Pipe Springs National Monument
Southwestern Trip 2022 | North Rim to Enterprise, UT | Kaibab National Forest | Pipe Springs National Monument | October 2022
Our night on the Kaibab Plateau was not only our highest in elevation, but the coldest overall, with nighttime temperatures reaching below freezing, and when we woke up there was a veneer of frost on the tent. It was difficult finding the will to get up and pack up camp, but by moving quickly and with the arrival of the sun, we stayed warm enough.
Our goal for the day was to make it back into Utah, camping somewhere North of St. George, but the specifics were vague. Based on our maps, it looked like instead of taking paved routes back to Jacob’s Lake, we could reasonably follow forest roads across the plateau to Fredonia, AZ. Fortunately, Curtis had a peakbagging goal nearby that would allow us to test the roads in case they were not passable.
Curtis has recently decided that he would like to reach the summit of 300, 300+ meter prominence peaks by the time he is 40. And to that end we set off on forest roads to the summit of Kaibab Plateau. Oddly enough, the plateau is one of the most prominent land forms in the state – something that Curtis’ topographic maps really highlighted for us. Unfortunately, while it looks cool in wood, on the ground it was just a walk in the woods, but it showed that the roads were passable so we continued West towards Fredonia.
We hadn’t done much research on the area, so we impulsively followed signs pointing to points of interest. We made a stop at Dry Park where Curtis climbed the very tall firetower for some distant glimpses of the Grand Canyon to the West. But that was enough to encourage us to visit the ‘West Rim,’ and so we followed more signs to Parissawampitts point. Here we all got out and started to follow Rainbow Rim Trail to some clearings that gave us unobstructed views of the Western part of the Grand Canyon. We did our best to point out landmarks that we thought we could see, but truthfully we didn’t know what we were looking at. Even if the trees had allowed, we wouldn’t have even been able to see Grand Canyon National park proper, which shows how far we had already driven. It really began to sink in how big the Grand Canyon is, and how little we’ve actually seen of it – but we now know of a plenty of places to camp and dog friendly trails on the North Rim.
From Passawampitts, the forest roads veered North to get around Kaibab creek, revealing more scenic canyons, rocks, and cliffs with tantalizing trails. Our forest road ended in Fredonia where we continued West toward Pipe Springs National Monument. Located in the middle of the Kaibab Band of the Paiute, Pipe Springs primarily preserves the history of Mormons in the region, while also educating on the pre-American Paiute culture. Historically one of the only reliable well springs along the Arizona Strip, LDS missionary/rancher formed a cattle operation around the spring in the 1860’s using the Homestead Act to acquire the land. After the Civil War and almost 2 decades of LDS and white colonization of the Colorado Plateau, hostilities between the various Utah tribes erupted and the US Army and the Mormon frontier towns erupted during Black Hawks War. During that war, Navajo warriors destroyed the cattle operation at Pipe Springs in 1866.
But by 1872 the Colorado tribes had been subdued and relegated to reservations and, by direction of Brigham Young himself, a new Cattle operation started at Pipe Spring, this time run directly by the Church of LDS – though the Church wasn’t willing to risk a second confrontation and built a block house, complete with a garrison, around the spring. The ranch grew as Church members, who often tithed livestock instead of cash money, would send their tithings from St. George to Pipe Springs. This arrangement worked well until simmering tensions between the LDS Church and the Federal Government resulted in the passage of the Edmunds-Tucker act, which among other things, reinforced the laws against Polygamy, and limited the amount of property the Church could directly own. This eventually forced the LDS Church to sell their property at Pipe Springs to private ranching outfits until the property was purchased by the Federal Government in the 1920’s.
We were able to walk around almost all of the park with Charlotte, though the Spring itself was closed off for construction. We talked to the rangers and enjoyed the midafternoon heat before continuing on further West towards St. George.
After driving through on our 2014 Spring Break trip, we used to think that St. George would be a great place to settle down after the Navy, or just in general. The region is incredibly scenic, it was close to some of the best National Parks, and it had a charming small town feeling. But since then the city has become…unwieldly. Just one of the reasons our tone has changed towards St. George, one report suggested that St. George uses over 3x the average water consumption of other populations in the area and claims almost 20 golf courses – especially concerning given the water levels of the Colorado reservoirs. And driving through confirmed our change of opinion. We stopped long enough to grab lunch and use wifi to find a place to camp, then escaped to the North heading into Dixie National Forest and our campsite for the evening.
We found our way to Enterprise Reservoir near the Nevada/Utah border and found a place to camp in the dispersed area on the South of the lake. The lake was much too low to Kayak, so we instead finished our day hiking through the boulders and rocks along the Pine Canyon trail. The hike was uneventful but for the free range cattle grazing along the creek and lake beds. They were fine, but Charlotte did not like them in the least. We ended the evening with dinner, games, and reading in our tent.
