I hesitate to write about this. Because it’s a place I don’t want you to go to, because it’s my own private plateau. Many times, I write of places and then don’t want to share them. Because I’m selfish. Because I don’t like people, or at least too many of them all in one place, anyway. I run from cities. I run from Yosemite and long lines at South Rim. I escape to North Rim.

Years ago, I drove almost 40 miles on gravel to North Rim, escaping the crowds in the National Park, or at least the paved part of it anyway. I reached the shore of an ocean filled with atmosphere. I reached the end of things, or at least the end of land. Through the last line of trees, the sky unbreached.

Across from the shore on which I stood between towering, orange-barked ponderosa, floated a lost world. An island surrounded by a surf of sky. Crowned from end to end with the same ponderosa forests which stood behind me for miles, sheer limestone walls thousands of feet high shored the island. Most of the mesas out in Grand Canyon are topped with scrub or P-J forests. Most are small. All are inaccessible except to the ravens.

This one across the straits of air was different. From the North Rim, you could wander down about 800 feet on a saddle to an old hunter’s cabin and hear the rush of water, enclosed by high pine. At the triple junction where North Bass Trail continues on down to the River, where most people go, you can make another choice. You can continue on up the other side of the saddle to Powell Plateau, fighting off thick oak brush along the way.

Once you top out, most of the 7 square miles of the high, forested plateau can be your playground for a few days, provided you bring your own water. Almost always, you’ll be alone.

The trail follows the east rim of the plateau. Follow it. The land you walk is sundered with swales and canyons that want to feed you west, toward the center of the plateau. The topography and the veg, mostly oak brush and thorny New Mexican locust, will try to herd you farther and farther away from the rim. If you’re not dedicated to that sometimes-dissipating trail, marked by old blazes on trees, you’ll end up cursing thorns as you bushwhack through impenetrable brambles. You’ll end up with at least a couple cat claw slices on your hands or arms or your face.

If you’re loyal to your heading, you’ll end up bypassing most of the trouble. You’ll pass through the last of the forests and eventually, you’ll reach a clearing on the south shore of the island. You’ll encounter a fire ring or two, and then you’ll know you’re at Dutton Point. This is the southeast face of the Plateau, and it’s probably the only place in all of Grand Canyon where you can enjoy views from near the middle of the gorge. The photo below shows you what you’ll get:

You get to stare down the throat of the river. Gaze down its gullet from a shoulder nearly vertically above it. Stay here a few days. Just make sure you haul in plenty of water, especially during the summer months. You can even cache some and hang it on a tree if you’re careful about your landmarks.

Storms may roll in. Fires may blow up, north rim or south, distant or far. There’s never been fire suppression out on the Plateau. There have been cattle and bison that bred with the cattle. Mule deer. Lion.

The next day, you may want to hike the southern edge of Powell. You’ll encounter mammoth pinyon and juniper at the mouths of pour offs. As you meander along the rim, you’ll eventually spy distant fingers of land that you’ll be tempted to wander out onto. Like all of Grand Canyon, Powell Plateau is a series of long headlands interfingered with side canyons and drainages that wander in and out. If you want to reach Wheeler Point, the long peninsula of land that stretches far out beyond where you stand, you’ll have to go deep into the forests of the plateau. There, you’ll encounter impossible thickets of oak and locust with inch-long thorns. Soon, you’ll be cursing again, lost in brush higher than you stand, looking for a way out. There is a way out to those sublime southern points. I have not found that way yet.

You may give up, decide that just laying down on a bed of flat rock at one of the vista points along the south edge of the plateau is enough, your brim tipped over your face, your body shaded by a pinyon. The uneven rock will poke at your back, but your head will feel reasonably comfortable because you’ve pillowed it with your daypack.

You’ll explore a couple days, run low on water, head back to the trailhead at Swamp Point where you’ve left your vehicle. But that whole time, you’ll be alone with the sun and the badgering wind drifting up from the Canyon below, and you will come back a different person.

To Get There: From Highway 67, go right onto Forest Service Road 22 and drive for 2 miles. Turn sharply left onto FS 270 and continue for 2.2 miles. Turn right onto FS 223 and proceed for 5.8 miles. Turn left onto FS 268/268B. After .2 miles, go left at the fork onto 268B. Proceed 1.1 miles to the NP boundary. Turn right onto a rough double track road, Swamp Point Road (aka Swamp Ridge Road). Drive 7.4 miles to Swamp Point. You’ll require a backcountry permit since you’ll enter the National Park for this trip. Any time spent at the Swamp Point campground will also require a permit. These are available through the Flagstaff Backcountry office.

© 2022 by Michael C. Just

Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.

You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23

Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002

Four of his short stories have recently been published online:

Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)

The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW

I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October

Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within