Essence: The Colorado River runs directly through every Westerner's heart. This loop hike is presented in four segments. First, ascend the historic Spencer Trail to the top of
Echo Cliffs. As it winds steeply up the escarpment, the maintained trail is known for constantly unfolding
bigger
and bigger views of the Colorado River.
Most hikers will (and should) turnaround after taking in the astounding
vista at the end of the trail. To continue on the loop, do a cliff-top traverse off-trail across Echo Cliffs to Dominguez Pass. From there, pitch down 1,400 feet on an obscure and moderately exposed route to a bench 400 feet above the Paria River. Follow the bench southeast through a world of wild color. The entire loop should only be attempted by savvy desert hikers with proven navigational and map reading skills. Once you launch from the top of the Spencer Trail, you are on your own. It would be all too easy to get irretrievably lost out there. Carry both topo maps and know how to read them. Two safe turnaround locations are offered for those who would like to venture out the cliffline a ways beyond the Spencer Trail. The hike is within the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area managed by the National Park Service.
Travel: From the Navajo Bridge on US 89A, drive 0.3 mile west and turn right on signed Lees Ferry Road. Drive north for 5.8 miles. Pass the boat launch and park in the large gravel lot at the end of the paved road. Display your Interagency Pass. The trailhead is at the far east end of the lot. Restroom and water at the boat launch.
Distance and Elevation Gain: 9.0 miles; 2,600 feet
Total Time: 6:30 to 8:30
Difficulty: Trail, off-trail; navigation beyond Spencer Trail is challenging; Class 2+ with moderate exposure; hike on a cool day, no shade, no water. Carry at least four liters. Our temperatures exceeded the forecast by 12 degrees.
Maps: Lees Ferry; Ferry Swale, AZ 7.5' USGS Quads. Please carry paper maps in addition to a GPS track.
Latest Date Hiked: May 8, 2026
Quote: Sunrise in the bedrock desert has the calm of water…This is how it comes: a spill of liquid silence, sunlight the color of embers, every surface bathed in it. The heart aches to live to see the start of a day, every day, luminous in the unmoored distance. Ellen Meloy
From ascendant and airy Point 4,990', the Colorado River, now free of its bondage within Lake Powell, encircles Echo Peaks and flows through Marble Canyon, a furrow of its own making. The Vermilion Cliffs stand guard to the west. The entire landscape is washed in shades of sinopia, a color the American West has perfected. (Thomas Holt Ward, photo)
Route: From the Spencer and Historic District River trailheads, walk east. When the trails diverge, ascend roughly northeast to the top of Echo Cliffs and the end of the Spencer Trail. Hike northwest across the cliffline to Dominguez Pass. Drop steeply southwest to the Shinarump bench. Follow an old mining track/trail southeast to complete the loop.
Spencer Trail
The trailhead for both the Spencer and Historic District River trails, elevation 3,140 feet, is located at the far east end of the parking lot. It was busy with school kids in the afternoon but we were the first vehicle to arrive in the morning. That was a brilliant strategy because the first rays of sun swept over us just as we completed the ascent.
Buildings and mining relics are scattered about from the frontier and prospecting days at Lees Ferry. The historic river crossing functioned from 1864 to 1929.
Begin on the Historic River District Trail heading east on the north side of the river. Charles Harvey Spencer (1872-1968) was a prospector who arrived at Lee's
Ferry in 1910 in search of gold hidden in members of the Chinle
Formation. To power his operation he needed coal. The closest coalmine was 30 miles away to the north in Warm Creek Canyon--on the other side of the Echo Cliffs! Spencer hired two men to cleave a trail up and over the imposing obstacle. Subsequently, pack mules carried loads of coal down the trail to Lees Ferry. Hard to imagine. (THW, photo)
At 0.35 mile divert from the riverside trail onto the Spencer at a signed junction.
The river, silent, silky, and shimmering, reflected dawnlight quickening Echo Peaks. The
Echo Cliffs form the western escarpment of the Kaibito Plateau. The Echo Monocline runs for 70 miles and reaches heights of 1,600 feet. The cliffs are composed of rocks in the Glen Canyon Group: Wingate Sandstone (oldest and lowest), Kayenta Formation, and Navajo Sandstone. The Chinle Formation
underlies the Glen Canyon Group. The Spencer Trail begins in the Chinle and progresses up through the Wingate. (THW, photo)
The Spencer Trail has three sets of switchbacks and two laterals. The initial staircase, hurriedly constructed, has endured for nearly 120 years.
