Pt. Huitzil Notes
December 2, 1995

by Dennis Foster

     I had written up an extensive account of this hike well before the days of having my own web page.  So, while I have just posted a short summary on my South Bass page, here is the full account.

Peppyr sits by the fence that
marks the NP boundary.

Pt. Huitzil - Day Hike
Saturday, December 2, 1995
Transcribed & Expanded from Notes

     I took Peppyr along for a day hike to find the route through the Coconino at Pt. Huitzil.  The weather has been very accommodating--warm and dry.  So, I wanted to do this trip while the roads were still passable.  In the fall I had backpacked to the Esplanade in this area and tried to find the route up through the Coconino and got cliffed out.

     I drove through the Park and started keeping track of times and distances from when I turned off of the West Rim Drive and onto the road for the kennels:

Where the FR crosses into the Havasupai Reservation the gate was closed and a hand painted sign read “Road Closed” and “No Hunting.”  I was deterred from opening the gate to use the road to continue on to Pasture Wash, so I drove along some tracks that paralleled the fence, to the north.  I had some vague hope that these tracks would lead to the park, but ended about a mile north of the FR road.  I thought for a bit about what to do--try the Lauzon tank road, open the gate--and decided to just hike through the woods into the park.

     At 11:06 Peppyr and I were off.  We tried to follow an old fence that we were alongside, that ran north and south, but it gave out soon.  I wandered a bit in the area for something more distinct to follow and found a plot of private land with a trailer and a target full of holes set up.  We avoided that.  I headed north, certain to run into the park fence, scratching my pole along the ground periodically and making small cairns, with the hope of following them back to the truck.  But, I gave up on that--I was sure that I couldn’t follow such vague signs through the wood.  So, we soon just were hiking along in earnest, heading for the park.

     At 12:03 we had reached the park boundary at a spot that had been a gate, but was now wired shut.  We were at the southern end of a big open area--Pasture Wash.  We wandered through the sage until we hit the road from Cecil Dodd tank (that passes by Lauzon tank).  We followed this to the road we should have driven on, which heads north to the Bass trailhead.  At this junction, a sign is posted indicating that this Dodd tank road is closed--no doubt that the fence is impassable (as I noted many years ago when trying that road while on my motorcycle).

     Heading up to the abandoned Pasture Wash Ranger Station we were, for a short time, following three deer along the road.  We reached the PWRS at about 12:30 and looked around.  The water tank has holes in it, so nothing would ever collect in it.  The road we wanted to follow from here, heading to the NW, was quite clear, and not blocked.  Harvey wrote that he drove about a mile down this road, so I timed my hiking to go for twenty minutes. 

     At 12:50 we reached a place where one could pull off to the right and park, while the road swung to the left.  I decided to have lunch and think about what to do next.  I was looking for the telephone line that Harvey followed, yet had seen no sign at all of any such line.  After a sandwich I strolled down the road a bit further.  It seemed to be on a more SW trend, which reinforced in me the idea that this was Harvey’s parking place.  Upon returning to this spot I followed a discernible path to the right and soon found the telephone line--a single bare wire that passes through insulators hung from the trees!  So, we were off at 1:15 pm.

     At about 1:33 we left the path that we were following, having gone a bit further than the spot where the line was broken [on 1/7/96 John & I found the continuation of this line running to SW from this spot.].  “I decided to head N and ended up passing 4 or 5 cairns and have reached the big ravine (cairns are here) and can see across it.”  Before descending into this ravine one can see into the canyon in this upper end of Aztec Amphitheater.

     At 2:00 pm we reached the rim, in this ravine, atop a bit of a Kaibab cliff.  A break in the Kaibab is marked just a few yards to the right and a distinct route continues from there.  I tied up Peppyr to a nearby tree and expected to be gone only for about one and a half hours checking out this route.

