In & around the Grand Canyon; the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River in Arizona

Front matter

Glass i!_7Sa

BnolcJl^.

Copyright]^"

Preface

THIS book is a growth of ten years' visits to the most siibhme spectacle of earth. Hence it is not an ordinary book of hasty travel and hurried description, but is the accumulated result of renewed visits and many explorations.

I desire that it should stimulate the interest of those who know but little of the wonders of the Grand Canyon ; and serve as a useful handbook to the Canyon traveller before, during, and after his trip.

There are far more trails into the heart of the Grand Canyon region than many professed experts even suspect. On the south walls there are ten, and another ten or more into the fascinating Cataract Canyon, where dwell the Havasupai Indians, The ten trails of the Grand Canyon region, beginning at Lee's Ferry eastwards, and continuing southwest to Diamond Creek, are as follows :

1. Lee's Ferry. Reached by wagon from Winslow, Canyon Diablo, Flagstaff, and other points on the Santa Fe Railway.

2. The Marble Canyon Trail, not far from the Shinumo Altar. This trail was used by Navahos and Paiutis for many years. It was recently blown up with dynamite and rendered impassable by cattle viii PREFACE

men, to prevent cattle thieves from crossing the river with stolen stock.

3. The old Hopi (Moki) Salt Trail into the Little Colorado and Grand Canyons. Reached from the Hopi villages.

4. The Tanner Trail, a few miles west of the Little Colorado River. This trail can now be reached on horseback or by conveyance from the terminus of the Grand Canyon Railway.

5. The Red Canyon Trail. This was the trail used in the years 1895-98 by the tourists who w^ere taken to the Canyon by stage from Flagstaff. It was incorrectly called " the new Hance Trail."

6. The Old Trail, incorrectly known as " the Hance Trail." This was the first trail used by tourists taken to the Canyon from Flagstaff, prior to the opening of the Red Canyon Trail. As elsew^here explained, it was in use by the Plavasupai Indians for untold centuries. Hance improved it and located upon it. It is now washed out and practically inaccessible. The scenery about the head of this trail has become so familiar that it is fully pictured herein.

7. The Grand View Trail. This is the trail to which tourists were taken from Flagstaff in the years 1897-99. ^^ was and is a great improvement in every way over the Red Canyon and Old Trails, and will still afford great satisfaction to the tourist who desires to visit it. Stages or other conveyances run from the terminus of the Grand Canyon Railway, or the horseback rider will find it an

PREFACE ix

easy ride to go over the trail along the rim from the head of the Bright Angel Trail to the Grand View Trail.

8. The Bright Angel Trail. This is the trail reached by the Grand Canyon Railway. The hotel is located at the terminus of the line and within a few hundred feet of the rim. Its scenic Points are Hopi, Cyclorama, and O'Neill, — the former being a vast promontory thrusting its nose into the heart of the Canyon to the west of the hotel, the latter being within half a mile of the hotel to the east.

9. The Mystic Spring Trail, owned by Mr. W. W. Bass, whose Canyon experiences I have deemed worthy of extended notice in these pages. This is twenty-two miles west of the Grand Canyon Railway terminus, and is reached by regular stages, special conveyance, or horseback.

10. The Peach Springs Road to the mouth of Diamond Creek and the Colorado River. Reached from Peach Springs on the Santa Fe Railway.

In the following pages I shall describe — briefly or otherwise — and picture all these roads and trails, except numbers two, three, and four, which are now practically inaccessible.

For ten years the only method of travel to the Grand Canyon was by stage, from Flagstaff, Williams, or Ashfork. While the major part of the visitors journeyed from Flagstaff, I have described the less known route from Ashfork. Now, the general visitor leaves the Santa Fe transcontinental line at Williams, and, over the tracks of the Santa Fe & Grand Canyon Railway, crosses the Painted

X PREFACE

Desert in a parlor or Pullman car as herein described.

My preference for the simple and unaccented English "canyon" over the Spanish accented " canon " is so marked that I can but characterize as "wilfully perverse" those who persist in burdening our already overweighted language with a new and foreign accent for which there is no necessity.

After consultation with Major J. W. Powell, former Director, and the Hon. C. D. Walcott, present Director of the United States Geological Survey, I have named, with their signal approval, the great promontories or points of the south wall of this peerless gorge after the Indian tribes of the region; and have given the names of the noted earlier and later explorers of our Southwest, and of the great geologists of the world, to those marked interior features of the Canyon seen from popular points of view. To do this it has been necessary to change four names. These were Bissell, Moran, Grand View, and Rowe Points, which have been called Comanche, Ute, Paiuti, and Hopi Points, to correspond with Havasupai, Mohave, Chemehuevi, Wallapai, and Apache Points farther west and south.