As we walked up the wall, sunrise on the receding river was so visually captivating it was hard to keep hiking. At the boat launch, two commercial raft trips were gearing up to put on the river. Drift boats were leaving their moorings one by one and motoring upriver with anglers on board anxious to be carried simply by the power of the river. (THW, photo)
Rubble exfoliated from the Wingate rests on the softer, sloping Chinle Formation. At 0.8 mile the trail does a lateral to the northwest for 0.3 mile. The thin, dirt thread was cut into a seriously steep slope. I found the platform comfortable and solid. However, we happened upon a couple from the Midwest who were visibly shaken. Below, notice the trail stretching out in front of me, clinging to the hillside. Do pay attention. (THW, photo)
The contact between the Chinle and Wingate was at 3,650 feet. Trail engineering got a whole lot more challenging. The second set of switchbacks were seriously steep and interspersed with skinny staircases. (THW, photo)
The trail was cleaved into channels. (THW, photo)
At 1.6 miles, another sheer wall forced a second lateral, this time to the southeast. If you've spent time in canyon country, you are fully aware that both game and humans must weave back and forth seeking out breaks, or weaknesses, in the cliffs. At 1.8 miles, the final set of switchbacks commenced. Notice the hikers, image-center.
(THW, photo)
A simple post unceremoniously declared the end of the Spencer Trail atop the Echo Cliffs at 2.1 miles, 4,660 feet. And while my tracking device said vertical gain was 1,600 feet, in 2009 I did a solo scamper up the Spencer. A ranger insisted the gain was 1,700 feet. Whether you are turning around here or proceeding out the cliffline, plan to take some time celebrating this extraordinary domain. (THW, photo)
The top of the Spencer has considerable notoriety as a regional overlook. Lonely Dell is located at the mouth of the Paria River, joining the Colorado from the northwest. The Colorado is flowing southwest through Marble Canyon. The tilted stone ramp across from Lees Ferry is composed of Kaibab Limestone. Technically, there isn't any marble in the area. John Wesley Powell named it Marble Canyon because the water-polished limestone walls glistened.
To the northeast the cavernous serpentine river doubles back on itself at Horseshoe Bend. Lone Rock is the square-topped, 150-foot-tall Navajo Sandstone monolith in Wahweap Bay. The soft, symmetrical dome of Navajo Mountain is the dominate region-wide landmark. My field notes from 2009 make mention of the Navajo Generating Station, the coal-fired power plant located on the Navajo Nation, near Page. In 2019, the plant was decommissioned and in 2020, the three smokestacks were thankfully demolished. The Spencer Trail is a worthy and wondrous hike so if this is your turnaround, well done. (THW, photo)
Echo Cliffs Traverse to Dominguez Pass
In 2011, I was guided to the top of Dominguez Pass by a friend who relied simply on her impeccable memory. We didn't have time that day to explore the unfamiliar traverse to the Spencer Trail. So 15 years later, I was back to give it a shot with my partner. We had a hunch the three mile traverse would be a navigational challenge and it was. The traverse and descent to the Shinarump Bench above the Paria River should be reserved for desert mountaineers who know how to find their way in convoluted
topography, and have a stomach for moderate exposure. We read one trip report from hikers who got all the way to Dominguez Pass only to lose their nerve upon looking over the edge and retraced their steps back to the Spencer Trail!
We downloaded the track on
Hike Arizona considered the "official route." Our compliments to "PaleoRob" whose verbal instructions were most helpful. There is a fair amount of leeway on the Echo Cliffs
traverse. His route varied somewhat from ours. For one, he minimized fluctuations on the ridgeline while we preferred to stay closer to the dramatic cliff edge. I was carrying the two 7.5 USGS topographical maps and consulted them frequently. Don't get caught out there with a dead battery. Carry paper maps.
The route holds a northwest trajectory all the way to the pass. To get started, ascend the first formation up the middle between the two knobs. There is a faint social trail to the knoll on the east.
