fautrever.com

Leaving southwestern Utah was relatively easy as St. George is less than ten miles from the state line. Getting to where we wanted in northern Arizona however, was not so easy—at least not for us driving an RV and towing a car. There is a huge obstacle in between here and there that has been deterring travelers for several hundred years—Grand Canyon. Technically, we did enter Arizona quite easily but that far northwestern corner of Arizona is cut off from the rest of the state by the mighty Colorado River. Called the Arizona Strip, those two million sparsely-settled acres have closer ties to Utah than their home state. And really, since the surveyors used the Colorado River to delineate the border between Nevada and Arizona why didn’t they use it for the Utah line too?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the Strip is Arizona’s—it is a rugged land which makes it far more interesting to me than that other Strip in Nevada. I guess you could say that ours is bettor… (groan). Located within the Strip are the north rim of Grand Canyon National Park and Lake Mead Recreation Area as well as the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, five wilderness areas, a segment of the Old Spanish National Historic Trail, and the Kaibab Indian Reservation. On top of that the Virgin River, the same one that formed gorgeous Zion Canyon, carved out a smaller yet very scenic ravine called the Virgin River Gorge.

We followed I-15 as it wound through the Gorge on its way to Las Vegas and while we didn’t stop to explore—we had too many miles to make before sundown—we could plainly see why the area was so popular with outdoor enthusiasts. Soon we were speeding through Lost Wages. While all the flashing lights and theme buildings are impressive at first sight, I cringe when I consider the atrocious waste of resources. In the middle of the desert this artificial oasis is growing like there are no bounds. Yet natural resources do have limits and those are close to being reached in the Vegas area.

Water is the area’s most important resource not only for human consumption but for electric power generation, and the Colorado River has long been Casinoland’s only source. In 1935 the Hoover Dam was completed, impounding the river to create Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the country. The dam project had three goals: to control flooding, provide water for irrigation and municipal use, and generate hydro-electric power.

For many years the project was a deemed a complete success (except by environmentalists who decried the destruction of the Colorado River ecosystem) but increased demand coupled with severe drought in the Southwest for the past decade now have scientists and policy makers alarmed. This past October the reservoir was under 50% capacity and projections are not promising—by 2010 Sin City’s primary water supply system, which draws directly from the reservoir, could be inoperable. By 2017 the level of the reservoir could be so low that the power plant would be unable to generate electricity—25% of which goes directly to Nevada’s largest city (California gets the lion’s share at 56% while Arizona is allocated just under 19% of the energy).

The state has tackled solving the energy part of its dilemma with the Nevada Solar One power plant that began operation in 2007. As the third largest solar power plant in the world Nevada Solar One has a 64 megawatt capacity which can produce enough electricity to supply 40,000 households. We drove right by the impressive 400 acre facility on our way to Laughlin.

We opted to not cross over the Hoover Dam since there are so many restrictions in place in response to the 2001 terrorist attacks. While it wouldn’t present a problem for most people, in order to drive an RV across, it would have to be inspected, and we had no idea how long that would take. So instead we continued 100 miles south to Laughlin where we finally drove over the Colorado and entered Arizona. In 2005, in order to deal with the Hoover Dam issue, the government started construction of a bypass route that would eliminate traffic traveling over the top of the dam with an expected completion date of 2010. That would have certainly saved us a lot of time and gas! Thankfully, we made it into Williams with plenty of time to hook up and get settled before dark.

While we were happy with the idea of our new location for the week—close to Grand Canyon—we were less than thrilled with the temperatures. It was 12ÀöF our first night. Brrrr! It was only the middle of October—way too early for it to be that cold in my book—but we were close to 7,000’ in elevation. Remind me to never move to Williams—it’s too cold for me! One of the benefits of traveling the country in our RV: we’ve been able to whittle down our list of possible places to live. Some places just aren’t what they are cracked up to be! Honestly though, Williams was never on our list; it isn’t on very many people’s list. The town hasn’t ever really been a popular relocation destination, instead the town’s story has been (and still is) closely tied to the movement of people through the area. Through traffic began with Native Americans who traversed the high country, followed by Lieutenant Edward Fitzgerald Beale’s Wagon Road in the late 1850s, the railroad in the 1880s, Route 66 in the 1920s, and finally I-40 in the 1980s.

The town takes its name from William “Bill” Sherley Williams, a one time missionary turned mountain man, Indian translator, and fur trapper. The tall redhead earned quite a reputation for his fairness, survival skills, and opportunistic dealings; he is considered one of the West’s indomitable spirits. After decades of roaming the West and mingling peaceably with various Native American groups Old Bill was killed in 1849 in southern Colorado by members of the Ute tribe. He was so well regarded that a mountain, a river, and a town (all in Arizona) were named after him.

