The Two-Track of My Fear: Backpacking the North and South Rainbow Bridge Trails

 

Rainbow Bridge viewed from the east, with snowy Navajo Mountain in the background. 

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On the south flank of Navajo Mountain, deep in the Navajo Nation, we came to a fork in the dirt road leading towards the South Rainbow Bridge trailhead. A sign between the forks warned of private residences and said to “Keep Out” but didn’t specify which fork was private. 

 

We chose wrong, of course, and as we turned to go back the way we’d come, a Navajo man came out of his house to speak to us. I apologized nervously, but he was friendly, directing us to another road that bypassed his property. In the background, a woman stood in the doorway speaking loudly in Navajo, probably reminding us to read the damn road signs. The man ignored her, looking at my Transit camper (AWD, but still a van) and remarked, leaning over a little to check the clearance, that the road to the trailhead was “a little rough” but that I could “probably” make it. Scott and Bay were in a 4WD Tacoma, better suited to bad roads.

 

Once on the bouldery two-track leading to the trailhead, I realized two things: 1) the road was not a “little” rough, and 2) once you started up, there was no turning around. Several days later, we met a group from Moab hiking the opposite direction with a young Navajo woman. One of them asked a little incredulously, “Is that your van at the trailhead!!??," assuring me that, "We’ll keep you in our thoughts.”

 

The next morning, we loaded our packs into Scott and Bay’s Tacoma and drove to the North Trailhead on a less rocky but steeper road to begin the 35-mile hike around Navajo Mountain to Rainbow Bridge and back to the van. 

 

Navajo Mountain is igneous, protruding through Navajo Sandstone cut into deep canyons extending radially from its foothills. Some of the canyons drain directly west into Lake Powell while others take a more circuitous route to the Colorado River. The challenge is climbing in and out of canyons as you walk across the grain of the drainages, but the rewards are glimpses of beautiful riparian oases just greening up in the early spring warmth, dotted with blooming redbud trees, and of course Rainbow Bridge itself, a huge arch spanning Bridge Canyon. Most people who see Rainbow Bridge come from Lake Powell, leaving rented houseboats at a Park Service dock a mile or so west of the formation, but the first glimpse of the Bridge from the east is unique and untainted by the bathtub ring left by the shrinking reservoir.

 

On each of the four nights we spent on the hike, we turned in soon after dark, as campers of a certain age do when the chill of evening sets in. In my tent, I read David Roberts’ “On the Ridge Between Life and Death,” his memoir grappling with his climbing obsession and its consequences. Roberts retells the story from his first book, “The Mountain of my Fear,” an account of the first ascent of a fierce alpine route on Mt. Huntington in the Alaska Range, where one of his partners was killed in a rappelling accident after summiting. Later, after putting the book aside, I lay awake wondering if I’d be able to drive the van back to the highway at the end of the trip, and the consequences if I couldn’t. I doubt that my anxiety matched that of freezing alpinists fighting storm-battered and corniced Alaskan ridges, but it kept me awake for a at least a while each night when I should have been thinking about redbud blossoms or listening to the Western screech owl outside my tent.

 

We awoke on the final morning to the sound of light rain on our tents, but a nearby sandstone alcove provided a dry place to make breakfast, and the rain stopped just in time to start the long climb to the south trailhead where the van waited. As we climbed, the rain turned to snow but never accumulated. And in the end, the drive out was mostly downhill, easier than the drive in with gravity helping to push the van over the rocks. We camped that night on the north flank of Navajo Mountain just as the storm cleared, with expansive views over intriguing canyon country deep in Navajo country. Bay rode my bike the last three miles to retrieve her Tacoma, saving me the risk of getting stuck on the steep, muddy road, while Scott and I enjoyed a cold drink and got dinner organized. 

 

Anxiety is seldom caused by time away from modern conveniences (like camper vans) but instead by the specter of returning to them. 

