Navajo Mountain-Rainbow Bridge Backpack

Original Trip Description: (September 15-21, 1996)
Navajo Mountain rises to a height exceeding 10,000 feet, dominating the local landscape of the Navajo Indian Reservation in Southern Utah. Our trip will take us deep into rugged sandstone canyon country on the western slopes of the mountain, leading us several times to the shores of Lake Powell.
Forbidding Canyon, Rainbow Bridge, Redbud Pass, ancient Indian ruins, petroglyphs, spring wildflowers, sparkling creeks and slickrock vistas make this trip a delight for backpackers and photographers.
The pace is moderate so substantial time is allotted for dayhiking the many magnificent side canyons that we pass in our circumnavigation of Navajo Mountain. The trip is rated moderate to strenuous (M/S).
Originates @ Navajo Mountain, UT.

Owl Arch

Yabut Pass Tipoff

Trip Report:

Four last minute sign-ups, during the month before the trip went off, brought our group size up to a comfortable ten. As each addition occurred, Susan referred them to the rest of the group to share transportation. They all met at the Phoenix airport and ended up with two cars. After searching for Carl, whose plane was two hours late, they regrouped at our place and headed for Manuels for a luncheon conference prior to the long drive. There was much talk of driving up through Sedona, getting hotel rooms in Page, etc. The democratic process can be lengthy and no decisions had been made by the time we headed north. We planned to pull off the road near the meeting place, figuring that everyone would eventually show up.

We camped in the large convenience store parking lot at the Navajo 16 junction and when we awoke, Kay was parked next to us. She had come down from Denver, stopping once to replace a water pump and a second time to replace a blown out tire. To make it worse, she found no room at any of the inns in either Kayenta or Page so she camped at Wahweap and returned to the meeting place early so she would have time to arrange her gear. The other seven were slightly late arriving. One of their rental vehicles, with only 700 miles on it, had blown a transmission just south of Flagstaff. After limping into Flag in second gear and acquiring a new vehicle from National, it was too late to search for a camp spot on the reservation.

After a minimum of introductions, tent sharing agreements, commissary distribution, etc. we hit the road headed for the first car shuttle. We left Kay's Explorer near the old Rainbow Lodge ruins with a nice Navajo family watching over it. The road to the northern trailhead near Cha Canyon was in surprisingly good shape and we were able to drive most of the way to the trailhead. We used the truck to drop off the bulk of the gear and the car passengers walked the last mile and a half with the few remaining packs. After a quick lunch, we hit the trail with enthusiasm. It was a little warm but we had plenty of water and only a short distance to go to our first camp at Bald Rock Canyon. The fall wildflowers were plentiful with scarlet gilia, aster, rabbit brush, sacred datura, a variety of primrose, paintbrush, and what Susan has decided must have been cardinal flower. Carl and Kay had both been into the area by boat, dayhiking, but none of the rest of the group had seen anything quite like it. Three of our recent acquaintances from New York were particularly awed by slickrock country.

Our second camp in Nasja Canyon, provided us with numerous hiking possibilities. As we entered camp, Susan spotted the Navajo horse petroglyph she'd seen on earlier trips. Many of us ran up the canyon a ways before lunch. After lunch, we split up and hiked down canyon in groups of two's and three's. Carl, Lou, and Andrew made it down fairly close to the Lake before running into a series of chock stones that required rope to bypass. In search of a ruin they thought they remembered seeing on a previous trip, Bob and Susan stumbled over an interesting set of Moki steps. Without a rope for the returning down climb, they decided not to try them. Next they found a nice set of petroglyphs in a side canyon. Jim and Susan spooked five beautifully groomed Indian ponies out of hiding as they walked down canyon. Brian and Andrea had missed the morning up canyon hike while bathing so they concentrated their efforts in the upstream direction and made it close to the end of the canyon. Kay stuck close to camp, bathing, laundering, and warbling the afternoon away. A Navajo man who was guiding a party of three tourists on horseback came through the camp during the afternoon. They were headed for a camp in Oak, as they had to be at Rainbow Bridge the next day for pick-up by the 2 PM boat.

