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.
