Travel

THE OURNEY'S END

TRAVEL TO TOROWEAP ON THE NORTH RIM OF THE GRAND CANYON WITH A WOMAN WHO GAVE UP MADISON AVENUE TO FIND PEACE IN THE WILD

WHAT WAS THE IMPETUS THAT PERMITTED HER TO TURN HER BACK ON THE JET-SET LIFE? WHAT PROPELLED HER INTO THE SEMIWILDERNESS ON A QUEST FOR PEACE AND HARMONY?

I'VE NEVER HAD A DESIRE TO DINE with royalty. I've never visited a locker room to shake hands with a professional athlete, and I've never asked a movie star for an autograph. But when I heard the story of Rona Levein's escape from the 20th-century tiger trap of money and power, I knew I needed to meet her.

It's not easy to meet Rona. She lives in a vast and lonely part of Arizona sometimes called "the American Tibet." More commonly known as the Arizona Strip, it's the 9,000-square-mile northwest corner of the state cut off from the rest of Arizona by the Colorado River and the mile-deep gorge of the Grand Canyon.

The Arizona Strip is larger than the state of Massachusetts, yet its total population is on the short side of 4,500, and most of these people live in the communities of Fredonia and Colorado City. Otherwise, fewer than 700 permanent residents are to be found in this vast expanse of beautiful but unsettled country.

The only Arizona entry into the strip is over a sturdy 60-year-old bridge that hangs 500 feet above the Colorado River at Marble Canyon. Rona lives at a place called Vermilion Cliffs, a tiny way station, appropriately named because it sits in the shadow of the 3,000-foot Vermilion Cliffs.

The little settlement consists of a small motel, a restaurant, and a few houses down the road at a place called Badger Creek. That's where Rona lives. Once she had a prestigious address in Manhattan and a plush office in a glass skyscraper. She was a corporate officer for one of the world's largest advertising agencies and worked among the trendsetters of the fashion and cosmetics industries.Today, she delivers mail on a postal route that has taken her, by her own estimate, more than a quarter-million miles through the sparsely populated land she now calls home. On some days, she carries no more than a few dozen pieces of mail. She says that never, ever, does it cross her mind to go back to her old way of life.

I had an assignment to write an article on the Toroweap Overlook, one of the most remote points on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Toroweap, accessible only through the Arizona Strip, is 154 lonely miles from U.S. Route 89 at BitterSprings on the Navajo Indian Reservation. The final 63 miles are over a dirt road that undulates and twists through plateau country totally uninhabited except for a ranger station at Tuweep near the North Rim of the Canyon.

I decided to ask Rona if she would accompany me on this trip into the heart of her adopted homeland. I had been informed she had hiked, alone (four days), through the remote and precipitous canyon of the Paria River. She had rafted numerous times down the rapids of the Colorado and through the Grand Canyon. She was a logical companion who could supply unique views on the land and its history.

But my real reason for wanting to take Rona along was to see if she would share her formula for breaking free from the siren songs of materialism and prestige. What was the impetus that permitted her to turn her back on the jet-set life? What propelled her into the semiwilderness on a quest for peace and harmony?

In a pleasant August day under a sky of purest blue we set out on the journey to Toroweap from Rona's home at Badger Creek. She suggested we travel in her 1970 Volkswagen van. "It knows the country," she tells me.

So, we pile in. Rona (in the driver's seat); myself; my college-age son, Bart; and photographer HelenLau Running. Also along is Pal-o-mine, a part-Collie/ part-coyote sheepdog that Rona acquired on the Indian reservation. And finally, Pal-o-mine's pal, a peculiar looking mixed-breed pup with one blue eye and one brown.

It's a tight squeeze because Rona's vehicle is loaded on an ever-ready basis with items needed for treks through a lonely land: shovels, ground cloths, cans of motor oil, bug repellent, ice chests, and a small tent.