For those hikers returning down the Spencer Trail, I highly recommend you climb this easily won superior lookout first. This is the only location where you can see upriver. Beyond the knob we saw no people, no cairns, and no footprints.
(THW, photo)
The cliff top opens up and the Hike Arizona track goes well off to the northeast. We chose to stay near the drop where we could see the Paria River 1,700 feet below.
This image was shot from a subtle rise in the landscape, Point 4,819'. The communication tower we saw coming up the Spencer is seen on the horizon. We thought it was on the next roller, Point 4,990', but it is considerably further out the cliffline. Walking is delightfully easy on either sandstone or crushed gravel. Brush was never a problem on the traverse. Well spaced plants included blackbrush, ephedra, snakeweed, pricklypear, ricegrass, and blooming globemallow.
Point 4,990' at 3.2 miles is distinguished by a (teetering) standalone boulder. For hikers returning on the Spencer Trail, consider walking on top of the cliffs to this airy, premiere lookout. It is the second, and final, reasonable turnaround option.
Look down on the Spencer Trail winding to and fro up from the river.
Dominguez Pass is 1.8 miles afar. From Point 4,990' we could see the communication tower on Point 5,019'. We decided to take the road servicing the tower over the next ridgeline.
We passed the first of several blossoming Utah agave. The flower stalks can grow a foot each day to a magnificent height of 18 feet. The plants grow for about ten years, expend all their resources producing one stalk, and die soon after. (THW, photo)
The succulent flowers provide a source of nectar for the cactus longhorned beetle. (THW, photo)
On the same stretch the hairy Mojave popcorn flower was common. (THW, photo)
At 3.5 miles, the road splits. If you'd like to visit the cell and microwave relay tower, take the left fork. We continued straight through a notch blown in the ridge.
From there, we got our first look at Peak 5,148', image-left. I didn't know at the time that it was the highest point in the area and a ranked summit with a rise of 328 feet. Had I known, we would have made every effort to climb it.
The road goes under the powerline at 3.8 miles. PaleoRob in Hike AZ wrote this is the toughest part of the traverse and he is correct. No longer straightforward, the landscape is complicated. Small ridges emanate from the numbered points on top of the monocline. In turn, the ridges are separated by dry drainages flowing east down the backslope. Our route proved to be efficient but there is some leeway. Keep a sharp eye on your map. Up and down,
in, out, and around.
You may stay on the powerline road until it nears the escarpment. Then move off-trail, proceeding northwest.
If I had it to do over, I would climb the loose chute to the right of Peak 5,148', image-left, and scramble to the summit.
Instead, we drifted down-valley a short distance and went through a gap between two knobs east of the peak.
Upon passing through the gap, get a bead on conical Point 5,138' and head toward it. This is your landscape marker for Dominguez Pass sitting at its base.
Carefully descend a very steep rubbly slope.
Hike down-valley a short distance and then pitch up over the next ridge.
Descend into the draw below Dominguez Pass. I was baffled because there was no sign of the pack trail depicted on the map, or even footprints. It was disconcerting because I expected some sign of human travel. Nothing. In front of conical Point 5,138', walk west toward the rim.
Cross a pleasingly smooth slickrock deck at 5.0 miles. Is this really Dominguez Pass? It sketched me out because the west side of it was a massive drop over a cliff. A most unusual pass.
Looking down the draw, Navajo Mountain is lined up nicely. I wasn't able to determine the history of the pack trail shown on the Ferry Swale topo map. But the origin of the name Dominguez Pass is well documented. In 1776, two Spanish Franciscan priests, Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, attempted to find an overland route from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to their mission in Monterey, California. They got as far as northern Utah before turning around. On the return, they went up and over Echo Cliffs at Dominguez Pass and crossed the Colorado at Lees Ferry.
Descent From Dominguez Pass
When I did the up-and-back from the Spencer Trailhead to Dominguez Pass in 2011, there was a four-foot-tall cairn marking the route from the pass to the proper location to initiate the drop. The cairn is no longer present. From the pass, hike 0.2 mile northwest on the west side of the conical point. Below, the passage crosses the shrub-covered flat, image-center.
Past the flat, continue between large boulders and the base of the cone. It's intuitive when you get out there.
Begin searching for any hint of a route or rudimentary trail down the improbable looking slope.
