Here also
is located the United States Government Indian School, where the children
of several tribes are being civilized. Two miles away is Moenkopi, a Hopi
village, or pueblo, of some thirty homes, where this pastoral and
home-loving people may be found engaged in their quiet agricultural
pursuits, the women also busy at basket-making and the fashioning of
pottery. At Tuba City there are many Navahos living in their hogans, where
the rude silversmiths are at work creating their "arts and crafts" ware,
and the looms of the blanket-weavers are incessantly busy.
Crater Mountain. Crater Mountain, thirty-nine miles south of Grand View
Hotel, is an extinct volcano with one side eroded, leaving a sheer wall
five hundred feet high in circular form, with a variety of pillars standing
high above the bottom of the amphitheatre. Its red, yellow and black colors
combine in a peculiar harmony, and novel effects are witnessed at sunset,
or by moonlight. To enjoy this trip aright, one should drive there, and
arrange to sleep in the amphitheatre, returning on the following day.
Extinct Volcanoes. Or, if a more extended trip is desired, one can drive on
to the many cinder cones and extinct volcanoes that lie to the north and
east of the San Francisco Mountains, including Sunset Crater and O'Leary
Peak, and then into Flagstaff.
CHAPTER X. A New "Rim" Road And Trail Into The Scenic Heart Of The Canyon
Large corporate bodies do not always move with the same rapidity as do
personal enterprises where one man controls. Many minds and many interests
often have to be consulted. When, however, the way is clear, a corporate
body, with its vast power, can accomplish in a short time what individuals
could never compass in several successive lifetimes.
These remarks are exemplified in the action of the Santa Fe Railway Company
at the Grand Canyon. It has taken several years for things to properly
shape themselves for adequate development, so that all classes of travelers
visiting the Grand Canyon could be suitably provided for. In hotel
accommodations, El Tovar, and the equally well conducted but cheaper Bright
Angel Camp, leave nothing to be desired. In transportation facilities, both
on the railway and for drives, riding or the descent of the trails,
provision is made to meet the most exacting demands.
Hermit Rim Road and Trail. These imperative necessities met, attention has
been given to a further opening up of the scenic portions of the Canyon. In
furtherance of this policy the Santa Fe Railway has built a new roadway
from El Tovar and Hopi Point along the south rim of the Canyon to the head
of Hermit Trail, nine miles west of El Tovar. It is called Hermit Rim Road.
This roadway is thirty feet in width, with a central driveway, fourteen
feet wide, of crushed stone rolled hard and sprinkled with crude oil. It is
so wide, so well macadamized, so level and so dustless that it may well be
likened to a city boulevard in the wilderness.
The road ends at the head of Hermit Trail, a new pathway now being built
down the south wall of the Canyon. Though this trail is being completed, it
will not be opened for regular trail service until the summer of 1912. It
leads down into the very heart of the Canyon and reveals innumerable
scenic wonders and surprises.
Hermit Rim Road to Hermit Basin. Hermit Rim Road closely follows the rim
from Hopi Point to the head of Hermit Basin and the top of Hermit Trail,
- not too near the brink, but in and out among the trees, affording
wonderful vistas of the Canyon and the cliffs of the opposite wall. Hermit
Rim Road is perhaps the most unique highway in the world, for there is no
other roadway on the brink of such a tremendous gorge. Startling views
reveal depths of the Canyon on one side, and on the other are quiet scenes
down long forest lanes. In places there is a sheer drop of 2,000 feet
within a rod of the traveled track, and another drop almost as far below
that, but there is no danger, so perfectly have the engineers of the road
done their work.
Leaving El Tovar, the road quickly ascends El Tovar Hill, giving a view of
the San Francisco Peaks and neighboring mountains standing high above the
Tusayan Forest, and purple colored with the haze of seventy-five miles of
distance. Then, down into Coconino Wash, up Tusayan Hill, past Maricopa
Point, and Hopi Point, long noted for its unrivaled sunset view, is
reached.
About a mile beyond Hopi Point is Mohave Point, standing in sheer and awful
precipices above Monument Creek, and leaving that, a huge curve on top of
Hopi Wall is traversed, and opposite this place the granite gorge is
deepest.
Rounding Mohave Point on the next leg of the journey three and four-fifths
miles to Pima Point, is the greatest curve on the road, and along this
section there is much to claim the attention. First one and then another of
the great interior rock temples seems to command the eye; the side canyons
reaching far back into the Kaibab Plateau on the north, and that everywhere
enter the main gorge, show depths of startling distance; the predominant
colors - vermilion, blue, green, buff, and gray - are incomparable; and the
wild river, roaring and tumbling, may be seen from different points, though
from the roadway it seems but a mere ribbon of brown. At Pima Point the
road curves to the southwest and continues for more than a mile on the rim
of Hermit Basin, until the head of Hermit Trail is reached. Wide outlooks
across the Cataract Canyon country and unusual views of the river are
afforded on the final mile.
