GRAND CANYON Rules and Regulations 1920

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION.

The Grand Canyon National Park is in northern Arizona. Its 958 square miles inclose 56 miles of the Grand Canyon stretching west of its beginning at the mouth of the Marble Canyon. Through it winds the Colorado River. From rim to rim the canyon varies from 8 to 20 miles in width; it is more than a mile deep measured from the north rim, which averages nearly a thousand feet higher than the south rim. The eastern boundary includes the lofty painted walls east of which lies the Painted Desert. Its western boundary includes the broad Cataract Canyon, tributary from the south, in whose depths we find the Havasupai Indian Reservation and a group of fine waterfalls markedly different from any in our other national parks.

The park boundaries hug the rim closely. Very little of the country back of the rim is included in the reservation, scarcely enough in places to take care of the great increase of travel which national parkhood will bring to the Grand Canyon during the next several years. These border lands are wonderfully attractive. The northern rim is heavily forested with pine and spruce. The southern rim carries a slender semiarid flowering vegetation of rich beauty and wide variety, and south of the railroad station lie a few square miles of fine yellow pine forest.

The Grand Canyon was made a national park in February, 1919, thirty-three years after Benjamin Harrison, then Senator from Indiana, introduced the first of several bills to give it park status. Politics, local apathy, and private interests which sought to utilize its water power and to find minerals in its depths, were the principal causes of delay. All efforts failing to make it a national park, in 1908 President Roosevelt made it a national monument. Once a railroad was surveyed through it. A scenic railroad was projected along its south rim. Less than a year before it became a park, efforts were making in New York to raise money to dam its waters for power and irrigation.

A MIGHTY SPECTACLE.

There is no doubt that the Grand Canyon is one of the world's very greatest spectacles. It is impossible to compare it with the tremendous white spectacle of the Himalayas, or with the House of Everlasting Fire of the Hawaii National Park, or with the 17,000 feet of snow and glacier which rise abruptly between the observer's eyes and the summit of Mount McKinley, because it has nothing in common with any of these. But of its own kind there is nothing in the world which approaches it in form, size, and glowing color; it is much the greatest example of stream erosion. And in its power to rouse the emotion of the looker-on, to stupefy or to exhilarate, it has no equal of any kind anywhere, unless it be be the starry firmament itself.

Approaching by rail or road, the visitor comes upon it suddenly. Pushing through the woods from the motor camping ground, or climbing the stairs from the railroad station, it is there at one's feet, disclosed in the sublimity of its templed depths, in the bewildering glory of its gorgeous coloring. There is no preparation of mind and spirit. To some, the revelation is a shock, no matter what the expectation. The rim of the Grand Canyon is one of the stillest places on earth, even when it is crowded with people.

To describe the Grand Canyon is as impossible as it is unnecessary. Few natural spectacles have been so fully pictured, few are so familiar even to the untraveled. Its motionless unreality is one of the first and most powerful impressions it makes. And yet the Grand Canyon is really a motion picture. There is no moment that it does not change. Always its shadows are insensibly altering, disappearing here, appearing there; lengthening here, shortening there. There is continual movement. With every quarter hour its difference may be measured.

There is the Grand Canyon of the early morning, when the light slants lengthwise from the Painted Desert. The great capes of the northern rim shoot into the picture, outlined in golden light against which their shapes gloom in hazy blues. Certain temples seem to rise slowly from the depths, or to step forward from hiding places in the opposite walls. Down on the green floor the twisting inner gorge discloses here and there lengths of gleaming water, sunlit and yellow.

An hour later all is wholly changed. The dark capes have retired somewhat and now are brilliant-hued and thoroughly defined. The temples of the dawn have become remodeled, and scores of others have emerged from the purple gloom. The Granite Gorge, now detailed fully, displays waters which are plainly muddy even at this great distance. And now the opposite wall is seen to be convoluted, possessing many headlands and intervening gulfs.