Scott Lehman and Bay Roberts packing gear at the south trailhead, where we camped before shuttling. 

Hiking into a vast Navajo Sandstone landscape on the first day after leaving the north trailhead.

A modern Navajo petroglyph, reminiscent of older Navajo petroglyphs at Sand Island along the San Juan River NE of this hike.

Descending into a canyon on the first day.

Surprisingly, we saw very little archaeology on this hike, but I found this arrowhead (and left it where found) in some dunes near the trail.

In mid-March, it was early spring in the foothills of Navajo Mountain, with cottonwoods and Gambel oaks greening up and redbud trees starting to bloom. 

Our first view of Rainbow Bridge. At first it seemed like a geomorphic impossibility, but as we walked closer it revealed some of its secrets.

Rainbow Bridge from the northwest.

The Echo Camp near Rainbow Bridge was home to at least a dozen folding metal cots. If only they had left folding metal chairs. The camp was home to a pair of Western screech owls and lots of bats. We spent two nights at the Echo Camp and day-hiked to the Rainbow Bridge and Lake Powell.

One of the cots, none of which appeared compatible with the inflatable thermarest mattresses we carried.

Bay and Scott hiking through narrows on our fourth day.

My tent on the last morning of the hike. Rain turned to snow as we climbed to the south trailhead, but it was beautiful to see water flowing in the canyons.

Waterfalls and potholes.

Scott and Bay starting the long climb to the south trailhead.

The view from near the top of the climb on the last day. Our last camp was in the narrow part of the valley far below.

Logistics and Links

• The North and South Rainbow Bridge Trails can each be hiked as out-and-backs or connected as a point-to-point hike (~35 miles) like we did if you shuttle cars. 
• A permit from the Navajo Nation (easily obtained) is required, and hikers are asked to stay on route (the permit isn't a license to explore other parts of the Navajo Lands). 
• The south trailhead is approached from a dirt road off of Navajo route 161, which itself is a fork of Rt. 16. Detailed directions and information about the South Trail are found here. Once on the dirt road, stay LEFT at the sign announcing private residences and then turn right once past the sandstone dome. 4WD and high clearance are strongly recommended for the final 2 miles to the trailhead.
• The north trailhead is also approached from farther north on Rt. 16. The dirt road off of 16 is good to the top of a steep drop (camping on the left before the drop) but then deteriorates quickly. 4WD and clearance is again recommended for the final 3 miles to the trailhead. Detailed directions to the north trailhead and information about the North Trail are found here.
• The hike is about 35 miles. Traveling from north to south, there was water and camping at Surprise Valley, the Echo Camp (near Rainbow Bridge), and the First Water camp when we hiked in March, 2024. These water sources are well-spaced for camping on a 4-day/3-night hike. Check for current water availability if possible. General information about the hike is found here.
• There are many online accounts of people's hikes to Rainbow Bridge (e.g., Arizona Highways). 

The Cooke's Range, New Mexico

Ocotillo on Massacre Peak in the southern part of the Cooke's Range. 

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Cooke’s Peak rises 2,400 feet above the remote trailhead where seven of us (and three dogs) gathered on a chilly January day for a long-anticipated hike to the top. The route climbs an alluvial fan and turns into OK Canyon where it winds through oak, sotol, and juniper before launching steeply upwards over two saddles to a short third-class summit scramble. We hoisted our daypacks and set off up the trail while the dogs ran around finding old bones and muddy puddles, covering at least twice the distance we did during an already long day.

Cooke's Peak (the pointy one) viewed from Mimbres Valley northwest of the range.

On the trail to Cooke's Peak with the Chihuahuan Desert far below.

The view east from near the summit of Cooke's Peak.