This
route is indicated on the Ferry Swale topo as a pack trail. There is little evidence of it now but the location of the route down the initial escarpment is indicated pretty
accurately on the map. I found a fallen cairn at the top and a couple of two-rock stacks and a singleton cairn leading down what appeared to be an old route. These were the first cairns we'd seen since the top of the Spencer Trail and I found them reassuring. We did a careful visual
before launching to be sure we were not going to get cliffed out.
We initiated our descent at roughly elevation 4,800 feet. It looked like we were plunging over the cliff but it appeared a whole lot better than
holding the contour any further. The pitch is steep but not impossible. The proper route never exceeds Class 2+. A few cairns helped guide us down the rubble-filled slope. This is NOT a maintained trail. The pathway was much more obvious in 2011. Over time, some
trails get more pounded and defined. Others, like this one, are
neglected and begin to quickly disappear. The
objective in this upper section is to work down to the red sand slide.
The sand slide was a bliss out. Our boots sank into soft, billowy, ultra fine-grained sand dissolved and liberated from the Wingate slab-slope above.
At the bottom of the sand slide, a cairn marked a rudimentary trail through a short rock band. There, our route departs from the pack trail shown on the map bearing northwest to the Paria River. This route points west-southwest to a bench above the river, a roughly three-mile shortcut.
The trail leads onto another sand slide. A pretty clear trail makes a couple of long switchbacks down the boulder strewn slide.
This image looks back up the pitch from about two-thirds of the way down to the bench. If you love the company of rocks you will find this segment of the hike most enjoyable. That's the idea, right? Each segment of this loop has something to favor.
The next objective is the gray and beige Shinarump bench hanging above the Paria River. My field notes and trip reports refer to trails and old roads no longer visible, to us anyway. We did find some game trails. Cobble together a route that works for you staying north of a pronounced drainage. It's not terribly difficult.
Eventually we arrived on a faded, abandoned road serving historic uranium diggings. We passed by an assortment of mining debris and sunshine yellow rocks.
Return to Trailhead
Arrive on the Shinarump bench at 6.6 miles. 3,460 feet, 2.4 miles from the trailhead. The Shinarump is a fluvial pebble, coarse-grained, conglomerate sandstone member of the Chinle Formation, forming a resistant
ledge. The much softer and colorful
Petrified Forest Member overlays the Shinarump.
Walk southeast on the abandoned road paralleling the Paria River all the way back to the trailhead. Surprisingly, we saw no footprints.
Erosion has narrowed the road to a singletrack in places, particularly when heading amphitheaters. There are some short, potentially dangerous exposed stretches. Concentrate!
One of the sketchy lines is shown image-right. This photo will only leave you guessing about soaring, vertical-walled
Paria Canyon. Trust me, it is impossible to conjure the wonders of this continuously unwinding corridor. (THW, photo)
The patina on these fallen Wingate boulders is midnight black. It takes millennia to create desert varnish this intense.
Walk on purple sand. Having hiked in the Chinle Formation time and again through the decades, I am always color struck by the bands of deep purple, pinks, and grays. High on the horizon is the communication tower we walked by earlier. The contrast between the bracing blue vault and the opaque vermilion stone is almost too much to live, see, and process.
Within the Petrified Forest Member be watchful for outcrops of trees, now stone. Below, the lumberjack of time chopped and shattered a log.
Earth magic closeup. (THW, photo)
Streams of exfoliated Wingate boulders are channeled and spread over variegated purples.
I want to put in a word of advice about temperature. The forecast the day we hiked was for a high of 88 degrees. But it was pushing 100 degrees by early afternoon. There was no shade. My once frozen Gatorade was at boiling point. The heat absolutely made the hike harder and we would have been in a world of hurt if something went haywire. Save this hike for a bona fide cool day.
The perfect loop hike completes the wrap right at the parking lot.
Of interest, on the morning of our hike, we walked across the Navajo Bridge in civil twilight, the period between darkness and dawn. (THW, photo)
Condor E8 was resting on the struts of the vehicle bridge. (THW, photo)
To play off Ellen Meloy's quote at the top, a spill of liquid silence painted the Vermilion Cliffs the color of embers. The heart aches to see the start of a new day. Every day my feet touch the surface of this planet is a luminous day.
(THW, photo)
