The Cape Solitude Trail is an abandoned jeep road that starts at the Desert View Ranger Station.  If you are in a car, you can drive about a half-mile down the road and park beside the sewage disposal ponds.  A high clearance vehicle with four-wheel drive "may" be able to drive the remaining 2.3 miles to the Cedar Mountain Trail junction.  Be aware this section of the road is very rough in places.  The road switchbacks its way down almost a thousand feet before reaching the bottom.  At the trail junction, turn left for Cape Solitude or Comanche Point.  No vehicles are allowed after this point.  Proceeding straight ahead takes you to Cedar Mountain. 

     After the Cedar Mountain Trail junction, the trail has a lot of ups and downs and drops in and out of several creek bottoms.  At the five-mile point, you come to another trail junction with a large cairn.  The left fork goes to Comanche Point.  The right fork leads to Cape Solitude.  After another quarter-mile, you will see a Navajo Hogan several hundred yards off the trail and an agave roasting pit beside the trail.  From this point on, the trail begins a gradual descent toward Gold Hill, which is the dominant land mark for the remainder of the hike.  At the 8.5 mile point, you drop down into a drainage and come to a fence and gate.  Proceed through the gate and down the road on the Navajo Reservation for a few hundred yards, then turn uphill and go back through the fence and gate.  Do not continue on the well traveled road on the reservation as it leads to Gold Hill.  From this point on, with the exception of one large drainage, the old abandoned road is almost level all the way to Cape Solitude.  The views of the confluence of the Colorado River and Little Colorado River from high above at Cape Solitude are impressive.  Just a few hundred yards before reaching Cape Solitude is another fine area for looking down the Colorado River toward Palisades Creek and Tanner Rapids.

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