We start west on U.S. 89A driving below the weather-carved escarpments of the Vermilion Cliffs; then across House Rock valley where one of the West's largest buffalo ranches is located (See Arizona Highways, Sept. '78); up to the 8,000-foot crown of the forested Kaibab Plateau; then down the other side on State 389 with the red rock country of southern Utah far in the distance.

Somewhere on the downside of the Kaibab Plateau, I tell Rona I worked for a number of years for major corporations, a few more years with ad agencies, and I had lived in several big cities as well. “I've known a multitude of people who said they wanted to drop out of the rat race. But very few do.” Rona is a diminutive woman with light brown hair and a wide smile. Somewhere in her early middle years. She turns on the smile. “You escaped,” she says.

THE JOURNEY'S END

“Partially and slowly,” I reply, “but you made a quantum leap from one end of the spectrum to the other, almost instantaneously. Will you tell me about it?” She nods, still smiling.

“In college,” she says, “I began experiencing a strong desire for recognition. I wanted to do things that would mark me as a woman of accomplishment. I was graduated from Barnard.” “After graduation, I took the ocean liner La Liberté to Europe for a six-month postgraduate holiday. When I came back, I put on a blue suit, white gloves, and went out looking for success.” In the small farming and lumbering community of Fredonia, we stop for lunch and find a Mexican restaurant serv-ing good tacos and tamales.

“I started as a secretary,” Rona tells me. “Then I got a chance to write a docu-mentary movie. That led to a job at NBC as a continuity writer, and from there I moved to the position of assistant cre-ative director in the advertising depart-ment of a cosmetics firm. I job-hopped to an ad agency and doubled my salary. At the age of 35, I became a vice presi-dent at Foote, Cone and Belding.” After lunch, we top off the gas tank and move on. About 12 miles ahead is Pipe Spring National Monument, one of the last outposts of civilization on this route. (See Arizona Highways, May '91) To the south and west are thousands of square miles that harbor no signs of man, except for a few crumbling shacks and generally unreliable dirt roads. Not much water, either. There is not a single per-manently running stream or lake in this entire 9,000 square miles.

The road to Toroweap, a left turn nine miles west of Fredonia, doesn't look too bad. “Well, most of the time it's okay,” Rona tells me. “But, after a good rain, it turns into a quagmire.” Ahead, I can see the road, snaking its way through stands of sagebrush all the way to the horizon. Far distant and off to the right are the dim blue silhouettes of Mount Trumbull, Mount Logan, Mount Emma, all more than 7,000 feet in height.

Bart is in a rear seat listening to a tape. Pal-o-mine sleeps on his lap. Photographer HelenLau is dozing, too. The dog with the funny eyes is lost in the pile of bedrolls. “So, now you are a vice president,” I say, resuming our conversation.

“My salary keeps going up, my interest level down,” she says. “And I'm starting to think: is this all there is? Something's missing.” I turn and look behind us. All I see is distance and our dust trail. Distance ahead. We haven't passed a single car. “Let me guess. It's about time for a geographic cure,” I opine.

“Right,” she replies. “Six months in Greece and Portugal. When I came back, I went to work for Charles Revson at Revlon. But somewhere along the way, I realized that recognition was no longer meaningful, and I felt a need to search for something else.” A pickup truck passes, going in the other direction, the first and only vehicle we will see on the road to Toroweap.

“Isn't it strange.. the things that can totally change our lives,” Rona muses. “One day I picked up a brochure from the Museum of Natural History advertising a geological field trip on rafts through the Grand Canyon. I went. I saw. And I was totally captured by the serenity I found in the silence, the peace in the great visible distances."

HER FRONT PORCH LOOKS OUT ON THE IMMENSE UPTHRUSTING MASS OF THE VERMILION CLIFFS. 'SOMETIMES,' SHE SAYS, 'I CLIMB UP INTO THE CLIFFS AND SHOUT SHAKESPEARE INTO THE WIND.'

