By Tom Beckwith
Looking northward into the Little Dominguez Creek drainage at spectacular rock formations
In August, a three-night canoe trip on the Gunnison River in
western Colorado gave my wife and me an opportunity to hike in Dominguez
Canyon. Over the millennia, Dominguez Creek has carved out a stunningly
beautiful canyon before draining into the Gunnison about halfway between Delta
and Grand Junction. Administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), it is
one of the proposed wilderness areas being considered for protection. Readers
of T&T will remember that the Colorado Mountain Club has been one of the
lead proponents for wilderness designation for this spectacularly beautiful
Colorado treasure (see sidebar).
Dominguez Canyon shares characteristics with many of the
slickrock canyons on the Colorado Plateau, including the Colorado National
Monument west of Grand Junction. Over the eons, the gentle
yet irresistible forces of water and wind, cold and heat, have eaten away at
the sandstone, leaving behind harder rock, thus sculpting the entire Colorado
Plateau into mazes of broad valleys with sheer cliffs and jaw-dropping
formations as well as smaller, narrower box canyons with secret, shaded
chambers. Like vast European cathedrals, each with a dizzying number of side
chapels, the canyons of the Colorado Plateau, including Dominguez Canyon, evoke
wonder and awe in the pilgrims who hike them. They challenge our hubris, as
well. It is salutary to have our pride uncomfortably diminished when confronted
by the stunning effects of ages of geologic time. Time has a far greater
palette than any human artist.
Status
Dominguez Canyon is classified by the BLM as a “Wilderness
Study Area (WSA).” According to the BLM, it is part of the largest roadless
area in the state, encompassing 68,505 acres. All but 1,283 of those acres are
proposed for wilderness. In listing the characteristics that make the area
appropriate for wilderness, the BLM states, “The WSA possesses outstanding
geological features, spectacular scenery, ecological diversity, two cascading
mountain streams and opportunities for solitude and primitive unconfined
recreation. The terrain is characterized by large mesas dissected by deep red
slick-rock canyons and arroyos. The area provides valuable wildlife habitat for
desert bighorn sheep, deer, elk, mountain lion, black bear, wild turkey and
chukar.” According to rangers, Dominguez Canyon will most likely be made part
of a larger National Conservation Area, with the canyon itself being preserved
as wilderness.
Wilderness Areas are formally designated under the
provisions of the Wilderness Act of 1964. In the more than forty years since Congress
passed the Act and it was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson,
supporters and detractors alike have commented on the remarkable language the
Act’s creators used to describe wilderness: “A wilderness … is … an area where
the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself
is a visitor who does not remain.” Furthermore, such land should retain its
“primeval character” that is the result of “forces of nature, with the imprint
of man’s work substantially unnoticeable.” Finally, the area should provide
“outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of
recreation.”
“Untrammeled by man;” “primeval character;” “forces of
nature;” “imprint of man’s work.” These are the words of poetry more than the
language of bureaucracy, yet anyone who has experienced wilderness and its
solitude can readily understand how our minds can be shaped, our spirits
restored, and our language changed by its effects. Wilderness is precious; Dominguez
Canyon is precious.
The hike
Several herds of Desert Bighorn Sheep call Dominguez Canyon their home
My wife, Julie, and I went on the Centennial Canoe Outfitters trip
at the invitation of Dan Kunz, a CMC trip leader. We put into the Gunnison
River not far from Delta at the mouth of the Escalante Canyon. The plan was to
travel as far as Dominguez Canyon, which was the midpoint of the trip, then
camp for two nights while exploring the canyon during the intervening day.
From the beginning, the trip was a feast for the eyes as we
spent the first day floating through gorges and wider valleys. A mishap with
one of the canoes in a little patch of Class One+ rapids delayed our arrival at
Dominguez, so that by the time we camped, the lengthening late-afternoon
shadows falling on the water and the canyon walls and the clouds of birds hunting
insects in the cooling air made the late arrival special. Our campsite on the
Gunnison was near, but not in, Dominguez canyon.
The next day, we hiked in small groups into the canyon on a
trail that roughly follows the path of Big Dominguez Creek. Our first prospect
was to the south, looking at the watershed of Little Dominguez Creek. A huge
rock formation resembling a Spanish conquistador guards the western side of the
valley.
Soon, however, we turned into Big Dominguez Canyon. The
floor of the canyon has an elevation roughly that of Denver, but the Sonoran
Desert ecology close to the mouth is much drier. Further in, the desert gives
way to piñon-juniper forest.
The canyon is a holy place for native Americans, with
petroglyphs and pictographs attributed to the Fremont peoples common on the
rock walls. Pottery shards are not uncommon. Indeed, one of our guides noted
that they had been asked not to point out some sites because of the
associations with burials and sacred ceremonies.
Petroglyphs (images carved into stone) are common in Dominguez Canyon
Mixed with these sites, hikers can also see rock shelters
built by later settlers: in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
the area was popular for grazing sheep.
Domestic sheep are long gone, but the area is home to
several flocks of desert bighorn sheep, a cousin of the larger animals that
grace Colorado’s higher elevations. A highlight of our hike was forty-five
minutes spent in silence watching a herd of more than thirty animals. They
spent a lot of time watching us, as well. In her book of essays, Mama Makes Up
Her Mind, while driving down a road, Bailey White tells of encountering what
she thought was a buzzard feeding on road kill. As she drew closer, however,
she realized that the “buzzard” was in reality a bald eagle that gave her “a
long look through the car windshield with his level yellow eyes. ‘What are you
doing here?’” it seemed to ask. She concludes, “I think it does us all good to
get looked at like that now and then by a wild animal.”
We received similar stares from the sheep, particularly the
alpha male who circled his herd and glared at us balefully before returning to
grazing, having concluded we weren’t of any particular significance.
Conclusions
We had never been to this part of Colorado before, and the
scenery and the life in the place delighted us with their variety and their
beauty. We returned home rested and refreshed, having been given a precious
gift through our brief encounter with the wilderness of Dominguez canyon.