Back Road Adventure

It's the Swiss honeymooners. RECAPTURE THE Young and so in love. I try to recall the feeling. FRONTIER ROMANCE He, tall, lean, crewcut. She, plump, peachy, doeOF THE FABLED eyed. Though the Wilderness River Adventures' raft HONEYMOON TRAIL holds 10 others, they're alone, wrapped up in themselves.From time to time, they delight in the stunning Glen Canyon scenery, oohing and aahing, each directing with pointed finger the eyes of the other toward the soaring palisades.

Turning to face each other, their eyes lock; they embrace. And the nuzzling, nipping, kissing commence anew. Our boatman, about the same age, pretends not to notice the honeymooners, although I catch his sidelong glance. A brand-new couple, husband and wife, touring the American West, the "New World" (to them, at least), to begin a new life together.

A century ago, other honeymooners, Mormon kids in horsedrawn wagons, crossed the Colorado River downstream at Lees Ferry, just 16 miles below Glen Canyon Dam where we boarded the raft this morning. Motoring and drifting, we'll be there in a couple of hours. By the time they made the ferry landing, some of the young couples had been on the road two weeks or more.

Starting from one of the pioneer Mormon settlements strung along the Little Colorado River and its tributaries Brigham City, Sunset, Allen's Camp (later renamed St. Joseph), Woodruff, Snowflake, Taylor, St. Johnsthey seldom made more than 20 miles on a good day.

At Lees Ferry, at the northern edge of Arizona, they rested for a few days before heading out across the Paria Plateau toward St. George, Utah, and the first Mormon temple built in the West. Already married in Arizona civil ceremonies, they would "go through the temple" in a second ceremony to have their marriages sanctioned by the church. Travel across the Paria Plateau was tough. Roads, where they existed, were crude, and the honeymooners' customized Studebaker sheepcamp wagons often became mired hub deep in sand or sticky clay. Wheel rims cracked on jutting rocks; axles snapped. Springs and water holes often ran dry, so they carried water: a pair of 40-gallon kegs, one slung on each side of the wagon.

Ah, but they were honeymooners. Heat, cold, drought, flood, broken traces, a lame animal? When did any of that matter to young lovers?

Other wayfarers reported that honeymoon couples traveled in groups. At dusk they drew their wagons around a campfire where they swapped stories, sang, and danced to the music of harmonica, fiddle, or accor-

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, first-aid kit, sunglasses, water-purification tablets, shovel, maps (road and topographic), compass, survival gear, tools, spare tire and parts, 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.

Dion well into the night. In the morning, passersby noted, the "prairie pullmans," canvas covers cinched tight long after sunrise, seemed in no hurry to break camp.

We've circled our "wagons" - pickups with camper shells at the trailhead of Buckskin Gulch, four miles south of U.S. Route 89 (all miles are approximate) in the Paria-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness Area. Up early, we'll hike a 12-mile stretch of Buckskin Gulch, strictly for recreation, then drive at our leisure across a section of the Honeymoon Trail that spans House Rock Valley on the Paria Plateau north of the Grand Canyon.

Buckskin is a side channel of Paria Canyon. Mainly, we want to hike enough of it to get the feel of the "dive," a place where sheer, unscalable walls narrow to a few feet. A flash flood would drown us in these narrows. But we're safe. The day is cloudless, the sky the purest of Arizona blues.

It's spring on the plateau. Wildflowers abound: penstemon, yellow prickly pear, claret cup hedgehog cactus, globemallow, and the yellow-flowered stalks of princes-plume. Chittering constantly, white-throated swifts and cliff swallows dip and turn high above us.

Back at our trucks a few hours later, there's talk of a prelunch shower with solar-heated water, but we decide to drive on. Today, the condition of the road, 30 miles of gravel between U.S. 89 on the north and U.S. 89A on the south, is excellent. Perhaps a little rumbly in spots, but easily driven in any high-clearance vehicle.

Billows of dust swirl up behind and infiltrate my camper shell, layering our gear with powdered sandstone. Rain would be welcome only a little. Just enough to beat down the dust; but not enough to sluice out road ruts.

The road climbs steadily through juniper-piñon woodlands interspersed with broad grassy plains still green from bountiful spring rains. Wildflowers - yellow, blue, and red - twinkle at roadside.

We're sight-seers, not honeymooners. Our attention is arrested by steep cliffs on our left and conical hills with varicolored layers in the foreground. Bumping over a side road heading east, we approach the hills for a closer look.

At this point, we're perhaps 10 miles south of U.S. 89. Our trucks handle the side road easily, but I wouldn't try it in a passenger sedan. And after a hard rain, I'd steer clear entirely. Composed of Chinle marl, the same sandstone that makes up the Painted Desert, the hills we've stopped to look at seem out of place here.

We rest in the shade for a bit, then drive back out to House Rock Valley Road. Six miles farther south, we come to an intersection. A sign points seven miles west toward Buckskin Mountain. It was here that the Mormon honeymooners, having camped the night before at House Rock Spring, perhaps, turned west toward Fredonia, Arizona, 32 miles away, and then on to St. George. In the soft light of a westering sun, the red cliffs looming beside us have taken on a deeper vermilion hue. Now, after 30 slow, dusty miles, House Rock Valley sprawls to the horizon beyond the southernmost reach of the Vermilion Cliffs, and we come to U.S. 89A. We turn right 14 miles to Jacob Lake where, at nearly 8,000 feet, nights are cool. We'll camp nearby.

I can never know the romance of cross-country travel in a covered wagon. Nor will I ever again rekindle the fever of young love. But where I'm going, a warm solar shower awaits, and the night air whispers with the scent of pine. The Mormon honeymooners could never know the luxury of such spur-ofthe-moment detours.

Trail from north to south, the easiest access is 27 miles west of Marble Canyon on U.S. 89A.

Paria Canyon Photo Tour: Join the Friends of Arizona Highways and Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Jack Dykinga on a backpacking trip into wild and beautiful Paria Canyon, May 13-17. To obtain information and to make reservations, telephone the Friends' Travel Desk, (602) 271-5904.