Now we are entering Toroweap Valley (sometimes called Tuweep Valley), one of the many tributaries of the massive lava flows that, eons ago, spilled out of the nearby volcanic peaks and flowed to and over the edge of the Grand Canyon.

There are more than 60 volcanic cones in the region. Geologists tell us that giant lava spills once created a dam across the Colorado River that was more than 500 feet high. One of the earlier lava streams flowed more than 84 miles downstream. But the force of the mighty river eventually broke through the dam more than a million years ago.

"I made two more raft trips through the Canyon," Rona continues. "Then in October, 1978, I left New York to try living in the strip country. I had been earning a very nice income, but I hadn't saved much. I had enough to last about four months. I moved into a tiny room at Lees Ferry Lodge near the Vermilion Cliffs. The small cafe had a jukebox and a pool table: a place where river-raft crews gathered to socialize. When money ran out, I worked as a maid at Marble Canyon Lodge down the road."

She finally landed the job delivering mail. Later she bought an old house with a hole in the wall where a pickup truck had backed into it. She restored the house, started an orchard and vegetable garden, terraced the land, and planted shade trees and a profusion of flowers. Her front porch looks out on the immense upthrusting mass of the Vermilion Cliffs. "Sometimes," she says, "I climb up into the cliffs and shout Shakespeare into the wind."

We stop along the road from time to time. HelenLau takes pictures. The dogs chase jackrabbits through the sagebrush. It is late afternoon by the time we reach the ranger station where we inquire about

THE JOURNEY'S END

a campsite. There aren't many at Toroweap, and they are primitive. The ranger tells us that one, off-road and remote, is close by. He gives us directions.

As we approach the rim over a road that finally becomes only a pair of ruts, I can see Vulcans Throne off to the right. It's an old and impressive volcanic cone that erupted and formed at the Canyon's edge more than 100,000 years ago. Dusk is falling, and heavy clouds are rolling in over the Uinkaret Plateau to the north. We forgo a look into the Canyon and navigate between gnarled juniper trees and over a surface of red sandstone. The road has entirely disappeared.

A picnic table under a jutting overhang of rock tells us we have arrived. We build a fire, prepare food. Droplets of rain are falling, but the overhang blocks most of them. We sit by the fire and talk. While Rona has made the strip her per-manent home, I find that she ranges far and wide in pursuit of her "close-toNature" life-style. A few years back, she traveled to Nepal, hiked alone to Hillary's old base camp at the foot of Everest. She has kayaked down the Green River, a tributary of the Colorado, and, in two weeks, she will leave for a pack trip through the Canadian Rockies.

"Why Nepal?" I ask.

"The Grand Canyon and the Himalayas were the yin and yang, the antithesis of one another. Deep down in the Canyon are the oldest exposed rocks on Earth. After being there, it seemed natural to travel toward the highest point on Earth."

Nightfall and cloud cover create a world of near-total blackness beyond the little island of our fire. I ask Rona, "What has the move done to you, for you?"

She slowly stirs the fire with a stick. "I think we become one with the landscape we live in. I would suggest that people look around. Take a good look at your landscape. Out here, I have good landscape. The more I blend with it, the happier I get."

Transient drops continue to fall. Rona decides to sleep on a pallet in the van. Bart assembles a one-man tent under a pine tree. I find a large flat rock five feet above the ground and toss down my sleeping bag. Experience tells me that sleeping on a flat boulder beats the bumps of rocky ground. HelenLau pulls the picnic table back under the overhang and arranges her bedroll on the tabletop.

Hours later, I suddenly come awake; I'm on my back looking skyward. The clouds are breaking up. Those remaining march across the face of a brilliant moon. A coyote yips from the cliffs to the north and receives a mournful answer from the woods to the east.

Breakfast is a slapdash affair. Bart makes himself a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. Mine is a granola bar and a cup of juice. With the first rays of early morning sun, we hop into the van and bump our way to Toroweap Overlook.

