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.
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