GRAND CANYON--PARASHANT

Friday May 27 we stayed home to rest--sort of. We did drive down to the visitors center to take the little 1/2 trail up the hill behind the 'castle'. The trail switchbacks under these rocks.




Visitors center from the top

Part of the Arizona Strip. This is now mostly sage scrub land. When the Mormons first settled here it was 12000 acres of native grassland. The little diagonal dirt line in front of the road is called the Honeymoon Trail. Mormon couples took this trail to St. George to have their marriages blessed in the temple there.

back of Winsor Castle. When the Winsors were caretakers here a friend commented that they lived in a castle, hence the name.

Saturday we packed our cooler and our friends Gail and Keith into the truck and took off for Grand Canyon Parashant National Monument. This wilderness area is adjacent to the National Park, but has unimproved roads and mostly composting restrooms. It is even less visited than the North Rim. First we traveled paved road through The Strip. Imagine all this in knee high waving grass!

This lone antelope was the only big wildlife we saw all day.

Tuweep is a little composting restroom and ranger station and primitive campground.

Inside the park we found upland meadows full of wildflowers.

Parashant is one of a number of plateau which make up this area. Others include Grand Canyon, and Grand Staircase.

Inside the park we could walk anywhere but here. This is a special kind of 'living soil'. It is unlawful to walk on it and could get you a hefty fine. It contains a kind of fungus that clumps it together and keeps it from eroding as well as adding nutrients. Very fragile.

By this time our paved road had become dirt road, then this--very uneven rocks which made us feel like bobble heads.

Our goal was the end of the road--Toroweap Overlook. From here it' is 3000 vertical feet to the Colorado River.

From this unguarded rim we could see a long strip of the Colorado River, and volcanic features, cinder cones, and lava flows. Also visible is part of the route Powell took looking for his lost crew members. Four hiking trails start from here. They are not for the casual hiker. This area was custom made for off road bikes, Jeeps, and back country hikers.

Time for pix with a jaw-dropping background. Gail and Keith,

and Louise and Duane.

The white water below is Lava Falls which we believe is a class 5. Just after it is a gravel bar. If you click on the pic and enlarge it you should be able to see the 5 or 6 red rafts beached there.

We ate our lunch here, sharing a picnic table (there are 2) and conversation with a nice young couple from St. George. On our way out we took a side trip to Nampaweep. From the parking area is a 1/2 mile trail. The wildflowers were profuse here and made the pinyon pine forest walk very pleasant.

At the end of the trail the end of a lava flow--and one of the largest petroglyph sites on the Arizona Strip.

Here the lava cooled and stopped, then broke off in chunks over time. There are more petroglyphs here. Just click and find.

We made one more stop on our way out. This was the site of a sawmill that made boards for the Mormon Temple at St. George, and for the buildings at Pipe Spring. The lumber was harvested from Mt. Trumbull, seen here far in the background.

By the time we exited the park and got back to the main road it was after 6 pm--AZ time 7 Utah time This is important to note because all the areas we've been touring are all along the border. AZ does not recognize Daylight Savings Time, but Utah does. We were hungry and decided to turn left for Colorado City. This was our first glimpse of this openly polygamous old order Mormon town. We headed for a nice cafe that Gail and Keith knew about. They didn't know that in summer it closes at 4pm! Our other alternative was a carry-out pizza place that closed at 8pm. We found out in a hurry that even though it was in AZ, it went by UT time, since the people that owned it and worked there lived and or did business in UT and it made it easier for them to keep track of the time! Nevertheless, we did get our pizza ( our first sprouted wheat crust) and found a nice little park to eat it. It was a little chilly and windy, but the pizza and the company was warm so we all enjoyed ourselves.

Not done touring yet!

Louise and Duane