The pioneer's original hand-picked and blasted route off Grey Mesa is far too narrow and steep for our Jeeps. Calling this amazing path a "road" is a bit of a stretch. It is barely wider than a hiking trail and so steep that the pioneers were forced to hack steps into the rock for the horses to gain purchase. The descent zigzags back and forth in a desperate attempt to keep the grade merely perilous. The first-time visitors in our party frequently stopped, shook their heads, and wondered aloud how anyone could have brought wagons down through such terrain. At the top of the original route, if one knows just where to look, is an amazing artifact. The wreckage of a wagon lies slowly melting into the mesa. Since the last wagon rolled on this road in 1881, the remains have been lying undisturbed for nearly 130 years.
The next day, our slow journey resumed. We had to diverge once more from the pioneer's path and utilize the 1950s-era road scaling Grey Mesa. Prospectors dynamited and bulldozed a very primitive road up the north side of the mesa in a series of ruggedly steep dugways. Dugway is the unique Utah term for a shelf road hacked and chopped through the solid rock of the region.
The route continues past the dugways to the top of Grey Mesa, across the broad, table-flat terrain to the far side, then down the heart-pounding slickrock of The Chute. The Chute is the oft-photographed sandstone trough that the settlers used to gain the top of Grey Mesa on their slow climb up from the Colorado River. The solid-rock route today is exactly the same as it was in 1879. The technique for success is still to keep the vehicle centered in the drainage and creep right down.
Soon we were parked at the (current-day) end of the road high above Cottonwood Canyon and overlooking Lake Powell. Down the canyon and across the lake, we could just make out the narrow black slot of the actual Hole-in-the-Rock. It is a vertical gash in the cliffs on the west side of Lake Powell. The size of this country dwarfs us, and its rugged terrain still challenges a modern vehicle. Take a minute or two to think about the travelers of 1879. It would take us only a day and a half to get back to the pavement. When the Mormons reached this point, they still had three months of arduous journey ahead of them.
Driving Hole-in-the-Rock fills one with respect and admiration for the devout and tenacious pioneers who were willing to even attempt such an implausible journey. The Hole-in-the-Rock road is also a modern-day adventure for those with a yen for desert solitude, a love for the fascinating history of the route, and vehicles stout enough to brave a rough and empty desert.
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The route through the Navajo sandstone on the rim of Lake Canyon wiggles cleverly through the myriad confusions of the rock. | 
A straining motor mount put a battery cable into the fan blade. The resulting dead short made a lot of smoke as it melted insulation and terminal ends. Some desert engineering and rewiring soon had the Jeep mobile again. | 
The steep walls of Lake Canyon provide very few alternative exit points to the rim high above. It won't take too much more erosion to render the current route through Lake Canyon impassable. |