These are places you might enjoy checking out on your way to or from Kanab.

Travel Information for the Drive from Cameron to Kanab

Stop at Cameron and stretch your legs and walk through the store – it’s an old Native American Trading Store.  The grounds are interesting as well and a good place to walk around and stretch your legs.   Note:  they have a large store and a smaller store – the smaller store has very expensive things in it.  Go in and take a look around.  They have original baskets, beaded clothing, etc., for thousands of dollars!  The larger store is full of trinkets and a restaurant in the back.  This is also the place to get a Navajo Taco (made on Indian fry bread).  Split one – they are huge!  Take time to look at the beautiful woodwork, the blankets on the walls, the old ceiling.   We would definitely recommend making this stop.

In addition, the Cameron Lodge {800-338-7385} is a lovely and relatively inexpensive place to stay.  Ask for a room overlooking the river or the garden area.  Room 221 in Hopi Building is great; 319 in Hopi also looks nice.

NOTE:  Just past Cameron, the bridge goes over the Little Colorado River.

Stop at Navajo Bridge which is the bridge over the Colorado River.  Pull off at the Visitor Center on the right-hand side.  There are two bridges...the old bridge which is now a walking bridge and the Highway 89 bridge.  Walk out on the old bridge and look for the California Condors.  They frequently roost in the steel understructure of the bridge.  In addition, you may see rafters floating by on their way through the Grand Canyon.  As you probably know, all raft trips begin at Lee's Ferry.  This is "Mile 1" of the 277-mile of Grand Canyon National Park.

 
At the junction at Bitter Springs, Highway 89 goes to Page, but you continue on 89A toward Jacob Lake.

Lee’s Ferry is about a five-mile drive north of Marble Canyon off Highway 89A.  Lee's Ferry historically served as an important river crossing.  John Lee started a ferry service across the Colorado River here in the mid-1800's and the ferry service continued until 1928 when the Navajo Bridge was built.  It is the ONLY place you can drive to the Colorado River in over 700 miles of canyon country.  The Lonely Dell Historic Site has a few remaining buildings left - it was where John Lee lived.  It's about a one-mile hike around the Historic Site.

 
Continuing west on 89A, you'll be driving along the Vermillion Cliffs which is part of a National Monument.  If you've heard of "The Wave," it is in the Paria Canyon Wilderness Area which is north of the Vermillion Cliffs.

 
An interesting tidbit:  The California Condors that have been reintroduced at the Grand Canyon are released by The Peregrine Fund atop the Vermillion Cliffs.  By the 1980’s there were only 22 condors left and the reintroduction effort began in earnest in 1996.  The release site is on BLM Road 1065 (House Rock Valley Road) off Highway 89A just before you continue north to the Kaibab Plateau.  You turn north and go about three miles to the site.  For further information, call the BLM office at (435) 688-3200.

Stop at the Jacob Lake Lodge at the intersection of Highway 89A and 67 (which heads south to the North Rim).  They are famous for their homemade cookies (about $2 each).  Interesting historical pictures on the walls in the little lobby/sitting area.  Plus a bathroom....

 
Stop at LaFever Rest Area.  Not too much farther north and west on Highway 89A you will see a small pull off/rest area called “LeFever” on the right-hand side.  There are usually a couple of Native American ladies selling their jewelry here.  Anyway, it's definitely worth pulling off and walking up the few steps to have a GREAT look out over the area to the west and north including views of the tiny towns of Fredonia and Kanab as well as north across the Colorado Plateau stretching upwards toward Zion and Bryce.  NOTE: If you go past the stop, it is very difficult to go back since you are on switchbacks and the road is pretty narrow along this stretch.

Actually, if you look straight north and IF you could actually see that far, you would be looking north across the Colorado Plateau at Rainbow Point (the farthest point out on the Bryce Canyon Scenic Road)!  And once you get to Bryce, if you hiked the short Bristlecone Loop Trail from Rainbow Point, and IF you could actually see that far, you would be looking across the Colorado Plateau down (or south) across the Colorado Plateau toward LaFever.  There is a great map that outlines the entire Colorado Plateau at Rainbow Point.    See information on the Colorado Plateau area below.

To Zion: 
Head to Zion picking up Highway 9 at Mt. Carmel Junction.

To Bryce:
Head north on 89A to Scenic Byway 12 and go east on 12.  At Red Canyon you will pick up Scenic Byway 12.  There is a small Visitor Center.  Stop and pick up the Scenic Byway information.  All I can say is that this road is one of the most beautiful drives in the US--from Red Canyon all the way to Torrey.

The Colorado Plateau is a physiographic and desert region roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the Southwestern United States. This plateau covers an area of 130,000 square miles within western Colorado, northwestern New Mexico, southern and eastern Utah, northern Arizona, and a tiny fraction in the extreme southeast of Nevada. About 90% of the area is drained by the Colorado River and its main tributaries: the Green, San Juan, and Little Colorado. Most of the remainder of the plateau is drained by the Rio Grande and its tributaries.

 
The Colorado Plateau is largely made up of high desert, with scattered areas of forests. In the southwest corner of the Colorado Plateau, nicknamed the High Country, lies the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. Much of the Plateau's landscape is related to the Grand Canyon in both appearance and geologic history. The nickname "Red Rock Country" suggests the brightly colored rock left bare to the view by dryness and erosion. Domes, hoodoos, fins, reefs, river narrows, natural bridges, and slot canyons are only some of the additional features typical of the Plateau.

The Colorado Plateau has the greatest concentration of U.S. National Park Service (NPS) units in the country outside the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Among its nine national parks are Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, Arches, Black Canyon, Mesa Verde, and Petrified Forest. Among its 18 national monuments and other protected areas managed by the NPS, the United States Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management are Bears Ears, Rainbow Bridge, Dinosaur, Hovenweep, Wupatki, Sunset Crater Volcano, Grand Staircase–Escalante, Vermillion Cliffs, El Malpais, Natural Bridges, Canyons of the Ancients, Chaco Culture National Historical Park and the Colorado National Monument.

Elevations range from about 1,200’ at Lake Mead to 12,365’ Humphreys Peak, San Francisco Mountain.

If you have any questions, please contact us.  We put together these travel tips after making several trips throughout this area during the summers we worked at the South Rim and North Rim, Grand Canyon National Park.

Ken and Beth Smith
emskes67@gmail.com
(765) 748-6271