The mighty Kaibab Plateau in northern Arizona is a huge raised limestone highland bordering the Grand Canyon on its North Rim, and extending northwards about 60 miles almost all the way to the Utah border. On top are vast forests of Ponderosa, beautiful meadows, and, unfortunately, some recent burn areas. Most people come this way to visit the Grand Canyon on its North Rim, and thereby escape the crazy crowds on the South Rim. Getting here is a long haul from any direction: from Phoenix it’s about a 350-mile one-way journey to the North Rim Lodge. We had visited the North Rim together back in 2005 (and I myself had visited way back in 1996), and were eager to return. There are great camping options, and the weather is always very cool and pleasant. It’s a far cry from the mayhem down on the South Rim.

There are two “highpoints” on top this plateau. The actual highest point is a simple spot of land at 9,200 feet elevation, located along a ridge paralleling the highway, and indistinguishable from its neighbors. Because the plateau itself is raised on all sides, this boring little point has an impressively high prominence figure of over 3,500 feet, placing it very high on the Arizona state list. Furthermore, the highpoints of the Grand Canyon National Park are located on the plateau. Obviously, most people come to the Grand Canyon to go down into the great ditch, but the highpoints are interesting and have a little history attached to them too. Of course, we wanted some Canyon time as well. Driving all this way for these highpoints only would be silly. But they made fun diversions during our three days up here.

We left our home on the 25th and drove the long distance, arriving onto the plateau about 7 p.m., where we took camp at the Kaibab Camper Village located about a mile from Jacob Lake the village, and very near Jacob Lake the “lake”, which is actually a tiny brackish sinkhole, and on private property. We were planning three nights here, and had a good first night’s camp.

The next day started well and we got rolling about 9 a.m., heading south on State Route AZ-67. It’s about 30 miles to the North Rim entrance station kiosk, but we turned early at the 25-mile marker onto Forest Road 611, planning a long backroads drive out to the Saddle Mountain trailhead and viewpoints. We followed Fr-611 and 610 south and east and along the way, bagged two of the four potential highpoint areas of the National Park. Neither of these were very interesting and we spent just a few moments. Instead, we had much more fun with the drive and the incredible views from the end of the road near Saddle Mountain, which we didn’t know about beforehand and which has now shot up high on our future “to-do” list. After a spell we started the drive out, and the storms started to build. We decided to head back to our camp. Although it doesn’t sound like we did very much, we actually spent nearly 4 hours on this leg of the journey. Back at camp we simply took it easy, ate all the fine cookies they sell at the Jacob Lake Lodge, and avoided the raindrops when appropriate.

The next day we drove back down, this time with plans for the actual plateau highpoint, then some time at the Canyon itself. Driving south from Jacob Lake we went 25 miles to FR-22, directly opposite FR-611 from the day before, then drove up FR-22 for 2 miles to its junction with FR-270, which goes south to some viewpoints. The highpoint is located along and beside the road, 1.2 miles south, and we could have driven this but we chose to park at the junctions with FR-22 & 270, and make a short walk. When we started the weather was blue skies with big puffy clouds forming pretty quickly; twenty minutes later, we had walked the distance by which time we had some very mean-looking storms bearing in on us. The highpoint is very indistinguishable but easy, and we spent a little time stepping here and there. I can’t say exactly where I think the highest spots were, but I would vote more for the south end of the little area, near where the road rises the highest. By the time we had walked back we had drops of rain and some nearby lightning! See the photo for a visual.

Driving down, we drove on into the National Park, where a bolt of lighting struck a camera apparatus no more than 20 feet from our truck as we waited in line to pay our fees. This was followed by some of the heaviest rain we have ever experienced, plus a big power outage as we later discovered. This was quite a storm! We drove down to the North Rim Lodge and had a lunch, toured the Lodge itself, and watched as storms worked their way across the Canyon, south to north, dropping rain and lightning. We were shut out from any long hikes but we enjoyed ourselves nevertheless. In time we returned to our camp at Jacob Lake, and had to deal with a full night of heavy rain and storms that never let up; I ended up sleeping in the back of my truck and Beth in the cab.

As so often happens, the heavy storms from the previous day were long gone and the next morning started clear and very pretty. This was our last day on the plateau. We drove south again the 30 miles to the entrance station, this time planning a hike up the remaining two highpoint areas for the National Park. Both are located nearby one another, and the “summit” has a lookout tower. The ranger assured me that public access is allowed, despite the fact there’s a Forest Service residence and service road nearby. We parked at a viewpoint just north of the entrance station. Beth was feeling bad so stayed behind, while I ran off to make quick work of the highpoints. I walked up to the service road, then walked past the residence and onto the old road to the top, which is now part of the Arizona Trail, by the way. It was a fun, quick 1.5-mile hike with about 350 feet of gain to the broad top area. The lookout looks active but I didn’t climb it. An old dilapidated hut sits nearby, and the ranger said this used to belong to Edward Abbey, way back when. I took some photos and returned to the truck, gone a total of about an hour. From here we drove out and on into Utah, staying for a night in Kanab.