Greeting us as we entered Williams from the west was a statue of the town’s namesake, one of many signs that the area treasures and actively promotes its history. Riding our bikes around town that week we were impressed by how proud the town is of its heritage—the rodeo grounds where generations of ranching families showed off their skills, the entire downtown listed on the National Register of Historic Places, storied Route 66 (the main thoroughfare) clearly marked, the train station in downtown serving not only Amtrak passengers but also those riding the Grand Canyon scenic railroad, and the Visitor Center where tourists are reminded of the almost-forgotten Beale Wagon Road.

Looking for a short hike we grabbed a map to Laws Spring, one of the nearby sections of Beale’s original route which is on public land. In 1857 Beale, who had already retired from his military career, was appointed by President Buchanan to locate and improve a northerly route from New Mexico to California (the southwest’s first interstate!). Beale who had traversed the rugged territory many times chose a route that veered south of Grand Canyon and was, in his words:

The shortest (route) from our western frontier by 300 miles, being nearly directly west. It is the most level, our wagons only double-teaming once in the entire distance, and that at a short hill, and over a surface heretofore unbroken by wheels or trail on any kind. It is well-watered! Our greatest distance without water at any time being twenty miles… It crosses the great desert (which must be crossed by any road to California) at its narrowest point.

Beale’s wagon road was so well chosen that all succeeding transportation routes (Route 66, the Santa Fe Railway, and Interstate 40) primarily followed in his footsteps. Or should I say camel steps. Beale’s surveying mission was twofold—he was to not only find a practicable route to California but he was also to test a group of twenty-five camels for the U.S. Army. The military was interested in the camel’s legendary ability to survive on little water, carry heavy loads, and withstand high temperatures since much of the vast American West was a desert landscape where horses and mules fared poorly.

Since camels were notorious for their stubbornness and bad tempers (biting and spitting when annoyed) the U.S. government also hired several camel drivers from the Middle East. One of them, Hadji Ali, accompanied Beale and his Camel Corps. Hi Jolly (as he soon became known since the soldiers were unable to pronounce his name) tended the camels and tried to teach the soldiers how to load their 600–800 pound packs. Beale considered the experiment a success, writing in his journal:

The harder the test they (the camels) are put to, the more fully they seem to justify all that can be said of them… They pack water for days under a hot sun and never get a drop; they pack heavy burdens of corn and oats for months and never get a grain; and on the bitter greasewood and other worthless shrubs, not only subsist, but keep fat.

Beale’s dual mission was only a partial success; while his general route is still in use today, the Camel Corps was disbanded. Apparently the camels scared horses and mules, they reeked, and they intimidated many of the soldiers, so with the outbreak of the Civil War the animals were let go. What exactly happened to the camels is a bit murky; some were auctioned off ending up in circuses, zoos, and with prospectors. Others were reportedly released into the desert to fend for themselves while a few remained with Beale on his ranch. Feral camel sightings in the Southwest continued into the early 1900s. Now that would’ve been an odd sight!

Obviously we didn’t see any real camels, only the ones on the signs marking Beale’s Wagon Road which is now a Historic Trail. Our destination was a small offshoot of the main trail that led to a perennial spring which Beale named Laws Spring. We were pleasantly surprised to discover a decent-sized pool of water at the site, figuring that it would have gone dry in the ensuing 150 years. It was clear we were in the right place as there were not only two historical signs but the name of the spring had been meticulously carved into one of the nearby boulders. The actual wagon road was a bit hard to follow since it isn’t a well-used trail, instead there were cairns placed intermittently along the route. Those with a discerning eye would be able to find the trail by following a row of short junipers that were all of the same age which we deduced had grown in between the wagon tracks.

Our enthusiasm for the trail was dampened by the sound of distant gunfire and the abundance of hunters we passed on the way in. Since we own not a single shred of orange clothing (it clashes with my hair color) we decided not to push our luck and returned to our car. Sunset that evening was fabulous since a nearby controlled burn was adding extra particulates to the skyline. As the last of the day’s light faded the air cooled off rapidly making us happy to get home and warm up. I know, I know, I’m a weather wimp—I’m OK with it. We were fortunate as the weather was on a warming trend which boded well for our trip to the canyon.