 

The peak dominates the northern end of the Cooke’s Range, one of many obscure “sky islands” rising from the desert basins of Southern New Mexico. Thanks to a perennial spring, it played a disproportionate role in U.S. and Mexican history and the U.S. doctrine of manifest destiny. Military, mail, and passenger routes between the East and California stopped at Cooke’s spring rather than bypassing the mountains because it offered the only reliable water between the Rio Grande and the Mimbres River. 

A lone ocotillo on Massacre Peak in the southern Cooke's Range with the Florida Mountains in the distant background. The easiest  east-west route is between the Floridas and the Cooke's Range, but there isn't any water.

 

Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke traveled the route in 1846-47 with a ragtag battalion of Mormon “soldiers” recruited in Iowa to bolster the U.S. military presence in the southwest, much of which was still owned by Mexico, and to diffuse tensions with the Mormons. They welcomed this because it gave them a chance to travel west funded by the military, escaping persecution in Iowa. After prolonged conflict and negotiation with Mexico, the Gadsen Treaty established the international border about where it is today, and the U.S. gained possession of Cooke's route.

Ellen near the summit of Massacre Peak just south of Cooke's Gap and west of the spring. A plaque commemorated the Cooke expedition as well as a group of boy scouts who visited the summit more recently, presumably to install the plaque.

 

Long before Europeans started arguing over ownership, the Mimbres chipped petroglyphs in the hills and canyons of the range. They are often fantastical, though some depict easily recognized rattlesnakes, sheep, bear prints, and yuccas. There are even the outlines of scarlet macaws on boulders in at least two sites. These tropical birds were traded (and maybe bred?) as far north as Chaco Canyon and its outliers and clearly had religious and cultural significance. Their feathers have been found attached to prayer sticks and ceremonial clothing. The Mimbres abandoned the area around 1150 AD, perhaps migrating south into Mexico. Bands of Apaches later established ephemeral camps in and around the Cooke's Range where they hunted and organized raids.

Petroglyphs in the Cooke's Range.

More petroglyphs including a possible macaw and Santa Claus roasting a dead rat over a fire??!!

Grinding holes in sandstone.

 

The Apaches were antagonized by the stream of Europeans threatening their sovereignty. Cooke’s Pass, just west of the spring and sandwiched between steep cliffs and hills for over a mile, was a perfect place to attack travelers, and the Apaches took full advantage. During one well-known attack in July of 1861, Mangas Coloradas and Cochise, two famous Apache leaders, ambushed seven members of the Freeman Thomas Mail Party as they entered the canyon, forcing them up a side canyon to the south where they built rudimentary rock shelters and fought the warriors until their inevitable deaths. According to an account by Jay Sharp, the stripped and mutilated bodies of Thomas and his companions were found two days later by passing freighters who described the scene:

 

“The ferocity of the battle, the freighters said, could be measured by the numerous shell casings littering the ground and the bullet marks covering the rocks and trees around the stone barricades.”  

 

Ellen hiking through Cooke's Pass in November and feeling somewhat less terrified than travelers 150 years earlier, despite the 8-mile shadeless round-trip. 

We spent a day trying to find the site of this attack, but aside from a few ambiguous rock shelters, any signs of the battle have been erased by 160 years of weather and scavenging. This and many other attacks led to the construction of Fort Cummings near the spring in 1863 and deployment of military personnel to protect the vital transportation route. Today, all that remains of the fort are a few decaying adobe walls and a barren cemetery. 

Decaying adobe walls at Ft. Cummings, once a busy military outpost positioned to protect travelers from Apache attacks.

 

Lonely graves at the Ft. Cummings cemetery. The military was tasked with collecting human remains that had been left scattered along the route through Cooke's Pass and relocating them to this cemetery. The bones and bodies contributed to the terror travelers felt as they passed through the canyon.

After the Indian Wars, the Cooke’s Range was occupied by miners, goat herders, and ranchers. Abandoned towns dot the foothills today, and old mines are everywhere. To the west, Flourite Ridge is riddled with adits where miners extracted its namesake mineral, used to make steel, especially during WWII. Also during WWII, in the basin to the east, pilots dropped bombs containing small amounts of explosive and a lot of flour to mark the spots where they exploded, helping them evaluate their aim.