     I went through the break and found a shelter cave nearby.  From here the route descends quickly to the top of the Coconino.  I missed a fork in the route and ended up in the ravine that had brought me to the rim.  From here I contoured to my right, towards the yellow Toroweap towers, which I could see from up above.  My reading of Harvey had me convinced that I would have to climb again before I could reach these towers, but I didn’t have to do this--this is not the first time I misinterpreted something Harvey has written!  I came down between the Toroweap towers to the top of the Coconino cliff, reaching this at 2:43 pm.

     While everything seemed to fit Harvey’s description, I just could not figure any route out here.  I did tie my rope to a bush and use it to hold on while getting some better perspectives on this sloping Coconino, but saw nothing.  I did not have any more time for scouting out the route, but decided that I could not leave (it was 3 pm when I headed back) without contouring over to the other side of this bay and taking some pictures of this area for closer study later.  So, even though I was pressed for time, I reached a spot where I could see where I had been.  It seemed clear to me that I was not at the right spot, but I could not make out any route.  I took my pictures and returned to get Peppyr.

     By 3:47 pm Peppyr and I were on our way back, full of uncertainty about how I’d find the truck without walking 6 or 7 miles along the road.  We headed back up the ravine, going past the spot where we descended, as I wanted to be able to intersect the telephone line.  We went up the side and then angled through the woods.  Unfortunately, I relied on the sun’s setting as a bearing for west, when in fact it was setting almost due south.  So, while I thought I was heading south, I really was heading more towards the east.  I knew it didn’t take long to reach the ravine from the telephone line, so, as our time started approaching an hour I was getting quite nervous.  I was afraid that I might have passed right under the line without noticing it.  Going east, I was going to hit a road sometime soon.  The question was “Where?”  Well, at 4:40 we popped out of the woods and into an open area, full of sage.  Within a minute we were back on a road--the one we followed from PWRS to the telephone line--and the ranger station was only about 100 yards away!  I had a compass, but sure did a poor job of directing us through the woods.

     At 4:43 we reached the Bass road, near the PWRS, and at 4:58 we reached the fence between the park and the National Forest.  I had decided to walk back down the road about a mile and then head south for a while, and then due east through the woods.  I figured that would lead us back to the truck (or, somewhat south of it).  At 5:16, as the road started to veer a bit more to the west, we turned off and, compass in hand, headed south.  By my calculations we would walk for about a mile through the woods, which should take 20 minutes.

     At 5:27 it was still light enough to see, and the moon is rising--almost full.  The moon is due east, so I did not need to use the compass to navigate (I had no flashlight with me).  As we neared 20 minutes I was sure that I had not made any mistakes and knew that we had to run into the fence.  And so we did, at 5:37, as the light was fading fast.

     Since everything was suddenly coming together, I crossed under the fence and continued east, looking for the road I was parked on.  I went for a few minutes and found nothing!  I had expected it to be literally right there!  Now I was as confused as ever.  We returned to the fence and followed it to the north from 5:45 until 5:51.  Again we headed east, until 5:57, and still found no road!  So, I angled SW, back to the fence, reaching it again at 6:04.  Now, I headed south, knowing that the worse case scenario would be that I ended up at/near the closed gate at the reservation.  At 6:15 we met up with a road that then paralleled the fence, heading south.

     The road did not seem quite familiar, but we took it to the north.  It twisted away from the fence quite a bit.  When we reached a sharp S-curve I knew that this was the right road as I recalled driving through that.  At 6:24 we had reached the truck.  As it turned out, the fence I was parked near, which was old--barbed wire and wood posts--was not the boundary fence that Peppyr and I had been following south (which was newer, with metal posts).  So, if we had headed due west from the truck, to begin with, we surely would have found this fence and could have marked this spot with a cairn and then followed the fence to the north, and the park.

     Well, by 6:55 we were off, headed for home, which we reached at 9:52.  The total mileage was 229.4 miles.  The return route was via FR 605 to Moqui.

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