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| Hiking | 7.44 Miles |
2,064 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.44 Miles | 6 Hrs 10 Mns | | 1.28 mph |
| 2,064 ft AEG | 20 Mns Break | 10 LBS Pack | | |
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| partners | | Toad and I agreed on the plan the previous week, and with few modifications it went off as planned. Evreryone was at my house at 7, and we were on the trail by 8. None of us had ever done the loop before, but with a few topos and a route plotted out by me on hikearizona.com we felt good. We made good time cruising up Spencer Trail and then headed parallel to the ridgeline towards the power line. The going was easy - cross-country slickrock and basin hiking.
We hit the new power line road and ran into a snag. Our proposed route routed us down and around the ridge in front of us, but we were uncertain. We dropped down, consulted the map, and headed back up the ridgeline. At the top of the ridgeline we hit the new power line road. Oops. We dropped down again to follow it, but when it began to curve back to the communication tower we went cross-country again, paralleling the Paria again. We came up another sandstone ridge and were confronted with a deep canyon, so we detoured towards the head of it, crossed, and then climbed yet another ridge. The map was little help at this point, since it lacked either the power line or communication tower and most of the terrain was probably too low for it to record as a contour interval. Whatever. We looked down into the sandy basin and across at two nipple-like peaks. We thought about contouring around the one closest to the edge of the cliff, but instead opted for a saddle carved by a fault. Down a bighorn trail, down and across the sandy valley, and up into the fault-formed saddle. Toad led the way; when he reached the top he said, "I think we have to cross one more saddle."
A small drainage was in our way, so we dropped into and contoured around its headlands. The sight that greeted us? Another valley that was obviously not Dominguez Pass. We could see the high fin on the far side of the pass beyond the next ridgeline, but the way down was sketchy. "We'll have to billy goat it down," Bryan said as we contemplated the skree slope. I found a bighorn trail that dropped down most of the way. Toad leaped his way down while we followed slowly and slightly more cautiously. At the bottom we stopped and contemplated how best to get around the next ridgeline. Some suggested contouring around the downcanyon side, but that sounded like backtracking. After all, the pass dropped down into the Paria, not the Colorado. The same fault system we'd been following had created another low pass, so we went for it. Toad was at the top first again and he declared that he thought that we were there.
Down into the valley again, this time easier than the previous descent. There was dissent in the sandy wash bottom and the maps came out again, by this time quite worn from repeated foldings. Toad wanted to cross the next ridge. I thought I detected a path. He suggested that we weren't in a broad enough spot. I lined up the map with what landmarks we could see and made the argument that we should be at Dominguez Pass and that we should follow my faint trail towards the rim and at least orient ourselves. Bryan agreed, so away we went up the draw. As soon as we had crested the low sandstone fin that was upcanyon from us, it was obvious we were in the right place. The canyon broadened to a valley, and the "mule's ear" fin towered directly over where we were.
Around this time I voiced that a lunch break would be a good idea. Toad didn't respond and Bryan said that he wanted to at least get an idea of the way home before eating. We struck out for the rim.
What an amazing sight! The Paria River meandered below us while the Colorado River flowing through Marble Canyon was visible to our left. The Vermilion Cliffs (home of Sandfoot) dominated most of our view. In the distance the Kaibab Plateau was still covered in snow.
The objective, the bottom of the canyon, was now in sight. Bryan, with his previous knowledge of the Paria, suggested a route that would involve a significant short-cut that had the added benefit of not getting our feet drenched in the muddy Paria River. The only downside was that we didn't know if we would actually be able to get to the Shinarump bench easily from the top of the cliffs.
Indeed, at that time, it was uncertain how we would even get off of the cliffs and down to the massive sand slide we saw below us. The map suggesting hugging the cliffs heading upcanyon for a bit, while Toad advocated dropping into the steep drainage and boulder-hopping our way to hell. We decided to follow the map, such as it was, and as we followed the cliff face below the mule's ear I noted a large pile of unnatural rocks - a knocked-down giant cairn. We shot for it right away and to our amusement we found the trail.
The upper part of Dominguez Pass trail was well laid-out and with some maintainance along the way it would be quite serviceable. As it is now, it is sandy and littered with loose rock but at least discernible. There were occasional cairns to help guide the way as we headed down the improved sheep trail. The upper portion of the trail ended in a sand slide, which we decided to romp down, following the rim of the drainage. We came to the first of two cliffs which we had seen from above, and to our slightly greater surprise (considering we had just been heading down with no real rhyme or reason) we came to a cairned break in the cliffs which hid a trail! We dropped partway down the trail and broke for lunch.
I had a kinda-quesadilla (that had badly broken apart) under a rock shelter while we discussed the legend of Sandfoot, who walks the Paria Plateau and violates all who search for him. Dangerous business, laughing that close to the edge of a cliff. We also discussed the route ahead of us. There was another cliff below us, and beyond that we saw some old uranium mining roads. We knew we could get to the cliffs. We knew if we could get to the mining roads, we'd be able to bench-hike the Shinarump. What remained unknown was our ability to completed the circuit we had laid out in our minds. Our break was good, and when finished we continued our trip into the unknown.
The sand was welcome again, cushioning our knees as we headed further and further down. As we approached the second cliffs we saw that instead of being a solid precipice there was a gradual slope to the downcanyon side. We followed the topography until we were able to drop down an easy scree slope to what turned out to be another semi-established trail, marked with cairns. With that, our course was set towards a large, round boulder where we saw the road ended from above. As we approached it, we discovered it had petroglyphs on it. Not many, not amazing ones, but they were there.
The drop down to the Shinarump bench was easy as pie. We passed by old drill pipe and what probably was the remains of a uranium mining camp before hooking up with another old uranium mining road that headed back towards the power line and the parking lot. We made it back to my truck in about an hour from that point. The Shinarump bench was pretty and interesting, with old mining stuff and beautiful Chinle scenes, plus no fording the river flowing fast and high. We arrived back in the parking lot just about 6 hours after starting out, and just as I ran out of water. One hell of a hike! |
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Wildflowers Observation Isolated
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"The only thing we did was wrong was staying in the wilderness to long...the only thing we did was right was the day we started to fight..."
-Old Spiritual
My book, The Marauders on Lulu and Amazon |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
. The views on the backside were definitely worth the gain. The sun had set but it wasn't really dark yet and then all of a sudden someone flicked the switch. It was pretty dark as we moved on hiking over a few ridges and then over to the communications tower. I decided to run the hill...I'm just not sure why I did it. The lights of Utah were way cool from here. So were the occasional falling stars. From here on, we wasted a lot of time. We did a couple of sketchy climbs and I took one fall and hurt my forearm. My next fall/slide sent rocks and me down the pass a ways. John chose a different route after hearing my commotion. From here on out, it was pretty easy stuff until we cliffed out. We took the ridge to the road and at about 1130pm we were done. Fun hike....Thanks John for taking responsibility for my safety on 
