The Kaibab Plateau (Back to Forests Program Index)

Blackened trunks, green tops - periodic lightning fires revitalize ponderosa forests at Fire Point, Kaibab Plateau, Grand Canyon National Park. Photo by Taylor McKinnon. Copyright 2003, Grand Canyon Trust.

The Kaibab Plateau is an uplifted "island" of high elevation forests surrounded on all sides by canyon country and desert habitats. It encompasses over 1.5 million acres of the Arizona Strip, the majority of which falls within the Kaibab National Forest while the National Park Service manages a smaller portion within Grand Canyon National Park.
Home to a diverse, unique, and important patch of forest,

Kaibab Plateau is considered by biologists to be of regional if not global ecological significance. It harbors some of the most intact and extensive remaining old-growth forests in the Southwest and is home to endemic species such as the Kaibab Squirrel, rare woodland raptors such as the Northern Goshawk, and the world famous Kaibab Mule Deer herd. Nestled among the Grand Canyon National Park to the south, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to the north, and the proposed Vermilion Cliffs National Monument to the northeast, the Kaibab Plateau also provides a central link between protected core areas of the southern Colorado Plateau.

Grand Canyon Trust is working to facilitate public land management activities and priorities aimed at restoring a relatively stable and self-regulating ecosystem on the Kaibab Plateau. Like other forests of the southern Colorado Plateau, safely returning fire to the Kaibab Plateau is an essential prerequisite to restoring self-regulating forest ecosystems. Toward this end, Grand Canyon Trust is working closely with Grand Canyon National Park to assemble historical forest ecology information for the southern Kaibab Plateau in order to better understand forest ecology trends before and after disruption of natural fire regimes in 1879. This information will directly inform fire and vegetation management planning at Grand Canyon National Park-which already maintains one of the nation's finest examples of successful "let burn" fire management programs.

Blue paint on yellow bellies - old-growth ponderosa pine marked for cut on the Kaibab Plateau. North Kaibab Ranger District, Kaibab National Forest. Photo by Taylor McKinnon. Copyright 2003, Grand Canyon Trust.

We are also providing critical review of Forest Service management activities including livestock grazing and timber sales to ensure that old growth stands are preserved, and that the natural processes and structures that historically characterized these forests are protected. Sadly, the North Kaibab Ranger District remains one of the last rogue Districts in the Forest Service's Southwest Region that continues to log old-growth ponderosa trees and forests. Our efforts to change this management direction include working to establish legal standing necessary to directly challenge future old-growth timber sales, and developing restoration alternatives to old-growth projects that provide the Forest Service viable options for proceeding with cautious small tree thinning and fire reintroduction.

The Kaibab Plateau is an ecologically invaluable sky island north of and bordering the Grand Canyon.  Magnificent pinyon-juniper forests transition into ponderosa pine, mixed conifer, and spruce fir forests, dotted with aspen glades, montane meadows, and ancient sinkhole lakes.  Due in large part to its remoteness, the Kaibab Plateau contains some of the best remaining old growth ponderosa pine forest in the Southwest.

With the purchase of the Kane and Two Mile ranches, the Grand Canyon Trust is refocusing its efforts to help protect and restore the Kaibab Plateau.  We plan to work with agency staff, and all other interested stakeholders in identifying livestock and forest management strategies that allow for appropriate fire management and forest restoration to occur across the Plateau. 

See map showing the grazing permit boundaries in red and the Kaibab Plateau in green above

As a first step towards participating in ongoing discussions about forest and livestock management across the Plateau, we have initiated an ambitious ecological assessment of the area (hyperlink to ecological assessment portion of the Kane project description when completed).  One portion of this assessment has been centered around a volunteer-based effort to gather forest overstory data across the Plateau.  More than 100 volunteers worked during the summer of 2005 to visit 150 assessment sites across the Plateau (see map below).

Over the coming months we will be working with the Forest Ecosystem Restoration Analysis project at Northern Arizona University to combine the information collected by volunteers with satellite imagery.  Through this process, we will be able to develop high resolution maps describing forest, fire, wildlife habitat, and watershed conditions across the Plateau.  We will use this critically valuable information to guide our Kaibab Plateau planning, management and advocacy work over the coming decade.  Please check back as the data will be posted here when completed!

The Warm Fire

On June 22, 2006, in spite of careful monitoring by the Forest Service, a controlled burn originally ignited by lightning in the Kaibab National Forest south of Jacob Lake got out of control due to heavy winds and turned into a conflagration called the Warm Fire. Before it was contained days later, over 60,000 acres of pinyon-juniper, ponderosa pine and mixed conifer forest were consumed.

For more information about the Warm Fire and its effects on the Plateau please click here. (PDF)

Click here for Kaibab National Forest website.

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