The dropoff point is about 50 yards away. A dozen steps from the edge my "trepidation meter" clicks on and keeps going up. Six feet from the rim, I'm getting strong psychological beeps. My steps get shorter, a flock of butterflies takes flight internally. Two feet from the edge my knees lock. That's as close as I intend to go. Some might call it a fear of heights. I call it an automatic application of common sense. Who needs a 3,000-foot freefall on a beautiful sunlit morning? Not me.

Here at Toroweap, the Grand Canyon narrows to a width of less than a mile and offers the longest straight-down drop along its 277-mile course. Off to my right looms Vulcans Throne and an incredible path of black lava stretching from ground level all the way to the bottom of the Canyon. The incline is frightfully steep, but I am told there is a route that can be followed all the way down to the Colorado.

I stretch my neck. The green and twisting ribbon of the river is down there. In its middle is a great black monolith, a huge plug of basalt called Vulcans Anvil. Downstream is a maelstrom of froth: Lava Falls, considered one of the world's fastest and most terrifying navigable rapids.

We walk about . . . chat . . . point . . .

HERE AT TOROWEAP, THE GRAND CANYON NARROWS TO A WIDTH OF LESS THAN A MILE AND OFFERS THE LONGEST STRAIGHT-DOWN DROP ALONG ITS 277-MILE COURSE. THE JOURNEY'S END

Take pictures. After a while I walk alone to the east a distance, find a large rock at rim's edge, sit down. I try to free my mind of everything, let my eyes take me down into the erosion-blasted depths past the ragged cliffs and tiers of tumbled rock, deep into a yawning gorge essentially devoid of vegetation. I sit quietly. Strangely, perhaps, the word "hell" floats down the corridors of my mind. I'm getting a feeling, but it is not of the cartoon hell of frolicking little devils with pitchforks. I am thinking of the hell of complete isolation. Overwhelming loneliness. I imagine being placed in the awesome depths down there, alone for all eternity, cut off from communication with God and all living creatures. A shudder runs up my spine. Then I shift to another channel of perception. I see the brilliant shafts of sunlight streaming down, a slice of blue sky, drifting fluffs of cumulus, two tiny dots that are rafts in the river below, a hawk soaring on an updraft. Heaven. Maybe that's as good a way as any to describe the Grand Canyon from Toroweap point. In one long glance . . . from heaven to hell and back again. The ultimate in contrasts.

Hardy early explorers John Wesley

WHEN YOU GO

Powell and Clarence Dutton described the Grand Canyon in lengthy and meticulous detail. I have always gotten lost in their narratives, and I have always felt that there is too much in the Grand Canyon for complete human description. The more you tell, the further away the essence of it seems to float. I like the few words that author Frank Waters wrote about it: "[It is] the sum total of all the aspects of nature combined in one integrated whole. It is at once the smile and frown upon the face of nature. In its heart is the savage, uncontrollable fury of all the inanimate Universe, and at the same time the immeasurable serenity that succeeds it. It is Creation."

We linger into the afternoon. Just looking, soaking it up. A car with three college students on a tour of the Southwest arrives. Later a pickup truck with an elderly couple pulls in. There is a register at the site. I glance through it. Ours seems about an average day at Toroweap: two, three, maybe four vehicles. Not a very busy part of the Canyon, not when you consider that more than 4 million visitors view it from the South Rim's more accessible sites each year.

I walk with Rona up to higher ground, another vantage point. I ask the question.

"What is the secret? What propelled you into this new life?" "I don't know. It's not anything I did. It was what happened to me. It was the effect of the river and the canyon walls on my mind. The visual and spiritual power. I was flattened by the immensity of the walls, the power of the river, the vividness of the colors. I think it may have created an absence of ego." For a person who doesn't know, her statement seems profound.

