Wiregrass Canyon Hike – Lake Powell

Page, AZ

The weather on Friday was about eighty degrees and cloudy, a good day to hike a canyon.  So we drove to the northwest and took a dirt road around to the north of Lake Powell to do the Wiregrass Canyon Hike.  A description of this hike said we would see two natural bridges, as well as balanced rocks and arches at the top of the cliffs if we hiked two miles down a dry wash.  That sounded interesting, so we parked at the trailhead and hiked down into the nearby wash.

For most of the hike our trail was trimmed with many colorful wild flowers along the banks and the surrounding canyon walls.

We don’t know what the plant below is called, but John thought it looked like a Wilson Truck Antenna (used by many RVers to boost cell phone signals).

Some of the rocks along the wash showed an extreme amount of erosion.

At a few spots we had to do a bit of scrambling to get over or around some drops in the wash.

After hiking about a mile, we came to the first of the natural bridges.  This one is basically a hole in the narrow wall that separates two canyons.

The bridge from one side . . .

. . . and from the other side

The bridge from a distance (John is resting in the opening)

Along the way we did see some wild life.

Some sort of horned lizard

Sentinels kept an eye on us from above

A couple side trips into narrow canyons provided some scrambling opportunities.

Into a side canyon

He nimbly uses his hiking skills going up

But now how does he get back down?

Sometimes even a nimble hiker looks a bit awkward

Other times he looks like he knows what he’s doing

This may require use of some advanced hiking skills!

The return trip

Climbing back out of the wash

Remember, the description of this hike said there were two natural bridges within two miles of the trailhead.  Well, we hiked three and a half miles down the wash and never did see that second bridge.  Maybe it is further down the wash.  But this is still a good hike, one we would definitely recommend.