In visiting Grand Canyon we were picking up the other end of a geologic timetable that we first encountered at Zion National Park. In a geologically rare instance a fairly complete and connected sequence of rock layers, termed the Grand Staircase, stretches across the Colorado Plateau. The youngest of the rock formations are found in Bryce Canyon, the next youngest are in Zion Canyon, and the oldest layers are exposed in the walls of Grand Canyon. The bottom strata in Bryce—the Dakota Sandstone—forms the top layer at Zion while the 240 million-year-old Kaibab Limestone at the bottom of Zion is the top layer of Grand Canyon. The oldest formation exposed at Grand Canyon is the two billion year old Vishnu Schist, which means the Grand Staircase offers quite an expansive timeline for geologists to study.

While geologists and awestruck tourists find the canyon fascinating early explorers of the region found Grand Canyon to be an insurmountable obstacle. In the fall of 1540 Spanish conquistador Francisco Vázquez de Coronado and his soldiers reached northern New Mexico. After failing to find the Seven Cities of Cibola Coronado sent out small exploration parties to assess the wealth of the area. A small party captained by García López de Cárdenas was led to the southern edge of the canyon by Hopi guides. Cárdenas’s report of the immensity of Grand Canyon deterred further exploration for over two-hundred years.

Standing atop the South Rim peering cautiously over the edge down to the inner gorge it was easy for us to imagine the stunned silence that must have enveloped that group of Spaniards. As skilled explorers they were accurate in their estimate of the canyon’s width at eight to ten miles. The thin ribbon of water down below deceived them though as they guessed it to be a mere six feet across when in reality the Colorado River ranges from seventy-five to almost two-hundred feet wide. We are not mocking those early explorers—we ourselves were humbled when a ranger pointed out a section of white foam on the river and explained that those rapids were close to a mile long! We have no ability to judge scale like that.

The next group to be thwarted by the canyon was led by two Spanish priests. In 1776 Fathers Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, who were looking for an overland route to California, spent weeks wandering along the south rim before crossing the Colorado River near what is now Lees Ferry. From what we read, we have Father Escalante to thank for the river’s name. Before the river was tamed by dams its erosional capacity was extremely high and the river carried tons of sediment which gave the water a reddish hue. Colorado is a Spanish word meaning rust-red. Finding the rest of the route too arduous the priests abandoned their expedition and the region’s native inhabitants were again left alone.

By that time several culture groups had called Grand Canyon “home” through the years. Long gone were the Paleo-Indians with their distinctive spear points. After them the people of the Archaic period left behind small animal figurines made out of willow and cottonwood twigs. Next up were the Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi) who left more of a mark in the canyon—so far there are 2,000 known Anasazi sites in Grand Canyon National Park. During our Saturday visit to the canyon we made it a point to stop at Tusayan Ruin on the south rim. The small pueblo, which housed no more than 30 people, was abandoned around 1185.

After the Ancestral Puebloans left, the canyon was without human companionship for a century. By the early 1300s Paiutes and other groups had moved into the area. They were joined roughly a hundred years later by the Navajo. The canyon proved large enough for them all to live fairly peaceably until the mid-1800s. As settlers streamed into the southwest conflicts with the Native peoples erupted. In the end the tribes were forced onto reservations by the U.S. Army in 1882.

Intrigued by Grand Canyon, the government sent multiple expeditions to map the extent of the canyon country by land and by river. In 1857 one of the earliest groups, led by Lt. Joseph Ives, headed up the Colorado River from Yuma in a steamboat. After striking a rock two months into the trip, the boat was abandoned and the expedition clambered up to the south rim. In his report to the government Ives admitted the canyon was beautiful but “altogether valueless” and “profitless.” Good thing he felt that way since it set the stage for the government to preserve the area; had Ives found any mineral deposits or great quantities of arable land Grand Canyon National Park would probably not exist.

In 1882 Senator Benjamin Harrison was the first to propose preserving the canyon followed by other tries in 1883 and 1886. Every time, the idea of a reserve was vehemently opposed by tourism, mining, and ranching interests in the area. Finally in 1893, Harrison (now President) created Grand Canyon Forest Reserve. In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt established Grand Canyon Game Preserve, elevating the area to National Monument status in 1908. Finally in 1919 Congress presented President Woodrow Wilson with a bill designating the area a National Park. Expanded multiple times through the years the nation’s 17th park now encompasses a whopping 1,218,375 acres!

Grand Canyon isn’t the deepest in North America, that honor goes to Hell’s Canyon in Idaho, nor is it the world’s largest (there are too many to mention vying for that title) yet over five million people visit the canyon every year. The allure for me is in its story, both geologic and human. During our short visit we barely scratched the surface of the canyon’s tale and some day we’ll be back to delve in a little deeper.

Photos: View our photographs from Williams and Grand Canyon, Arizona.

Dates: We stayed in Williams, Arizona from 10/12/08 to 10/19/08.