And so, from hour to hour, the spectacle develops. Midday, with sun high behind the south rim, is the time of least charm, for the opposite walls have flattened and the temples of the depths have lost their defining shadows. But as afternoon progresses the spectacles of the morning creep back, now reversed and strangely altered in outline. It is a new Grand Canyon, the same but wonderfully different.

And just after sunset the reds deepen to dim purples and the grays and yellows and greens change to magical blues. In the dark of a moonless night the canyon suggests unimaginable mysteries.

THE FIRST VIEW.

From the railroad station, the visitor ascends to the El Tovar Hotel and the view of the canyon at perhaps its showiest point. Here is where the temples loom their biggest and are nearest by. Opposite this point the greatest of the five great geologic faults which crack the canyon crosswise exhibits itself in the broad purpling of the Bright Angel Creek. Here the Granite Gorge approaches nearest to the south rim. The view at El Tovar is restricted by the extension of Grandeur Point and Hopi Point on either side. These cut off the view of the great reaches of the canyon east and west. The El Tovar view is a framed picture of limited size. It is better so; better for the newcomer to enter gradually into the realization of the whole which will come when he walks or rides out to the many points which push northward from the south rim; better also to return to after days spent on the rim or in the canyon's depths.

Having studied this view for general outlines and the canyon's conformation, stratification, and coloring, the visitor will find for himself, on foot or by motor stage or coach, many points which will afford him varied outlooks upon the broad reaches of the canyon. It is advisable to see the canyon from end to end from the rim before exploring the trails to the floor and the river.

It is a great mistake to suppose that the Grand Canyon can be seen in one or two days, and yet this is the time which most persons allot in advance for their visits. One day will only permit a confusing view from the rim, confusing because it takes much more than a first day to unravel the enormously complicated topography. Those who spend their only day in descending to the river fail to get much out of that experience because they do not know the canyon from the rim.

Those who allot two days for the visit—one for the rim and one to descend to the river—are much wiser, but still not wise. They get many times as much pleasure and comprehension from their visits as the one-day visitors, but carry away with them little more than the impression of a vast kaleidoscope. There is probably no spectacle in the world which requires so much looking at, so much comparing, studying, absorbing, and dreaming to attain a state of comprehension as the Grand Canyon, and there is no place which so fully rewards comprehension.

When you go to the Grand Canyon leave the duration of your stay open for decision when there. You will probably then remain from five days to two weeks. Two weeks of fairly steady going will enable you to see the Grand Canyon thoroughly without undertaking trips which are a hardship to persons unaccustomed to trail riding.

LIVING AT THE GRAND CANYON.

Living is pleasant and comfortable. The El Tovar Hotel offers delightful conditions at rates reasonable in these times for its class of accommodations. Its porches are broad, its garden a collection of rich semiarid vegetation, its rim walks inspiring. There is horseback riding through many miles of yellow-pine forest and out to view points on the rim, but there are no sports. There is neither golf nor tennis. The canyon absorbs the whole attention of its visitors.

Adjoining the hotel there is a most comfortable hotel camp at rates extremely reasonable for times like these. There is a comfortable camp on the floor of the canyon at the foot of the Hermit Trail, and there are cottages at Desert View where one may spend a few nights. Camping trips along the rim and down to the Havasupai Indian Reservation and the waterfalls of Cataract Canyon can be arranged. It is possible to take your pack train across the river on flatboats and ascend the arduous but most interesting trail up Bright Angel Canyon to the excellent public camp on the north rim of the canyon. This trip is a matter of several days.

FREE PUBLIC CAMP GROUND.

From April to November the rim is free from snow and the free public camp ground near Grand Canyon Village is available to campers. Motorists are urged to bring their own camp equipment and make use of this camp. Sites will be allotted free of charge on application to the office of the superintendent of the park. There is a garage in the village where gasoline and oil can be procured. Groceries can also be purchased, but campers should bring a supply with them. It is necessary to purchase water in the village, as there is none at the Grand Canyon and it must be hauled from a distance by rail.

