September 6 & 7 2016
Three days in a row off work so I chose to stay at home the first day, then Bill drove up and we took a forest drive to Marble View for an overnighter. Even though I love my park, sometimes I just have to change the view. Plus I wanted to see what effects, if any, the Fuller Fire had on this area of the Kaibab National Forest. And I suspected some fall colors would be showing.
Just before the North Rim entrance station I saw about 30 bison mostly laying down in a meadow, plus one touron. What don’t these people understand about “wild” life?
Barely out of sight from State Route 67 and into the forest on FR611 I saw the strangest, what I believe to be, fire break along both sides of the road and some very large slash piles.
Actually it’s about 30 feet from the road, a swath at least 100 feet wide with most of the trees cut down and chips left behind. Looked like a thinning process leaving clusters of aspen and a few ponderosa pine. Yet there were also many large and small stumps, some trees gashed and knocked over. These clearings ran for about 12 miles in the national forest but not on national park land where a section of the road is a boundary between the two. I saw no evidence of burn at all.
I welcomed the familiar tunnel of trees at the end of FR219 leading to Marble View, yet the narrow road had been widened and trimmed.
Two people with a tent occupied the first big site so we went around the trees a bit to allow for privacy and quickly leveled up with an excellent view.
Wild rose bushes turning colors and covered with hips grew at the edge of camp.
I absolutely love this view for it’s distances. About 100 miles away Navajo Mountain stands alone at 10,416 feet. Echo Cliffs to the east, Vermilion Cliffs to the northeast, and the Colorado River deep in Marble Canyon cutting through the Marble Plateau.
Ancient trees on the rim lean from the strong southwest winds of summer yet a dense forest blocked our camp. That is until a walk out to the point threatened to blow us off the edge and the bite in the wind sent us back to camp.
So many gravel roads visible below and leading to the rim that I haven’t explored yet.
As the sun sank behind the forest shadows crept across the plateau below and seemed to flow into Marble Canyon.
Had there been less wind we might have sat outside around a campfire. No shortage of fire wood nearby. Instead we admired the sunset through the camper window and I stepped outside for a couple quick shots.
Including a crescent moon.
The morning began with light colored clouds and haze.
After coffee and conversation we walked to the point. To the north the cliff face shows the marvelous curve of the Kaibab monocline dipping east into the valley below.
This area reminds me of tundra with stunted vegetation and lots of fossils.
We left camp about 3pm. Bill headed back to Kanab and I slowly, 2 hours, drove back to the North Rim. I stopped often for the splashes of fall colors.
And along a meadow where the Arizona trail passes through.
Plus a quick pit-stop where I usually find colors and love this old fence.
I do understand the importance of fire for forest ecology, and fire breaks to keep fire from jumping the road. But this is plum ugly and I’d rather have seen burn.
I could feel and hear the forest crying.