Miner’s Point

Miner’s Point is a small viewpoint at the end of an old dirt-road spur on Big Flat Mesa, reached from Big Chief. From its terminal loop, the Colorado River canyon and Intrepid Potash evaporation ponds spread below; in the distance, the La Sal, Abajo and Henry Mountains sit along the horizon. It’s a good side trip if you want an easy east-side trail and a view with a bit of industrial history. If you only have time for one overlook, prioritize the park’s signature Dead Horse Point overlook instead.

Go on foot or by bike via Big Chief; Miner’s Point follows a flat, smooth dirt doubletrack. Stay on its track when Upper Dark Horse branches off. The spur from Big Chief is 0.7 mile, and the complete out-and-back from the mountain-bike parking area is about 1.7 miles. Occasional patches of Kayenta sandstone break up the surface, but this is one of the easier rides in the east-side trail network.

The dirt road loops around the mesa edge, with open views over the river canyon and potash ponds and three ranges on the far horizon. Include a strip of fractured sandstone rim in the foreground of a phone photo; it gives the layered canyon view some scale and shows where the mesa drops away.

Four steel tanks, each with 2,500-barrel capacity, once stood here. Americol Petroleum pumped crude from Mason No. 1 near the Colorado River up to the tanks, about three miles and 1,760 feet higher, through 16,000 feet of pipe. The line was completed in spring 1951, but the new Potash Road made it obsolete soon after; the well was out of service by 1953 and the pipe was removed. The old road is the only trace left at the tank site. The rusted cable and tripod visitors may see elsewhere belong to the separate hauling route, not to Miner’s Point.