Shortly before everyone returned to camp, it started to sprinkle. Luckily, we had erected the big tarp and were able to cook dinner underneath it. The cook team offered to deliver to the tents but everyone donned rain gear and showed up for dinner. It rained quite hard for several hours but by midnight, the stars were brilliant and it stayed clear for most of the night. Towards morning, the overcast rolled in and it stayed that way until we reached our next camp in Bridge Canyon. Lou and Susan formed an unspoken pact and got up at 5:30 each morning to get the hot water started. We're not sure that their motives were entirely altruistic, as they seemed pretty well wired by the time the rest of us arrived in the kitchen.

As we left for our third night's camp, we stopped briefly to take pictures of Owl Arch. This portion of our hike contained several steep grades and we didn't want to dilly dally. Lou struck a bargain with Kay during the day. In exchange for carrying some of her weight, she agreed to entertain us with song at dinner that night. Our Bridge Canyon camp on polished rock shelves was one of the groups' favorites. However, Andrea and Brian didn't sleep well after seeing large cat tracks during the day. Convinced they were being stalked, Andrea, who is small in stature and suspected by all to be the most likely target, sought company every place she went for a few days.

Our next hike to the old Rainbow Bridge horse camp was short. As soon as we arrived, it started to rain. So we moved up to Lou's alcove condo to play cards and wait for the weather to clear. Shortly after lunch, it did and we made our way down to the Bridge. We convinced a houseboat party to take our trash out and they gave us a couple of ice cold beer and a soda. The National Park Service recently restricted people from walking underneath the bridge. We found that the big tour boat groups obey the signs but that some of the small private groups still hike around. We didn't have much of a moon but a group of five still couldn't resist sleeping out on the knoll for good night views. Lou's alcove echoed every snore and fart imaginable. Between the echoes, horse visitation, and a pesky mouse that circumnavigated our heads all night, it was not our best sleeping camp. In the morning, when Lou and Susan met for coffee they cooked up a practical joke for Brian and Andrea, who were out sleeping on the knoll. They packed up their packs and tent and stowed the whole kit and caboodle away in a ravine. The three second double take was priceless. We made a last visit to the Bridge and left camp by 10:00 to assault Redbud Pass while we were still fresh. No one had difficulty with the pass and we were in our camp at Cliff Canyon within a few hours.

Several inspections of the petroglyph and pictograph panels on the Cliff Canyon side kept turning up new ones that someone had missed the first time around. Card playing, bathing, and climbing on slickrock kept us entertained all afternoon. That night clear skies and bedsores from the previous long nights in the sack kept everyone up. Kay entertained us with song at dinner and Lou gave us a demonstration of the Macarena with vocal accompaniment from Brian and Andrea. Lou and Bob entertained the group with a heated discussion about whether the commissary area would again see moonlight, the moon had gone behind a butte across from our camp. The surgeon was eventually proven correct and the engineer found out he had created a new orbital path for the moon and it unreasonably refused to comply. It was reminiscent of a time 15 years ago when he tried to teach a National Sierra Club group how to read a compass backwards. He knew where he was going but the darn compass didn't seem to agree with the group's maps.

The next morning, we left our packs in camp and headed down Cliff Canyon hoping to reach the Lake for lunch. Carl and Andrew led the way, scouting trail and waiting for the rest of us at major obstacles. After Cliff and Aztec join to form Forbidding Canyon, there are several tricky spots where a few people were glad for group support. The entire group made it to the Lake where we swam a bit, bathed and had lunch before returning to camp. Our mileage with packs that day was short and we all made it to the last night's camp within an hour or so. Expecting a killer hike out the next day, some of us rested while others explored the surrounding slickrock.

The weather was cool enough that we ate most of the commisary food. Everyone was delighted, as the exit carry weights were low. We had breakfast early, hoping to knock off the 2000' climb out at Yabut Pass before the sun hit the trail. Bob and Susan had convenient memory lapses of the numerous ups and downs after the pass and were surprised by how tough a hike it was. The group did well and while waiting for the last stragglers, four of us made the run to the northern trailhead to recover the other cars. While the rest of us set up lunch and got cleaned up, Bob picked up the last two hikers at the old Rainbow Lodge in Kay's four wheel drive vehicle, saving them a tedious mile and a half. The group's attention rapidly turned to icy Margaritas and showers, so we quickly packed everything up, said our good-byes and headed for home.