These Are The Salient Points On Walhalla Plateau, Overlooking The
Ottoman Amphitheatre, The Chief Temples Of Which I Have Already Named.
Indian Garden.
Passing now through the fertile Indian Garden, Angel Plateau
is reached. The spring at Indian Garden is large enough to irrigate a small
tract of ground. Experience has demonstrated that not only can vegetables
of every kind be grown here, but all kinds of fruits, even oranges, lemons
and grapefruit. For two miles after leaving the Garden, we ride over a
fairly level plateau to its edge, where it overlooks the Granite Gorge.
Here, standing on the Tonto sandstone (three thousand seven hundred and
eight feet), we look down into the dark recesses of the inner gorge, and
picture the events described by Major Powell, when he and his brave band of
intrepid explorers passed through.
O'Neill Butte. Now looking back to the rim at Yaki Point, we see beneath
it, and corresponding to the Battleship, an imposing structure. It has been
named O'Neill Butte, in honor of "Bucky" O'Neill, one of Roosevelt's Rough
Riders, who was slain during the heroic charge at San Juan Hill. He it was
who interested Eastern capitalists in the Anita Mine, and was therefore
indirectly responsible for the building of the Grand Canyon Railway.
Pipe Creek. Those who wish to go to the river now retrace a portion of the
way to the Indian Garden, and then turn off eastward by the old-time Indian
corn-storage houses. Here one obtains a fine view of the wild chaos of
metamorphosed rocks of Pipe Creek. It is a veritable Pluto's workshop,
where the rocks are twisted, burned, and tortured out of all semblance to
their original condition. They are made into cruel and black jagged ridges,
which seem eager to tear and rend you.
Falls of Willow Creek. In these forbidding rocks the Devil's Corkscrew
Trail has been cut, winding and twisting down, down, twelve hundred feet,
passing by a split in the rocks where the waters of Willow Creek make a
waterfall of over two hundred feet.
The Colorado River. At last the Colorado River is reached, and we are but
two thousand four hundred and thirty-six feet above the sea. El Tovar,
above, is six thousand eight hundred and sixty-six feet, and we have thus
descended four thousand four hundred and thirty feet, nearly a mile, from
rim to river. And what a river it is! No one can form any idea of it,
unless he stands on the very brink, almost deafened by the sound of its
sullen roar and turbulent rapids. It is hungry, insatiable, murderous,
cruel. Many a foolish mortal has had the breath dashed from his body by
these powerful waves. Those who wish to cross to the other side can defy
danger in the cable crossing, but only a skilled boatman should attempt to
row across.
Colorado Salmon. Fish are caught in the river here at times. The chief
variety is a scale-bearing fish, of silvery appearance, commonly known to
the local dwellers as Colorado salmon. Specimens have been caught two feet
eight inches in length, and sixteen inches in circumference, and a
fortunate fisherman brought one up to El Tovar, which was nearly three feet
in length.
Camping at the River. It is a delightful experience to remain over night
and sleep on the river sand, especially if the moon be at its full. Then
one sees great walking shadows - moving, living, palpable entities. Towers
and buttes and temples take on new qualities under the softer luminary of
the night.
Here, too, one gets to know the Canyon in a new phase. He is in the trough
between two ranges of mountains. To the north and to the south are towering
peaks. You forget that you have ridden down, down, to reach this spot. You
are in a new country. A majestic range of glorious peaks soars away above
you to the north. Now, by merely turning in the other direction, you see
another and entirely different range, with peaks, canyons, ravines, gorges,
points, ridges all its own.
The Return to El Tovar. Riding back to El Tovar, with thoughts like these,
the visitor imagines himself riding to a City Celestial. He reaches the
plateau, studies for a while the unique coloring of the Algonkian strata
just above the Granite Gorge, and sees where the faulting has raised them
above the Tonto sandstones. Then, steadily looking upward, he rides
forward, climbing slowly but surely to the peaks above. Tired though he is,
he feels a constant thrill of satisfaction as he rises higher and higher,
and when, at last, his animal lifts him to the level of El Tovar, and he
stands once more in his room at the hotel, he feels an exaltation
vouchsafed only to those who have dared and done an unusual thing. And this
the Canyon is! No matter how often the trip is made, the interest of it
never tires; the wonder of it never grows less.
CHAPTER IX. To Grand View And Down The Grand View Trail
To Grand View. One may go by regular stages or by private conveyance from
El Tovar to Grand View. The distance to the hotel is fourteen miles. The
drive is through the glens and winding roads of the Coconino Forest, with
junipers, pines, sage-brush, atriplex and the beautifully flowered Cowania
Mexicana, or mountain mahogany, commonly known as the quinine tree,
abounding on every hand. Though comparatively close to the Canyon, one
seldom catches a glimpse of it, for the country slopes away from the rim.
The ride is through a thickly forested region of giant pines.
Varieties of Flowers and Shrubs. During the season of flowers one will be
surprised at the great diversity presented. There are varieties of
artemisia or sage-brush, antennaria, columbine, the barberry, spiraea,
Russian thistle, eriophyllous, chrysothamnus, plantago, dandelions,
lepidium, chaenactic, linum, hosackia, cirsium, astragulus, ambrosia,
euphorbia, pleustemon, achillea millefolium, erodium, or stork's bill,
orthocarpous, vilia, solidago, lactuca, helianthus, erigeron, brickellia,
malvastrum, ptelea or a desert hop-tree, polygonum, sphedra, lupines,
castilleia, lathyrus, verbena and a score of others.
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