US-89A: Marble Canyon to Fredonia

The land north of the Colorado River, cut off from the rest of Arizona by the great canyon, is known as the Arizona Strip, and it is among the least populated country in the lower forty-eight states. This has long been the homeland of the Southern Paiute people, who knew the springs and hunting grounds of the plateau intimately, and the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians has a reservation near Fredonia at the route's western end. To the south and east lies the vast Navajo Nation.

The highway follows an old wagon and travel corridor across this frontier. Near its eastern end, at Lees Ferry just below Marble Canyon, was for decades the only place to cross the Colorado for hundreds of miles, a crucial ferry established in the 1870s. When the first Navajo Bridge was built in 1929, the ferry's role ended, and the modern route across the Strip took shape. Even today the drive passes only a scattering of tiny settlements, trading posts, and lodges, and long stretches without any services at all.

The signature sight of the eastern half of the drive is the Vermilion Cliffs, a towering escarpment of red, orange, and buff sandstone that rises hundreds of feet above the road and runs for many miles. The colors shift through the day as the sun moves, blazing in the low light of morning and evening. The cliffs are part of a national monument that also protects the famous slickrock formation known as The Wave, reached only by a hard-to-obtain permit and a long hike.

At the eastern end, the road crosses the Colorado River on the Navajo Bridge at Marble Canyon, where the river runs deep in a narrow gorge at the very head of the Grand Canyon. The original 1929 span now serves as a pedestrian walkway beside the newer highway bridge, and standing on it, looking down into the green river far below, is a highlight of the trip. This is also prime country to spot California condors, the enormous vultures reintroduced to the region, which often roost on the bridge girders and soar along the cliffs.

West of the cliffs the highway begins to climb, leaving the red desert behind and rising thousands of feet onto the Kaibab Plateau, a high, forested tableland that holds the Grand Canyon's North Rim. The change is dramatic: sagebrush and rock give way to open ponderosa pine forest, then to stands of aspen and fir, and the air turns cool and fragrant. This is a different Arizona entirely, high and green, where deer and wild turkey move through the trees.

It is here that the route to the Grand Canyon's North Rim branches off, a long, quiet drive through the forest to one of the least visited rims of the great canyon. The North Rim and its access roads are seasonal, closing under winter snow, so the plateau portion of 89A is a place to check conditions carefully in the cold months. In summer and fall, though, the cool forest is a welcome relief from the desert heat, and the plateau's meadows glow with wildflowers and, later, golden aspen.

The country along 89A is rich with wildlife despite its emptiness. California condors, with wingspans approaching ten feet, are the celebrities, but the plateau also holds mule deer, the tassel-eared Kaibab squirrel found nowhere else, wild turkeys, and, in the high country, the occasional glimpse of a mountain lion's country. Down in the desert, bighorn sheep range the cliffs and pronghorn cross the flats. The skies here are among the darkest in the country, brilliant with stars at night.

Spring and fall are the ideal seasons, mild in the desert and comfortable on the plateau, with the aspen turning gold in autumn. Summer heat bakes the lower desert but the high forest stays cool. Winter brings snow and possible closures to the plateau, though the Vermilion Cliffs stretch stays open and can be strikingly beautiful under a light dusting. Whenever you drive it, 89A rewards an unhurried pace, with room to pull over, look up at the cliffs, and take in the immense, empty quiet of the Arizona Strip.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.