SEEING IT FROM THE RIM.

East of the hotel are several points reached by motor roads which afford fine views of the upper half of the Grand Canyon. The most famous of these is Grandview, where still stands the first regular hotel of the canyon, now private property. The eastern terminus of the road is Desert View, which offers a view up the Marble Canyon, and eastward over the famous Painted Desert. West of the hotel the auto stages stop at a succession of fine points, each with its own individual view of the mighty spectacle.

There is much to see also in the neighborhood of El Tovar. Besides the fine walk to Grandeur Point through the pine forest there is a faithful reproduction of a Hopi pueblo, and a camp of Navajo Indians.

DESCENDING THE CANYON.

There are two practicable trails from the south rim to the river. The one commonly used starts from the El Tovar Hotel and descends the deep alcove between Grandeur and Hopi Points. This is the celebrated Bright Angel Trail, so named because it follows the line of the Bright Angel Fault and emerges on the river nearly opposite the mouth of Bright Angel Creek. This fault was formed by the cracking of the canyon across from rim to rim and the slipping of the western edge of the crack several hundred feet downward. The evidence of it may be seen plainly in the lower elevation of Hopi Point side of the gorge; and there is a place on the trail where travelers may see that strata once continuous no longer match.

The descent of this trail is usually done on muleback in parties led by guides. It is a sad mistake for persons not in the soundest physical training to attempt it on foot, for the apparent distance as seen from the rim is misleading, and the climb back is most arduous at that elevation. The south rim of the canyon at El Tovar is 6,866 feet above sea level. Nearly every day one or more trampers, overconfident of their endurance, fall by the trail on the way up and have to be rescued by guides and mules sent down for them from the rim.

The descent is an experience of great charm. The trail is excellently built and kept in fine condition. The traveler passes in review all the strata which form the canyon walls; their close examination will be a source of pleasure. Just under the rim the trail passes through a fine forest of spruce, and from this down to the sage desert of the green floor the traveler will also pass in review a series of vegetation which represents scores or hundreds of miles of surface growths. There are two steep cliffs which the trail descends in series of short hitches of zigzags, one of which, known as Jacob's Ladder, carries the traveler down the famous Redwall formation, which is so distinct a scenic feature of the canyon from every rim view. But there need be no alarm about these descents, for the zigzags, short and numerous though they are, maintain always a uniform safe grade. It may affect the unaccustomed nervously to see his mule hang his head over short abysses at the turns, but the traveler himself does not hang over them, and the mule is sure footed, stolid, and indifferent. There is only one creature with less imagination than a mule, and that is his cousin, the burro.

Indian Garden, which lies on the floor of the canyon, is so named because Havasupai Indians once cultivated the soil through which passes the stream which originates in springs below the Redwall. It is called Garden Creek. The Indian Garden now is a tangle of high brush, principally willow, through which the trail passes out upon the rolling floor, and presently plunges down the rocky gorge which leads to the edge of the muddy Colorado.

THE HERMIT TRAIL.

A much finer trail, from every point of view, than the Bright Angel starts from Hermit Rest, south of Pima Point, and descends the Hermit Canyon. It begins 7 or 8 miles west of El Tovar. This is a two-days' journey, including a night spent in Hermit Camp well down in the canyon. It involves an experience worth many times the additional day which it requires.

The Hermit Canyon is one of extreme beauty; there is probably no other which equals it in gorgeous coloring and the variety of its rock forms. The trail, whose grade is less than that of the Bright Angel, is one of the finest in the world. It is longer than the Bright Angel Trail and leads out upon impressive points overlooking fascinating views. The descent of the Redwall is a masterpiece of trail building, and the only part of the Hermit Trail which gives an impression of steepness; but this may readily be walked down by the unaccustomed rider; its ascent is not nerve racking. The night at Hermit Camp, under a towering crimson gable, with colorful Hermit Canyon on the south and Grand Canyon opening northward over the green shale of the floor is as comfortable as it is fascinating. The trip to the river and back to the camp is usually made the first day.