A stone house probably used by miners near the north end of Fluorite Ridge.

On the northeast flanks of the range, the once prosperous mining town of Cooks Town (spelled without the “e”) is mostly gone save for remnants of a few buildings. The town was established in 1876 and mostly abandoned by the beginning of WWII but it once had as many as sixteen saloons (and no churches!). Donald Couchman (Couchman 1990), in his comprehensive Master’s thesis on the history of the region, tells a story of intrepid partiers from Cooks Town: 

“Many of the community social functions were conducted at the schoolhouse…People would come from as far away as Deming, Lake Valley, Las Cruces, Hatch, Hatchita, and the settlements along the Mimbres River. The revelers pushed the school furniture against the wall for room to dance and used the seats for beds for the children when they could no longer stay awake…Sometimes after dancing all night, the participants would climb the remaining distance to Cooke’s Peak and enjoy the dawning of a new day together.” 

We stopped for a snack below the summit headwall and then scrambled to the top where a little snow and rime from the previous night’s storm clung to rock and a few hardy desert plants. To the south, the craggy Florida (pronounced Flor-eed-ah)  and Tres Hermanas Mountains rose behind the town of Deming; to the west the Big Burro Mountains and Apache Peak guarded the New Mexico-Arizona border; sixty miles to the east, the Organ Mountains stood behind Las Cruces; and to the north lay Silver City and the vast Gila National Forest. A lot had happened in the country visible from the peak since humans found their way into the southwest. A little reluctantly, we started down, tired from the hike even without having danced all night.  

Ellen and our friend, Beth, at the summit of Cooke's Peak.

Carlos, Beth, and Ellen, starting the descent from the summit.

A last view to the east during the descent back to the trailhead.

Proposed Mimbres Peaks National Monument

 

Along with the Floridas, the Tres Hermanas, and the Goodsight Mountains, the Cooke’s Range is included in a proposed Mimbres Peaks National Monument, which would include just over 245,000 acres. Together, these sky islands account for remarkable biological diversity, numerous cultural sites, and unlimited opportunities for adventure. 

 

 

References

 

Barbour, Matthew J. 2014. Journey Through the Mining Camps of Cookes Peak in New Mexico Where Mineral Riches Once Thrived. Miningconnection.com.

 

Couchman, Donald Howard. 1990. Cooke’s Peak – Pasaron Por Aqui. A Focus on United States History in Southwestern New Mexico. Cultural Resources No. 7. Bureau of Land Management, Las Cruces, New Mexico.

 

Sharp, Jay. Cooke’s Canyon. Journey of Death. DesertUSA.com.

Exploring Fable Valley

 

Fable Valley in fall color. Archaeological sites occupy both sides of the canyon, the sagebrush flats, and even the tops of sandstone towers like the one in the distant background.

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Fable Valley cuts into the Dark Canyon Plateau joining Gypsum Canyon before emptying into the Colorado River deep in Cataract Canyon. In 1869, during his descent of the Green and Colorado, the one-armed John Wesley Powell hiked into Gypsum from the river, nearly getting caught in a flash flood and turning back before reaching the mouth of Fable Valley. 

 

Our trip last October was less dramatic than Powell’s, but it required driving 40 miles on occasionally narrow and exposed dirt roads to reach the trailhead. I was grateful for both arms as I gripped the steering wheel of our van, hoping not to encounter oncoming traffic (we didn’t). We spent four days in the valley and two full days searching for archaeology, wandering up- and down-canyon from camp, scrambling up boulder-studded slopes to ruins or rock art sites and never traveling more than a couple of miles as the crow flies because there was so much to see.

