Back Road Adventure

To one designed the road to Cape Solitude; no one maintains it. On the contrary, the road evolved over a few decades to fit the special needs of Navajo shepherds and others who occasionally require a lot of space. There's room to spare at Cape Solitude.

It is the farthest buttress of the Palisades of the Desert, the great sandstone wall on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon that separates the Canyon from the Painted Desert to the east.

In almost every direction from Cape Solitude, you can see a hundred miles and a hundred wonders. Look straight down, and a mile below you can see the confluence of the Little Colorado and Colorado rivers.

The prudent never go there. Of the 4 million who visit Grand Canyon National Park each year, fewer than a hundred find their way to the cape.

The reason is the road. Its surface is littered with every variety of lethal rock, and it traverses slopes at angles more appropriate to cartoons than to cars. Moreover, since the road is 15 miles long and lonely, a miscalculation — or just plain bad luck — can entail a long walk out.

So it's hard to explain why my wife, our eight-year-old son and six-year-old daughter, and I, an otherwise sensible family, forced our way to Cape Solitude one stormy day in April.

The facts, as I know them, are these: we started the drive innocently — no road, we believed, could stay as bad as this one is initially — then we got stubborn, dug ourselves in deep, and before long it was as easy, and more rewarding, to go forward as to turn back.

When we left the tourist center at Desert View, we were well-equipped. We had a reliable spare tire (two would have been even better), plenty of water and food, and a truck we could beat up. Four-wheel drive and high clearance are required for this trip.

Furthermore, we had obtained good directions; the way was clear, and the basic rule of driving to Cape Solitude - head north and always turn left - never failed us. All we had to do was stay attached to the road.

Less than a mile east of the East Entrance Ranger Station, I turned (left) onto a heavily rutted dirt road. No sign marked the way, we just took the first track that looked likely. "Likely" is a relative term.

TIPS FOR TRAVELERS

Back-road travel can be hazardous if you are not prepared for the unexpected. Whether traveling in the desert or in the high country be sure you and your vehicle are in top shape and your gear includes - at minimum - the following: appropriate clothing and footwear, food and water, medication, a first-aid kit, sunglasses, water-purification tablets, a shovel, maps (road and topographic), a compass, tools, spare tire, and a tow chain.

Last, don't travel alone, and let someone at home know where you're going and when you plan to return.

During the winter, some desperate soul had really churned up this stretch of road. Axle-deep ruts swerved across the red dirt for hun-dreds of yards, testimony to an epic struggle to reach pavement. But in spring with the ground firm, we easily spanned the ruts, and for that one mile, we cruised the ju-niper forest like idle tourists.

Soon, however, the road turned rocky. When we came to a set of tight switchbacks, I put the truck in first gear, and we began inching down the slopes of the east Kaibab Monocline, a hillside of sur-passing age and steepness.

THE DANGEROUS TRIP TO CAPE SOLITUDE, A WHITE-KNUCKLER ALL THE WAY

For the next five or six miles, we never got above second gear.

As we descended and the junipers thinned, the Vermilion Cliffs and Navajo Mountain appeared in the distance at the far edge of the Kaibab and Kaibito plateaus. Nearer, Cedar Mountain, covered almost to its flat top with juniper, dominated the view east. Beyond lay the tableland of the Painted Desert, its pastels muted by shadows of clouds, its flat expanse broken only by a dark seam marking the narrow gorge of the Little Colorado.

After the switchbacks came some narrow draws. The rocks cemented in the bottoms of these draws, having stood the test of time, proved more than a match for our oil pan. When we began to bottom out routinely, my wife got out to scout obstructions.

For the next mile, she directed us around boulders when she could and moved them when she had to. And when that didn't work, she resorted to cursing those rocks in the same hopeless but skillful way a wrangler swears at mules.

Cursing doesn't work any better on rocks than it does on mules, so, in desperation, we adopted the radical strategy of steering directly over the worst rocks. It was that or the oil pan.

Our tires deformed sickeningly as they passed over horns of sharp rock, and, not for the last time, I wished we had another spare. On the way back, we would blow a tire in one of these draws, the sidewall torn out by an unseen blade of rock.

Even with seat belts secured, we bounced in the cab like pips in a rattle. As we crept down scary ledges, I miscalculated a turn, and we dropped completely off one foot-high ledge, then crashed onto the next below. Net result: four spines compressed several inches apiece, a loose tooth popped from our six-yearold's mouth, and the truck's right rocker panel crushed.

Eleven miles into the ride, after we'd crossed a short section of the Navajo reservation, we came to the crux, an open hill covered with loose sandstone shards. The angle would have deterred a mountaineer. At this point, my family got out and walked. Based on my recent form, I could hardly blame them.

On my first try, I started up the hill steady, confident, going fast for the conditions. About midway, a series of ruts and ridges stopped me cold. For a moment, the truck bucked in place, straining to jump one more ledge. But a decent respect for our tires and drivetrain — and the specter of a long walk out — made me back down. After three more tries, a couple of large-scale excavations, and a few false starts, I finally bounced the truck up and over the hill to the cheers of my family.

Through air redolent with the fragrance of sage, we rolled the last few miles across tableland on the western fringe of the Painted Desert.

Sticking close together, we tiptoed as close to the point of the cape as we dared. In the canyons, where roots of mountains grew out of the floors and shores of lost seas, the Little Colorado, stained by shades drained from the Painted Desert, flowed out of its own deep canyon to muddy the Colorado.

Balanced at the edge of canyons, desert, and sky, we held hands on the brink of the void at the end of the road to Cape Solitude. M