Travel Guide: For detailed information about the great variety of places to travel el in Arizona, we recommend the guidebook Travel Arizona and Arizona: Land of Contrasts, a video by Bill Leverton that offers a storyteller's perspective of the state. Both will direct you to exciting destinations and out-of-the-way attractions. Our Arizona Road Atlas, featuring maps of 27 cities, mileage charts, and points of interest, also is a necessity for travelers. For information or to place an order, telephone toll-free 1 (800) 543-5432. In the Phoenix area, call 258-1000.

only by those adequately prepared to deal with wilderness travel. Do not attempt the trip without ample preparation and provisions, including water, food, gasoline, and tools. Roads may become impassable following heavy rains or snows. Dirt roads are not recommended for motorhomes, travel trailers, or low-slung vehicles. Signing is sometimes confusing and posted mileages inaccurate. Do not attempt the trip during winter months. Camping: There are scattered, primitive campsites near the Toroweap Overlook. Stop at the Tuweep Ranger Station just north of Toroweap for a campsite assignment. Nearby accommodations: Motels and restaurants are available in Fredonia, Jacob Lake, and Kanab (just across the ArizonaUtah border). Similar accommodations also exist on Route 89A in the vicinity of Marble Canyon. A private campground with hookups is located off of State 389 about a half-mile from Pipe Spring National Monument. For more information: A good source for up-to-date weather information and road conditions is the Visitors Center, Pipe Spring National Monument, (602) 6437105. For general information, write Grand Canyon National Park, P.O. Box 129, Grand Canyon, AZ 86023.

Getting there: From Flagstaff, proceed north on U.S. 89 to Bitter Springs; then take Alternate 89 west across Marble Canyon and continue on to Jacob Lake. At Jacob Lake go north on State Route 389 through Fredonia and continue on this same route for approximately nine miles to a sign that says "Mount Trumbull Recreation Area." Take the dirt road going south. If, by chance, you miss this road, continue on three miles To Pipe Spring National Monument. The staff there will give you further directions. After leaving State 389, no water, food, gas, lodging, or services are available. A National Park Ranger is stationed yearround at Tuweep Ranger Station three miles north of Toroweap Overlook. A trip into this area, one of the most remote in the United States, should be attempted only by those adequately prepared to deal with wilderness travel.

The Friends of Arizona Highways auxiliary offers Photo Tour workshops to the state's scenic wonders for picture takers of all skill levels. Our premier photographers lead the tours and are assisted by representatives of Kodak and Nikon.

The Friends also offer Scenic Tours with Ray Manley, a pioneer Arizona Highways photographer. These are organized primarily for mature adults.

PHOTO TOURS

Monument Valley; September 23-26: Larry and Donna Ulrich show you how to capture on film the sculptured splendor of this famed valley in Navajoland. (See second trip below.) Autumn in the White Mountains; October 8-10: Enjoy the beautiful high country of eastern Arizona with Dale Schicketanz, viewing waterfalls, pine forests, sparkling lakes, and colorful aspen trees.

Canyon de Chelly; October 22-25: Jay Dusard leads a trip to view and photograph the imposing canyon with its incredible geologic formations and prehistoric ruins.

TRAVEL WITH THE FRIENDS OF ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

Monument Valley; October 22-25: Travel with Gary Ladd to the fascinating valley. (See first trip above.) Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon; November 5-8: Bob and Sue Clemenz take you to all the best spots to experience and photograph Sedona's soaring red rocks and the rich fall colors along Oak Creek.

SCENIC TOURS WITH RAY MANLEY

Canyon de Chelly/Monument Valley; October 26-30 For more information and reservations, telephone the Friends of Arizona Highways Travel Desk, (602) 271-5904.

Watch for 1993 Trip Schedule Next month look for an announcement of the Friends' 1993 Photo Tours. Exciting new trips will focus on the remote majesty of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, the rich cultural tapestry of the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in the White Mountains, the drama of slot canyons, and much more.

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LEARN TO TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS LIKE THE ONES IN ARIZONA HIGHWAYS.