 

Had Powell made it into Fable over 150 years ago, he would have found mostly undisturbed remnants of a substantial Ancestral Puebloan community spread from one end of the canyon to the other, with Mesa Verde style cliff dwellings and granaries in high alcoves and multi-room settlements in the sagebrush below. In the interval between 1869 and 2023, most of the ruins were scavenged, though pot sherds and lithics remain. Gordon Baldwin superficially surveyed the valley in 1949, describing 24 sites but noting even then that “…from the number of ruins that show signs of digging, it is evident that pot hunters, including a number of unauthorized expeditions, have been active in certain sections for some time.”

 

Even during Baldwin’s trip, a few remnants of settlements stood where today there is only sagebrush. We searched actively for a “ground ruin” below the largest cliff dwelling a mile or so upcanyon from our camp and found only pot sherds and a few low walls. Baldwin observed that the same site “seemingly contained more than 200 rooms and probably stood more than two stories in height,” while also describing a seven-foot-high corner wall that “may represent all that remains of the rectangular towers noted by [Dr. Byron] Cummings.” Cummings visited the valley in 1909, only 40 years before Baldwin when the ruins were less disturbed. When we visited, even the corner wall was gone. Despite that, finding what remains was exciting and fun.

 

Baldwin published his findings in the Southwestern Journal of Anthropology but admitted that “Due to the hurried nature of the trip and other phases of the recreational aspects of the region that had also to be investigated [emphasis mine] comparatively little time could actually be devoted to archaeological exploration.” Despite those weasel words, his paper contributed to our then sparse knowledge of the region. 

 

Like Baldwin, we were a little hurried, spending only four days car-to-car since some of our group of six had to return to work and others had plans to “investigate other phases of the recreational aspects of the region,” as Baldwin so eloquently put it. 

A structure in an alcove down-canyon from our camp, accessed by scrambling from above and traversing across a ledge.

The group at the structure in the previous picture. Left to right: Ellen, Bay, Jane, Steve, and Larry.

A handprint panel with stylized hands painted with concentric lines.

We saw many pot sherds but no snakes, probably because the fall nights were getting cold.

Bay (left) and Ellen scouting for sites.

A circular wall on top of the tower visible in the photo at the top of this post. Accessing it required an easy 4th-class scramble up a ledgy weakness. 

Bay and Jane descending from the tower.

Pictographs near our camp. All of the figures are connected.

Fable Valley itself is appealing even without the lure of archaeology. In October, cottonwood trees were approaching peak color.

On our second full day we explored up-valley from our camp, hiking towards the sun through backlit  grasses and shrubs.

Indian rice grass and other grasses and shrubs in the morning sun.

Pictographs and handprints.

A granary looks out over Fable Valley from an alcove in a side canyon.

Larry entering the most prominent ruin we visited, high above the valley floor. This ruin has been preserved to some extent. Replaced roof logs were cut with saws rather than fire, and portions of walls were rebuilt. 

Ellen, Larry, and Bay approaching a ruin. Steve had hiked out earlier that day to return to work. 

Jane and Larry clawing their way out of a gully in the valley on the hike out. The deeply incised creek and its side drainages were hard to cross. I suspect that when the valley was occupied, they were shallower.

Back at the trailhead and ready to "investigate other phases of recreational aspects of the region." 

L to R: Bay, Larry, Jane, Ellen.

References

Adkison, Ron. 1998. Hiking Grand Staircase-Escalante & the Glen Canyon Region. A Falcon Guide.

Baldwin, Gordon C. 1949. Archaeological survey in Southeastern Utah. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 5(4):393-404.

Cummings, Byron. 1910. The ancient inhabitants of the San Juan Valley. Bulletin, University of Utah 3(3) Part 2.

Midwest Archaeological Center National Park Service, Lincoln, Nebraska. 1978. Archaeological resources of Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, and Arches National Parks and Natural Bridges National Monument, Southeastern Utah. Vol. 1. 

Road Trip Ryan (website)