THE FLOOR TRAIL.

Too few visitors to Hermit Camp combine the two trail trips with a journey between them over the green shale floor. The descent is by the Hermit Trail with a night at its foot. The next morning, the journey is made on muleback up the canyon to the Indian Garden, and from there, after lunch by the stream side, up the Bright Angel Trail to El Tovar.

THE CATARACT CANYON.

The Cataract Canyon in the far western end of the national park is rarely visited. The trail begins at the end of a long desert road by descending precipitously to a gorge through which the Havasupai Indian Reservation is reached. There are less than 200 Indians on the reservation. These live by farming the land irrigated from Cataract Creek; corn is their principal product, but melons, figs, and peaches are also produced. The reservation fills a broad amphitheater in the gorge surrounded by lofty red sandstone cliffs. There are no hotels or camps and the heat is intense in summer. The Cataract Creek water is strongly impregnated with mineral and unpalatable, though entirely wholesome. Nevertheless, the visit to the reservation is one of unusual character and charm for those who do not object to a little hardship.

Below the reservation the canyon breaks into a series of waterfalls, two of which are unusual in kind and beauty. These are the Havasu Fall and the Hualapai Fall. Both drop over lofty shelves which are plastered on back and sides by richly carved festoons of brown travertine formation, deposited by the river in times of high water. Both the falls occur in the deep red limestone gorges. Bright green cottonwoods, cactus, and other desert vegetation enliven the scene, which is as different as imagination can well paint from anything else in the Grand Canyon National Park.

In the spring following the melting of the rim snows, there are various waterfalls in the Grand Canyon itself, several of which last for some months. These occur on the north side of the river, where there is a greater supply of water, the south side being arid except for brief periods following meltings and cloudbursts. One of these temporary north-side waterfalls, which has been seen by very few persons, is said to be more than a thousand feet in height. With the crossing of the river by camping-out parties, which surely will be one of the developments of the future, these and many other fascinating spectacles, now little known, will become familiar sights to many. The destiny of the Grand Canyon is to become one of the most used national parks.

ORIGIN OF THE GRAND CANYON.

One of the greatest rivers on the continent cuts the Grand Canyon. The Colorado River is formed in Utah by the confluence of the Green and the Grand Rivers. All three together drain 300,000 miles of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Arizona. Including the Green River, the greater of the confluents, the main stream may be said to be 1,500 miles in length, collecting the drainage of the divide south and east of the Great Basin and of many ranges of the Rocky Mountain system. The Grand River contributes the drainage of the Rocky Mountains in western Colorado. It is the same Grand River which forms, through one of its forks, the western boundary of the Rocky Mountain National Park.

The Colorado began to cut the Grand Canyon several millions of years ago at about the same time that the Merced River began to cut the Yosemite Valley. Both are the results exclusively of stream erosion. The theory that volcanism had to do with the creation of the Grand Canyon is declared by modern science untrue, notwithstanding the fact that volcanic rock is found in the canyon's depths, as it is also found in many other parts of the United States. It is untrue also that the Colorado River assumed its east and west course through the Grand Canyon as the result of an east and west fault. All the faults of the region pass across the canyon north and south.

HISTORY OF THE CANYON.

El Tovar—a captain under Cardenas who led one of the expeditions of the Spanish explorer Diaz—discovered the Grand Canyon in 1540. The old records describe a river which seemed to be "more than three or four leagues" below the banks on which they stood. It is next recorded as having been seen by a Spanish priest in 1776. The place which he crossed is still called "Vado de los Padres"—the crossing of the fathers—from which it appears that there were more than one.

