Now it’s time for us to hit the road and head out into the wilder parts of our state with longtime Arizona travel writer Roger Naylor.
Today, we’re venturing to the far northern edge of Arizona — where it is not exactly cool this time of year, but it’s certainly a place you can go explore in the summer when it’s 115 degrees here.
Full conversation
ROGER NAYLOR: It's certainly much cooler than it is in the Valley, and also never forget that you'll have warm afternoons, but it will cool off dramatically in the evening, so you get the nice cool evenings, cool mornings and stuff. Maybe not as chilly as when you're at Flagstaff or Greer or someplace like that.
But you're down on the water, you're in canyons, you're in the shade, you're having all kinds of great fun.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, it sounds beautiful. OK, so let's start in this region, the Arizona Strip. I've never heard of this. I've lived here most of my life. Oh my goodness. What does this describe?
NAYLOR: Well, the Arizona Strip is essentially the part of Arizona that's cut off from the rest of the state by the Colorado River.
GILGER: Makes sense, OK.
NAYLOR: Which is mostly the Grand Canyon. So, it's that little section over there that is pretty inaccessible. The actual strip is as large as Massachusetts with a population of 8000. So, I mean, solitude is a very big thing here. It's really quite the middle of nowhere.
So, you can explore deep into the strip if you want. One of the things I like to do is combine the eastern edge of the Arizona Strip and around the Navajo Bridge area along with Page, Lake Powell, and the Navajo Nation. So, you're all right up along the edge of Utah there, and you're just experiencing some incredible sights on the Colorado Plateau.
GILGER: Yeah, OK. So what are some of your favorite places to explore up there? What do you find?
NAYLOR: Well, one of the places I really like to get to right away is Lees Ferry, which a lot of people have heard about. It's sort of a famous crossroads of history, but not a lot of people actually visit unless you're taking a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon, because that's the put in place.
So, you go there, and it's sort of the middle of nowhere, but there's a whole bunch of people down on the ramp loading up their boats and slathering on the sunscreen and getting ready for their little adventure. But, otherwise, it's deserted.
And they've got an incredible trail there called the River Trail. It's just one mile long, and it's perfectly level. And just like it promises, it just follows the Colorado River and these cliffs and it is so gorgeous. Takes you by some historic buildings. There's an old Mormon fort there that was never attacked, an old post office that never sent a letter. I mean this is because this was such an outpost, such a remote area. A couple of people tried to get rich there, but with prospecting nothing ever really panned out.
So, there's a boiler of an old steamboat that's still in the river there that you can see and stuff. But, it's just so incredible. It's so peaceful. The water's flowing by and you're walking beneath these colorful cliffs and it's just really spectacular.
Just about a mile away from there behind that is the Lonely Dell Ranch, which is where John D. Lee and his family and all the other people who operated the ferry after that, that's where they lived.
And, again, since this is middle of nowhere, they had to be self-sufficient. So, they had a big farm. There's these great orchards there that are still growing and you're, you can walk back there and pick a peach off the tree and eat it. It's all allowed, and it's just — the Paria River comes flowing by there. You can wander up to the river and stuff. I've had some great summer days back there.
So, that's an area that I really, really love that I just think a lot of people kind of overlook. Because, again, if you're not doing a river trip, then that's not a place you'd go to very often.
GILGER: It sounds beautiful.
NAYLOR: It is, it is.
GILGER: So tell us about some of the places you can get on the water. Where are your favorite kind of kayaking spots, especially for people who are not going to go all the way through the Grand Canyon, right?
NAYLOR: Right, right, right. Well, and I'm not — I'm one of those people because I'm always a little nervous about water. But, the best kayaking trip I've ever had in my life — you go to Cliff Dwellers Lodge, which is just about 10 miles west of Navajo Bridge, and they rent and shuttle kayaks.
So, you can get a nice kayak there, and you tell them how long you want to go out. If you want to kayak for two hours, they'll drive you up the river, drop you off for that length. You can go all the way to Glen Canyon Dam. You can do it as an overnight trip and camp along the river if you want. But, I think we went out like six hours.
They dropped us off up the river, and we just floated, drifted down. It's all flat water, because you're not in the Grand Canyon yet. So, there's no rapids. It's just lazy summer days with a thousand foot cliffs soaring above you, and it's just gorgeous. You're just drifting by. You actually go floating through Horseshoe Bend, that famous curve in the river.
GILGER: What?
NAYLOR: You glance up and you see these little tiny people way up high above you. But, yeah, you kayak through the Horseshoe Bend and down and then you get out at Lees Ferry and that's where you get the kayaks back there.
GILGER: Sounds awesome. OK, so it's not all water though. You also get to tour — you talked about some pretty interesting cliff dwellings that I've never heard of up in this very far northern edge part of the state.
NAYLOR: Yeah. Over on the Navajo Nation is a Navajo National Monument. They've got three cliff dwellings that they protect. Inscription House has been closed since 1968. Keet Seel was a fantastic cliff dwelling, but it can only be done as a guided overnight hike. But Betatakin, which was one that I visited just last month, they do most weekends up until Labor Day, depending on staff shortage — they've been having some staffing issues, but usually there's a ranger.
It has to be a guided hike and you'll go out Friday, Saturday or Sunday. You just need to check with the Navajo National Monument, give them a call, make sure. You don't have to do a reservation, doesn't cost anything. But, it is a three-mile or five-mile, depending on which route they take. But, generally it's a five-mile, round trip hike, going down into the canyon.
So, there is some climbing in and out. But, when I went, there was a mom with a couple of kids and they seemed to be doing fine. And it's a gorgeous canyon. I would do the hike even if there wasn't a cliff dwelling at the end of it because it is a spectacular canyon. But, you go down through there into the steep canyon and there's this huge cliff dwelling that was built by the ancestors of the Hopi back about 1250 and was occupied up until about 1300.
Used to be 125 rooms. Now, there's about 80 still in this huge alcove because there's some rock falls that have destroyed some of them. But I mean, they still have windows and ceilings and the original timbers intact from all these centuries.
GILGER: So, one of the things I think lots of people will think about, you think about Horseshoe Bend, if you're up in this part of the state, you think about the Wave, right?
Like that famous hike that is impossible to get a permit to do, right? Everyone wants to go take a picture there. But you're saying there's another one that's almost as good?
NAYLOR: Well, I don't want to say almost as good, but it is being called the New Wave Trail. It's actually — it's official name is the Beehive Trail, and it's right there in Page.
It's just about a half mile past the Carl Hayden Visitor Center at the dam, and directly across from the Beehive Trail campsites there. It's a one-and-a-half mile round trip hike, but it takes you across the same formations. It's slick rock hiking, it's canyon country hiking. Slick rock refers to any expanse of sandstone that's level enough to walk or ride on.
And I always love slick rock hiking. It's just — it's like you're walking on the bones of the land. It's just, you feel that hardness and that surface and you're tilted and the way it rolls. It's just beautiful. The wind has left its fingerprints all over this with those swirls and [00:08:00] curves and swoops.
And it's just really elegant. It's very beautiful. You make a nice little loop through there and it's free, it's a great little surprise that a lot of people don't know about, I think.
GILGER: Yeah, absolutely. OK, longtime Arizona travel writer Roger Naylor, his forthcoming book is called “Arizona National Parks and Monuments.” Roger, thanks as always for coming in. I appreciate it very much.
NAYLOR: Always a delight. Great to see you.
