Back Road Adventure

BACK ROAD ADVENTURE Four-wheel to Blue Spring in Cape Solitude Country

The round rocks and talcum dirt rob the truck of traction, and, finally, a boulder ledge stops my uphill crawl altogether, a mile short of Blue Spring, the mineralized source for the milky blue color of the Little Colorado River. A second try flattens a tire, and then the new jack breaks. but I can't afford to chance puncturing another tire on the hill, so we leave my truck and go the rest of the way in theirs. The Little Colorado gorge comes up quickly, a 1,500-foot plunge to a shallow river that joins the Colorado 10 miles farther downstream in Grand Canyon National Park. More Not on the map, and arrived at a place where no mechanic would ever come. The odometer shows we have traveled 17 miles in five hours. At Gold Hill, a map landmark, we had taken the right fork to Blue Spring and the sand-trap hill that barred me. The left fork, I knew, leads to landscape that extends outward in shades of brown until it is enveloped by palpable desolation. By late spring, winter rains evaporate completely from the gritty soil, and grass the sheep missed crumbles to dust underfoot. I camp beside a rock livestock corral, the only human sign in this lonely land. Desert cottontail rabbits with oversize ears hop over for a close look at me. A hummingbird twice flies into the cab, helicoptering in front of my face as I read, waiting for nightfall. They seem glad for company, too.

Now I am in a fix, deep in a waterless wasteland along the northernmost edge of the Painted Desert, on my first real four-wheel-drive adventure. And what worries me is a bigger, steeper hill that blocks my retreat.

When I don't pop over the rise, photographer Chuck Lawsen and his wife, Sharon, double back. My spare is good, and Chuck carries two jacks, emerald than blue, the stain from Blue Spring billows like ink into clear upstream water, then collects in downstream pools before blending into robin's-egg blue. Tourists are rare back here.

"Well, what do you think?" Chuck asks. "Isn't this a great four-wheel adventure?"

No doubt about it. We have descended 1,500 feet into a treeless desert, encountered roads the Grand Canyon park boundary and the 6,146-foot bluff of Cape Solitude, which overlooks the confluence of the Little Colorado with the Colorado River, just upstream from the seldom-seen cliffs of the Palisades of the Desert. We would go there next.

From Blue Spring Overlook, where I leave the Lawsens, the walk back to my stricken truck offers a chance to appraise a Night ushers in an abiding quiet after the wind drops off. A cool lunar brightness replaces the sun. Jupiter and three visible moons float like atoms along the southern axis, and the Milky Way hangs overhead like whirls of spun cotton. But my mind is on the big hill. I check the tires again. Without a spare, they seem as fragile as eggshells.

Our back road adventure began at 7,498-foot Desert View, the observation tower that looks over the South Rim of the Grand Canyon toward the white water of Tanner Rapids on the Colorado River. Chuck leading, we tipped down, hanging on the crawler gear for the 1,100-foot creep down a rocky four-wheel switchback road toward Cedar Mountain. The steering wheel felt bonded to my hands. signaled a rest stop in the juniper flats at Cedar Mountain. I propped a lawn chair in the road and consulted a map that showed the road falling away to where the country was doing a shimmy dance under a June sun. Right there I felt a knot of apprehension about the hill we had descended a thought so distracting, despite Chuck's assurances, that I drove off without the chair.

Now the road really got rough. With power on four wheels, the trucks straddled deep runoff grooves and rumbled across boulder fields. A weathered sign marked the crossover from national park onto the Navajo reservation. The road turned down again. The Navajos abandon this part of their land in summer, leaving behind roads that snake every which way. With a compass, we picked the right one to Blue Spring.

Suddenly company arrives unexpectedly. Jim Smart, 43, a heating and cooling company owner, and Bernie King, 42, a computer expert, both of Flagstaff, appear around a sandstone point in their threequarter-ton four-wheeler and roll into camp, looking for Blue Spring. On a hunch, Smart says, "We followed the fresh tracks [ours] hoping that's where they were going."

They had followed us down from Desert View Lookout "gnarly," Smart says and encountered a strange sight: a lawn chair in the middle of the road.

Off they go, their heavy truck making quick work of the hill, leaving me alone with the wind, gnawing concerns, and the fearless cottontails.

By the time the Lawsens return from the Blue Spring Overlook, I wonder whether I should run, take on the big hill now, and get it over with.

But instead I follow Chuck and Sharon up the left fork to where it tips into a narrow, twisty canyon. There's no turning around for two miles until you arrive at the barbed wire gate to Grand Canyon National Park.

Once you could legally drive to the end of Cape Solitude. (See Arizona Highways, July '92.) Now the area is a designated Wilderness; all wheeled traffic banned since 1991. National Park Service permits are required for the five-mile hike to the edge of the 3,000-foothigh bluff over the Colorado and the Little Colorado.

The hike out is easy along a road across the plateau sprinkled with sea lilies, and, after photographs, we retrace our way back to the corral camp. The Lawsens stop for purple flowers and discover ancient pictographs protected under a ledge. I discover new confidence in my truck as it pulls free of the wash without a slip. And I've got an idea.

TIPS FOR TRAVELERS

To follow this back road, take U.S. Route 89 from Flagstaff, then State Route 64 through the east entrance to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Turn onto the first road after the fee gate. The route is rated very difficult; four-wheel drive is required.

Take along the Vishnu Temple and Blue Spring quadrangle topographical maps, at least five gallons of water and several canteens per person, food for two days, a daypack, first-aid kit, an air pump, a good spare tire, and a jack that works.

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 aware of weather and road conditions, and make sure you and your vehicle are in top shape and you have plenty of water.

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

The next morning, I load 200 pounds of rock into a duffel bag and place it over the rear axle to increase traction.

Out of Navajoland we crawl, back into the park. Still in the center of the road is the lawn chair and just beyond, the dreaded loose-rock hill.

Even with the engine revving 1,800 to 2,100 revolutions per minute, the truck in lowest gear crawls up so slowly the speedometer doesn't budge up, up, up, and then the wheels lose traction, slip, and stop before the 10-inchhigh brow of a boulder barrier that didn't delay Chuck's more powerful truck. Another try and this time I jink to the right, and I'm over and still moving, still going up, around the hairpin turns, the boulder barriers, tires clinging tightly to the stony road. I keep waiting for the tires to spin again, but it doesn't happen, and now, as we pass the last switchback grade, I let out a whoop. Suddenly I feel good about my truck, good about myself for beating that hill.