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| Hiking | 8.00 Miles |
2,300 AEG |
| | Hiking | 8.00 Miles | 4 Hrs 45 Mns | | 2.13 mph |
| 2,300 ft AEG | 1 Hour Break | | | |
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| no partners | | This was a plan C hike on a day when I was desperate to do some sort of hiking after the recent snow dump. It was pretty good for a plan C but I doubt I’ll repeat it. It wasn’t as fun as the canyon. My plan A was on Navajo land, but the permit office wasn't open. Plan B had a dirt road my car probably can’t handle. I ended up parking at Lees Ferry and told myself I better do some sort of hiking because I didn't drive all the way out here so I could drive back home.
While putting on my shoes, I left my car door open and a bird actually tried to hop into my car, looking for food. I decided the Spencer Trail would at least give me some vertical training after two weeks out of the canyon. This trail is in great shape! I, however, was not in my usual shape and felt surprisingly out of breath. I saw a couple bighorns midway up. When I reached the top I ate cold pizza (much fancier than my typical hiking fare) and considered what to do next. Harvey’s book mentions walking up toward the dam and a route down at about mile 10. However, as soon as I crested the hill and saw the sprawling, whitely reflecting mess of Page in front of Navajo Mountain, I knew I wasn’t interested. Instead, I googled the location of Dominguez Pass (I had cell service the entire way), which had been mentioned in JD Green’s book, in case I could turn my hike into a loop. This was more my style!
I followed the line of cliffs above the Paria River, initially contouring around the high points on the ridge then traversing some saddles. I never got cliffed out but I was pretty cautious scrambling because I am unfamiliar with this rock and it would flake off pretty easily. I managed to walk into several Needleleaf Yucca, which are very sharp but fortunately don’t do as much damage as their relatives. They were about a foot tall so I guess I confused them with normal grass in my periphery. I’d walk into one, receive several pokes, remind myself to walk around yucca not through them, then promptly walk into another.
At Dominguez Pass I saw an obvious ravine to start down but wasn’t confident it was the correct one until I walked through a neat old corral. There were a few definitive signs of trail construction at the top, but the trail has all but disappeared heading down the sandy slope. I found recent tracks from two hikers apparently doing the same loop as me. I had an impressive view up the valley of the Paria River, but this was marred by several roads on the lower platforms, likely for accessing mines. There were also invasive Russian thistles all over the hillside, which I’ve noticed follow where cattle have been grazed. Avoiding stepping into the thistles made routefinding much less fun.
I really do enjoy Grand Canyon, where extractive industries happened on a much smaller scale and much longer ago. The tranquility of the last hour of my hike was spoiled by my frustration with wealthy individuals and companies profiting off public lands – really, it seems like a fantastic sort of welfare – then leaving behind their messes for the public to admire and/or government to clean up. |
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