Kaibab Plateau Springtime

[Photo: Afternoon sun through aspen-fir forest, Kaibab National Forest] 

Mid May on the 8,000 foot-plus elevation Kaibab Plateau in northern Arizona means early springtime. This year was cooler there than last, somewhat wetter. With the way the climate's changing, probably a lot warmer than historically. 

It is what it is. It's still an incredible place. High sub-alpine forests growing out of the bowing back of upthrust rock layers that at its southern edge forms the North Rim of Grand Canyon. 

Grand Canyon gets almost all the attention. And at the North Rim, only 10% of the visitation of the South Rim. Thus the many roads on the Kaibab National Forest outside the Park are even more unknown to the masses.

As they should be. High, wild, lonesome. For those not in a hurry. Those with a vehicle that can take rough roads. Who know enough to have plenty of fuel, food, water.

Like me.

The air was clear, crisp. Between storm fronts. The aspen leaves were emerging after another winter. It was greening up. 

I was glad to be back. It had been a year since I'd seen this place like this. A half year since leaving it. 

Lots to think over. 

Photo location: Kaibab National Forest, North Kaibab Ranger District, Arizona Strip.

© 2015 Stephen J. Krieg

Rainbow Rim, Kaibab Plateau, Arizona

[Photo: North Timp Point and Steamboat Mountain, North Rim of Grand Canyon, Arizona.]

Evening at the Rainbow Rim. It's a remote and special place on the boundary line between the Kaibab National Forest and Grand Canyon National Park. About 20 miles by dirt Forest Service roads from the nearest paved highway, Route 67, also known as the North Rim Parkway. And about 50 miles from the nearest town of any note, here on the Arizona Strip in the northwest corner of the state.

You drive through lush mature forests of Ponderosa pine, aspen, spruce, and fir. Big trees. Kaibab squirrels, a tassel eared species with a white tail and dark body, live here on the Kaibab Plateau and nowhere else. I saw four this day. 

I camped near Locust Point, one of the points on the Rainbow Rim. Only a few visitors. Peaceful. Awesome viewing, down into the Tapeats Amphitheater in Grand Canyon. 

Just the kind of place for a modern day mountain man.

On The Mountain Lying Down

The "mountain lying down" is the Kaibab Plateau of the northern Arizona Strip. It's a high (8,000 feet plus) densely forested plateau with a broadly rounded top. A broad upswell in the land that triggers a lot more precipitation (mostly snow in the winter) than the surrounding high desert areas.

["Wildland Fire In Progress" marquee, De Motte Park, Kaibab National Forest, Arizona]

But it has no craggy mountain peaks. Even though the landform was lifted by the Earth's tectonic forces to be so high in elevation, it never was crunched into peaks. Thus to the Paiute Indians it was called Kaibab, the mountain that is lying down.

It's a fascinating portion of the remote Arizona Strip, that area north of Grand Canyon up to the Utah state line. It forms the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, as the ever scouring Colorado River far below keeps exposing more cliffs and side canyons to be widened by erosion of water and gravity.

And it's a wildfire ecosystem. Fire is a natural part of the habitats here, especially the Ponderosa pine-spruce-fir-aspen forests. The trees, and the animal species that live there, are well adapted to periodic fires.

So when a thunderstorm on May 23, 2014 produced two wildfires from lightning strikes to trees, the one close to North Rim Village was put out, because it was too dangerous to let grow. The other lightning strike fire was about 20 miles into the backcountry and so let to burn under the intense management of fire personnel from the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and other cooperating agencies. It was named the Galahad Fire, which you can read more about on the InciWeb Incident Information System website.