For many years the Grand Canyon region was known only to the Indians, Mormon herdsmen, and the trappers who were among the earliest pioneers of every part of our land. The Sitgreaves expedition crossed the river about 150 miles above Yuma in 1851, and three years later Lieut. Whipple crossed it in surveying a route for a railroad along the 35th parallel. In 1857 the War Department sent Lieut. Ives with an expedition to ascend the Colorado and determine the head of navigation. For this purpose a steamboat was shipped to the Gulf of California in pieces and put together there. Ives steamed upstream to the head of the Black Canyon and then marched to Cataract Creek, and from there around the San Francisco peaks to Fort Defiance.

So nothing really became known until Maj. John Wesley Powell, a one-armed veteran of the Civil War, made his famous passage of the canyons of the Green and Colorado Rivers. He started with nine men and four boats from Green River City, Utah, on May 24, 1869. The huge waterfalls and underground passages described by the Indians were not found, but the trip was one of extreme hardship and danger. Almost daily the boats were upset, and the passage of many of the rapids was perilous to a degree. Often the party would embark upon long foaming slants without knowing what falls lay around the precipitous headlands in front of them. One of the boats, most of the scientific instruments, and nearly all of the food were lost. For weeks the clothing of the adventurers was never dry, and when they entered the Grand Canyon itself in September there was little food left.

There came a time when four men deserted, preferring to risk the dangers of hostile Indians on the rim than face longer the unknown dangers of the canyon. They were killed by the Indians on the rim. The second day after they left, Powell and his faithful five emerged in safety at the end of the Grand Canyon.

Powell's journal of this voyage is one of the most fascinating tales of adventure in literature. He saved his water-soaked notes, but in 1871 he repeated the trip for more complete scientific information. Afterward Powell became the Director of the United States Geological Survey.

THE CANYON AS A RESORT.

The Grand Canyon is very much more than a wonder place or a scientific museum on a titanic scale. It is a pleasure resort of the first order. It may be visited any day in the year. The railroad is always running and the hotel always open. When most other resorts are closed the Grand Canyon is easily accessible.

During the winter snow falls in the pine forest along the rim; and though the upper portions are snow covered, the trails into the canyon are open and safe; the floor of the canyon is warm and comfortable the year around. When nipping frosts redden cheeks on the rim, the most fragile flowers are blooming in the canyon.

The weather in July and August is warm but not hot on the rim; the altitude takes care of that. There are cool mornings, evenings, and nights no matter how warm it may be at midday.

Arizona is a land of sunshine; the air is dry and the winds are light. While spring and fall are more attractive than midsummer or midwinter, all the seasons have each its special charm. From December to March snow is more or less abundant on the rim and a few hundred feet down the trail. Camping-out parties must then confine themselves to the canyon.

THE NORTH RIM OF THE CANYON.

There is a remarkable difference between the north and south rims. The north rim, a thousand feet higher, is a colder country clothed with thick, lusty forests of spruce and pine with no suggestion of the desert. Springs are found here and deer are plentiful. It is a region which will be frequented, in time, by campers-out.

The views from the north rim are markedly different. One there views close at hand the vast temples which form the background of the south rim view. One looks down upon them, and beyond them at the distant canyon floor and its gaping gorge which hides the river; and beyond these the south rim rises like a great streaked flat wall, and beyond that again, miles away, the dim blue San Francisco Peaks. It is certainly a spectacle full of sublimity and charm. There are those who, having seen both, consider it the greater. One of these was Dutton, whose description of the view from Point Sublime has become a classic. But there are many strenuous advocates of the superiority of the south rim view, which displays close at hand the detail of the mighty chasm of the Colorado, and views the monster temples at parade, far enough away to see them in full perspective.

The trail trip to the north side, which will be perfectly feasible with the completion of a suspension bridge at the foot of Bright Angel Trail, is not for the unaccustomed tourist. It is 30 miles from El Tovar to the Wylie Camp on Bright Angel Point, and the way up the Bright Angel gorge on the north side is exceedingly difficult. The mules ford the creek eighty-six times, and several times are in it to their middle. The problem of a good trail is difficult.

The best ways of reaching the north rim are described on page 22.