Roof Butte is the highpoint of the lengthy Chuska Mountains, which run north-south right along the Arizona – New Mexico border in the Navajo Nation. The Chuskas are broad, block-shaped peaks with extensive highlands and mesas; it’s a conglomeration of a few smaller ranges such as the Lukachukai, and some free-standing massifs, including Beautiful Mountain, the San Juan County (NM) highpoint. Roof Butte doesn’t stand dramatically taller than other peaks in the range – one nearby peak rises to within 20 feet of Roof Butte’s summit elevation, which is a shade above 9,800 feet. Other peaks come within a few hundred feet of Roof Butte’s standard. Even so, knowing what to look for, Roof Butte strikes an impressive profile and is best seen from the east, especially if coming in from New Mexico via Shiprock.

As far as we were concerned, we shouldn’t have even been here on this trip. We were down in south-central New Mexico with plans to visit Truth or Consequences and then drive north to the Mount Taylor region. But while in Magdalena, we discovered that pretty much all of the Cibola National Forest units were closed to recreation due to the extreme fire danger. This forced us to alter our plans, so we decided to head on up to the Navajo Nation after our two days in Truth or Consequences. We had an enjoyable back-roads drive from T or C along state highway NM-52, which cuts a diagonal through the tiny towns of Winston and Dusty, and is unpaved for half its 90 miles, before coming out onto US-60 near the Very Large Array complex east of Datil. We had the road mostly to ourselves save for one very efficient UPS driver, who whizzed by us going at least 80! Even though the dirt and gravel roads were well maintained, I wasn’t about to test my luck going that fast! It’s obvious he knows this route intimately. We also had a lunch (and some pie) in Pie Town, then took a back route through the lonely town of Fence Lake and on up through the Zuni Nation to Gallup, where we crashed for the night.

From Gallup the next day, we traveled north onto the Navajo Nation and on into Window Rock, the ‘capital’ of the Nation, where we stopped to get permits for hiking and possibly, camping. I had called the day before and they told us how to find the Parks and Recreation offices, and gave us the hours, but when we showed up, no one was in – they were all off in Ganado for some conference. They didn’t even leave a skeleton staff. But just then some guy showed up, probably just to check his messages, but he was cool enough to write us up a permit so we would be ‘legal’ while exploring the Navajo backcountry. And off we went.

From Window Rock we went north along Indian Route 12 as it crossed back into New Mexico, then again into Arizona, for about 40 miles to the communities of Upper Wheatfields and a few miles later, Wheatfields. It’s pretty countryside here – high desert and interesting sandstone formations, then the foothills of the Chuskas as we approached Wheatfields. Our plan was to take Indian Route 68 north from Wheatfields, which, according to our map, cut across the range and took us very close to the side access road to Roof Butte’s summit. The guy back at Window Rock tried to dissuade us by saying ‘none of the roads are marked up there’ but we found IR-68 to be very well marked and very well maintained. We turned north onto IR-68 and started into the Chuskas.

At first the road was wide, gravel and flat, and easy to travel along at about 45 mph. Soon, it entered into forests of pine and aspen, and for much of the remaining drive it cut in and out of narrow canyons with beautiful grassy meadows and gentle brooks of water. Occasionally the road got bumpy but it was never very bad, and the scenery was outstanding all the way in. Whenever there was any doubt at a junction we stayed on the main road. Finally, we crested a rise and came out upon a broad, gorgeous flat meadow, over which stood Roof Butte. From Wheatfields to Roof Butte’s access road was about 16 miles, which took us about 45 minutes. (In wet conditions I would probably avoid the area – parts of the road looked susceptible to getting slick and nasty)

We finally arrived at the Y-junction where the access road to Roof Butte’s summit went left. We parked off the main road a bit and got ready. Beth decided to skip this and enjoy herself writing back at the truck, while I slipped on some sneakers, grabbed a water and camera, and headed up the road to the top. The hike went quickly, covering about 1.25 miles and 870 feet of gain in about 35 minutes. I moved fast so as not to be gone long but also to try to beat some iffy clouds and potential rain, which was quite a surprise for this time of year. In any case, the road pretty much goes right to the top, where a series of towers stand, plus a manned fire lookout. In fact, he saw me before I saw him! I had my head down when he said ‘hello’. We had a friendly chat, but he had to get back in for a radio check. I walked the end of the road to the very eastern terminus, where the summit is found. I took some photos of Beautiful Mountain, then walked back out to see if the lookout guy was outside – but he wasn’t. So I just simply headed on out, descending the route back to the truck in 20 minutes. Including time at the top I was gone for exactly an hour. In retrospect the road is drivable to high clearance 4-wheel drive but isn’t really bad – just steep in spots with sand or some exposed rock. In fact, a work truck started up to the top as I was back at our truck. I enjoyed the hike and Beth enjoyed the quiet and solitude of the scenery.

I had not brought along a map as we hadn’t planned to be here, and as I was descending I was alarmed to see a mountain to the west that looked higher, or very nearly as high, as Roof Butte. I performed a very basic water-bottle leveling to eyeball which was higher but could not be sure. I was concerned I had visited the wrong top, and this kind of bugged me for a few days until I was able to get to a computer to check the topozone map, which showed I was correct all along. Even the lookout guy seemed sort of unsure: I asked him ‘This is the higher peak, isn’t it?” and he replied ‘It’s supposed to be’. The western peak rises to about 9,774 feet, but seems to be free of towers and buildings and might be a more ‘rustic’ hike.

Back at the truck we continued north along IR-68 as it very steeply descended just a couple more miles to meet up with paved IR-13, coming in from Lukachukai (the town) and Tsaile. From here, the road descended very steeply some more, easily grades of about 10-12%, perhaps the steepest paved grades in the state (I am not sure). We had some nice views of Shiprock, which we later visited that afternoon.