The
Fred Harvey system runs in harmony with the Santa Fe Railway system, so
that no matter how nervous the visitor, he may rest perfectly contented
that when he goes on any of these trips he will always be back "on time,"
both for meals and trains.
CHAPTER VI. How To Spend Two To Five Days At El Tovar
Suggestions for Two Days. Suppose the visitor to the Canyon arrives in the
morning on an early train and must leave the next night; how can he best
fill in his time?
In the morning of the first day he should take the popular drives to
Yavapai and Hopi Points, and the afternoon can be spent in driving out on
the Hermit Rim Road to the head of Hermit Trail, with a stop, returning, to
view the sunset from Hopi Point.
The second day can be well spent in going down Bright Angel Trail.
Suggestions for Three Days. If the visitor has three days at his disposal,
let him spend the first day on Hermit Rim Road; the second day he can drive
to Grand View and enjoy the eastern end of the Canyon. These trips will
give him a general outlook over the Canyon from all the salient near by
points on the rim, El Tovar, Yavapai and Grand View on the east, and
Maricopa, Hopi, Mohave and Pima west on Hermit Rim Road, and an extensive
panorama stretching many miles from the end of the road.
The next day the Bright Angel Trail trip may be made, and at the end of the
third day on returning from this trip, the traveler will be able to assert
with truthfulness that he has gained a reasonably comprehensive view of
Grand Canyon.
Suggestions for Four or Five Days. If one can spend four or five days, and
wishes to fill every hour with travel and sightseeing, he can take one or
all of the day's experiences already suggested.
To the Boucher Trail. Then let him plan either to ride a saddle animal or
be driven to the head of the Boucher Trail (about six thousand five hundred
feet elevation) through the forest to the west, by Rowe's Well, a distance
of ten miles. This trip can be made in about two hours. If one has been
driven to this point, the harness is removed from the horses, saddles
substituted, and the descent of the trail begun.
Dripping Spring. It is a little over a mile to Dripping Spring, which is at
about five thousand four hundred and ninety-three feet elevation. The trail
descends easily at first through a beautiful wooded canyoncito, where it is
completely hidden and embowered in foliage. Then it winds its way down and
around the cherty limestone, to the top of the cross-bedded sandstone, down
which zigzags and steps lead one to the spring itself. This is located in a
picturesque spot. Picture a great, overhanging wall at the very bottom of
the cross-bedded sandstone, from twelve to fifty and more feet high, the
recess being perhaps thirty or forty feet back. From the rocks above, with
a drop of about fifteen feet, seeping through a green cluster of maidenhair
ferns, the pure water of the spring drips into a stone trough placed to
receive it. Day and night, winter and summer, fair weather or foul, it
seldom varies its quick, tinkling, merry drip, drip into the receptacle
below. Below the trough, a natural cavity in the rocks receives the
overflow, and here, within the pool and on its edges, aquatic and other
plants grow in profusion. By the side of this ever-flowing water, Louis
Boucher, the builder of the trail, has his simple home camp. Two tents,
placed end to end, rest against the wall, well protected from sun and rain,
though the morning's sun shines in freely. Below is a corral for horses,
mules and burros used on the trail.
Hermit Basin. Here, after lunch, one continues on his trail trip to the
river. For three miles the trail winds in and out of the recesses, on the
easily rolling ground of the plateau. There are no sharp descents. For
about half a mile the trail is in Dripping Spring Amphitheatre, an alcove
on the edge of Hermit Basin, so named by Louis P. Brown, a miner and
prospector, who, in the early eighties, made this basin his home while
engaged in prospecting operations in the Canyon.
As the plateau passes across the basin and out to the open Canyon, the
scene becomes more and more enlarged, until it is stupendous and vast
beyond description. Down on the right, Hermit Creek cuts its narrow path
deeper and deeper, until it reaches the red-wall limestone, where it makes
a narrow gorge, that, from the elevation of the plateau, seems more like a
mere slit in the rock than a gorge. Louis Boucher assures me that it is so
narrow and deep that he has seen stars from its recesses at midday, and I
record his statement in spite of the fact that eminent astronomers have
told me that such a sight is impossible. Anyhow, the effect of that
stupendous descent is such as to almost make the rider on the trail see
stars, though there is no danger to any one with ordinarily steady nerves.
Two miles out, one sees the continuation of one arm of the Bright Angel
fault in the shattered strata of the red sandstone, some masses of which
are toppled over at the base of Pima Point. It was this fault that made the
talus slopes, down which the Boucher Trail descends, and also the great
eroded recess of Hermit Basin.
Columbus Point. The nose of the plateau on which we have been traveling,
now directly under Yuma Point, is named Columbus Point, and from this spot,
where several noted American painters have made paintings destined to
become memorable, the outlook in three directions, east, west, and north,
forms one of the noblest of all the panoramas of the Canyon my eye has ever
rested upon.
