The former were discovered in
1897 by the camp cook, Joseph Gildner, and are well worthy an extended
visit. The first cave is some three hundred feet long, and varies in height
from ten to eighty or ninety feet. The second cave has about the same
length, but is much higher and contains a far more diversified collection
of stalactites, stalagmites and sheets of calcareous deposits, that hang
like curtains before the more solid side walls. While appearing in the
red-wall limestone, the rock of these caves is all of a creamy white, thus
demonstrating that the formation itself is white, but that the exposed
walls are stained by the red washed over them from the strata above.
Copper Mine. The mine is equally interesting, and to those who have never
seen the operations of tunneling, stouping, driving shafts, winzes and the
like, and the removal of the ore, it is an experience well worth while. (At
this writing the mine is temporarily closed.)
A Fine Trip. From the Horseshoe Mesa, one may descend to the Lower Plateau
on horseback, and then to the river on foot. Those who wish a more extended
trip should ride from the camp, across the old Hance and Mineral Canyons
into Red Canyon, stay over night at the river, at the foot of the Red
Canyon Trail, and then return up the latter trail to the hotel. The trail
is fairly good, and the three different side canyons traversed reveal a
wonderful variety of rock scenery.
To Hance Canyon. To take this trip, the trail passes the mine, eastward,
down a steep break in the red-wall limestone, zigzagging back and forth.
Passing under overhanging cliffs, it leads down until the plateau is
reached, where twenty years ago I saw bands of mountain sheep. From this
plateau, the descent is steep into Hance Canyon, and the student of the
dynamic forces of nature can here see (when about half-way down) a
wonderful example of the shattering of the earth's crust. Here the immense
mass of the "red-wall" has been shaken up, and is now rapidly
disintegrating, to be washed down by the storms of succeeding years into
the great river which will ultimately deposit it in the Gulf of California.
By and by Vishnu Temple, the grandest of the rocky structures, comes into
sight, and a little further on one can see, at the base of Vishnu, and
above the granite, the red tilted strata of the Algonkian.
The descent into Hance Canyon reveals a fine view of Ayer Peak, and as we
look down we can see the peculiar shattering of the Tonto sandstones that
Thomas Moran named the Temple of Set. It takes but a few minutes to ride or
walk down to the temple, which is one of the distinctive features of the
Hance Trail, down which most of the early visitors to the Canyon used to
come.
