Pipe Spring National Monument a quiet stop in a scenic setting

Pipe Spring National Monument in Northwestern Arizona near the Utah border remains one of the Southwest’s least-known historical gems. Seldom crowded, the 40-acre tract at Pipe Spring surrounded by reservation lands belonging to the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians hosts about 55,000 visitors a year. Those who pause to visit enjoy a journey into the past in a picturesque setting.

Pipe Spring lies 180 miles from Las Vegas, about three hours’ drive time. Follow Interstate 15 north into Utah. Turn on Highway 9 north of St. George toward Hurricane. At a junction downtown, turn on Highway 59, which becomes Highway 389 at the Arizona state line. Turn at a marked paved road leading to the national monument and the nearby reservation community at Moccasin.

Reliable springs early drew humans to the site near deep canyons and high cliffs. The earliest likely came to hunt and gather wild foods. Later the Anasazi or ancestral Puebloans built their pit houses and multistoried villages in the vicinity. Ancestors of today’s Kaibab Paiutes filled the void when the Anasazi left. They had lived in harmony with the land in small groups near the site for at least 300 years before the Spanish arrived in the New World.

Displays and exhibits in the visitor center explain the clash of cultures that followed Spanish exploration, encounters with other native people and white settlement that followed the Mormons’ arrival in Utah. Despite its remoteness, Pipe Spring drew a parade of colorful and historic characters. Their encroachment severely affected the Kaibab Band.

Despite decimation of their numbers by disease and enslavement and degradation of their native food sources when cattle were introduced by settlers, the Kaibab Paiute persisted. Today the group partners with the National Park Service at Pipe Spring to preserve and interpret this crossroads of cultures.

Protected as part of the National Park System since 1923, Pipe Spring National Monument remains open all year except for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. In summer, hours are 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. From September through May, the monument opens at 8 a.m. and closes at 5 p.m. A $5 per person fee applies when you enter the visitor center. National park or interagency passes may reduce this fee. The Zion Natural History Association operates the well-stocked bookstore in the visitor center/museum.

Guided tours of Winsor Castle, the two-story stone ranch house built like a fort above the original spring by the Mormons in 1870, run each half-hour. While waiting, walk the half-mile trail around the grounds through groves of shade trees and past orchards, vegetable gardens and animal enclosures. Visitors arriving before noon in summer enjoy living history demonstrations of pioneer and Paiute skills by costumed docents, as well as ranger talks and guided walks. These programs occur on weekends the rest of the year.

Pipe Spring came to the notice of early Mormon settlers when Mormon frontiersman Jacob Hamblin, the “Buckskin Apostle,” led a party through the area in 1858. They noted the grass standing as high as a horse’s withers, a report leading to the future development of a church-owned cattle ranch there. The spring got its name during that visit when Hamblin’s brother William, a noted marksman, shot the bowl out of a pipe on a boulder near the water. Later visitors included explorer John Wesley Powell, the one-armed Civil War veteran who led the first boat expedition through the Grand Canyon while mapping the region.

For those visitors who want to stay a while, the Paiutes maintain a campground with RV facilities one-quarter mile from the monument’s visitor center/museum. They also arrange guided hikes into reservation lands where there are petroglyphs and other cultural remnants. Make arrangements for camping with the tribe by calling (928) 928-7245. Motel accommodations and additional RV parks are located at Fredonia, Ariz., 15 miles distant, and Kanab, Utah, 25 miles away. The Bureau of Land Management administers nonreservation lands in the region where camping is allowed with certain restrictions.

Margo Bartlett Pesek’s column appears Sundays.