poor old editor (and despite the scoffing of some readers at that sobriquet, I am old, and, if truth be told, fat and nearly bald as well) has retired. Like many millions of others, I have developed a great affection for my adopted state and I plan to spend as much time as possible enjoying it. But when I first saw Arizona, the concept of affection never entered my mind. What was a Hoosier to do in this putative wasteland? In the beginning, Arizona presented me with enormous challenges. My arrival coincided with the arrival of summer, so the weather soon grew flame-hot and boring. Every dawn awakened a sunny, cloud-free day, a monotony I abhorred. What I would have given for a little rain, or even a black cloud, in those days. And the food? These things called burros. Were Arizonans, like the French, equine eaters? Adjusting to the scorpions, sidewinders, solpugids and other beasties came easier. I actually developed a great fondness for the tarantula, a most delicate creature, despite how the movies depict it. Two things changed my mind about Arizona. I became addicted to refried beans (no kidding), and I came to know the desert. You might say my affection for Arizona began with beans, bugs and bushwhacking. I acquired such an addiction for refried beans that I snuck away from work one afternoon just to gobble up a plate of the stuff. I have since learned to control the bean cravings, but don't tempt me with Navajo tacos. How I came to know the desert I would not recommend to anyone. On a Mother's Day a couple of years after we arrived in Arizona, my wife and I and our three children, including an infant, went for an afternoon picnic at White Tank Mountain Regional Park, in those days an isolated expanse west of Phoenix. When we attempted to return, the car would not start. I walked in nearly 100-degree weather 5 miles across the desert until I found a rancher who helped us. During that walk, I learned a great deal about the desert: the great variety of crawly things, the plethora of plants and the amazing ways they blended together. I was hooked. From that day on, I began to pay close attention to my surroundings.

I have heard packs of coyotes howl at sunup, seen fog so thick over the Verde Valley that at first I thought it was on fire, climbed Mount Graham to an alpine lake, tasted the frigid Colorado River as it roared through the Grand Canyon, gotten lost among the hoodoos in the Chiricahua Mountains, daydreamed in Apache Pass where Cochise ambushed a Union troop, had the rare good luck to see a mountain lion race through the pine forest near Hawley Lake, retraced the steps of John Wayne in Monument Valley, explored the territory the Spanish adventurer Coronado traveled looking for cities of gold, trod the wooden sidewalks of Tombstone, fly-fished the trout streams around Greer and had a thousand other such experiences in Arizona's outback. If you give it a chance, this state grabs hold of you and won't let you go. But much of it is still frontier, primitive and untamed, and it will kill you if you treat it with disrespect. The Grand Canyon can roil your brains in the superheated summer and freeze you to death in the winter storms. The Salt River and all the other streams can bury you in a wall of flash-flood water after heavy rains or during spring snowmelt. And the southern Arizona desert dehydrates and kills hundreds who challenge it each summer. This is real country, this untamed rural Arizona. This is the land of fur trappers and mountain men and trailblazers and, most of all, of the Apaches, the Hopis, the Tonoho O'odham and the Navajos and all the other indigenous peoples who fought woolly mammoths with spears, and who raised maize on dry ground and made watertight baskets out of reeds. This is the land I have come to love, a land of history, a land of unmatched beauty, a land of adventure, a land of passion. My great pleasure for the past 15 years has been to share this passion with our readers through the pages of Arizona Highways magazine. The magazine has a great staff and the best of the best writers and photographers. I could not have asked for a better group of people to work with. But now it is my turn to sit back and see what they'll come up with next. For Arizona Highways is a magical experience in itself. Al