And now a few words as to where this book was written and compiled. In as many and varied places, almost, as ever book was transcribed on paper. While stopping for a few moments' rest in descending trails ; in the darkness of the night in the depths of the Canyon ; on the driver's seat or inside of the jolting stage; stretched on a roll of blankets in a springless wagon ; in the heart of a

PREFACE

XI fierce storm on the Painted Desert ; shivering, wet through, at night in a side gorge of the Bright Angel Trail ; wearied out, waiting for water and a horse after an exhausting three days in Trail Canyon ; stretched on the sand, with the fierce roar of the demons of the Colorado River in my ear;

The Author at Work at his Camp in the Grand Canyon.

under the trees at Lee's Ferry; baking in the sun near Willow Spring; on the summit of the San Francisco Mountains ; on Williams Mountain, Sunset Peak, or in the deepest depths of the Colorado waterway; on the plateaux above, or by the side of Havasu — the blue water — of Cataract Creek ; on foot and on horseback, in bed and in cave, — anywhere, everywhere, whenever a scene demanded xii PREFACE

description or a thouglit suggested written expression, there a part of this book was born.

And here where I am completing and finally arranging it — what book ever had such a composing room ! Under the shelter of an overhanging rock with pinion boughs piled up and canvas stretched to completely exclude the sun all day; the purest air of earth freely circulating around me, and the bluest sky of earth ever above me ; below, the brink of the greatest ororo^e known to man, and with its wonders daily and nightly spread out before me ; Huethawali, Le Conte Plateau, Mystic Spring Plateau, Dutton Point and Powell Arch, and the srreat mural fronts of the north wall ever confronting me ; now and again aroused by strong breezes blowing through the pinion and juniper trees that dot the sloping talus at my feet ; anon thundered and rained upon in the fierce and sharp storm, but, generally, in an absolute stillness that can be felt and that the poet must have experienced when he

wrote : —

" Few are the spots so deathly still, So wrapt in deep eternal gloom ; No sound is heard of sylvan rill, A voiceless silence seems to fill The air around this rocky tomb."

My paper-weights are pieces of limestone, my shelf a rude deal box, my side desk a huge boulder, my table made in rough camp style, with my seat — a packing box — at one end, and my blankets stretched on the solid rock at the other end, — this is where, and these the circumstances under which,

PREFACE xiii

the tangled threads of description of the past decade are being woven into the warp and woof of connected story. Hence, whatever of reprobation or commendation this book may call forth, it possesses at least one virtue, and that is, of being the highest and best endeavor of which the author is capable, to present truthfully the scenes described under their own inspiration.

GEORGE WHARTON JAMES.

Author Amphitheatre, Bass Camp, Grand Canyon, August, 1899.

Introduction

FOR magnificent majesty, gorgeous coloring, and multiplicity of sculptured forms the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River has no rival in the world. Three hundred and fifty years ago Cardenas and his band of Spanish explorers, sent by the conquistador Coronado from Zuni, tried to reach its deeply embedded river, but wearily gave up the attempt. Many, in the years since, have stood upon its awful brink and gazed upon the tiny silvery thread below, and have endeavored to reach it, — generally in vain. Lieutenant Ives of the United States Corps of Topographical Engineers tried to make his way into the heart of the mystical Canyon from the open river of the desert below, but was driven back, baffled and disheartened, by the fierce and raging stream. Then he started to explore it from above, and, after many days of wearisome journeyings, wrote: —

" This region can be approached only from the south, and after entering it there is nothing to do but to leave. Ours has been the first, and will doubtless be the last party of whites to visit this profitless locality."

In 1871 Captain George M. Wheeler, with a band of able assistants and brave men, ascended far above the spot from which Ives had been driven, and in thirt3^-three days of frightful hardship and incredible xvi INTRODUCTION

risks and dangers explored the mouth of the Grand Canyon up as far as Diamond Creek.

In the mean time Major John Wesley Powell was making in 1869-71 those full and exhaustive explorations and accomplishing that never sufficiently lauded trip of his down the waters of the Colorado that changed our knowledge of the canyons of this great waterway from fragment and conjecture to completeness and certainty.

These and other explorations are more fully described in later chapters, mainly in the explorers' own vivid and fresh words, and published largely in stern government records. They are more thrilling than the wildest romances, and exhibit exciting pictures of men who, in the interests of science and knowledge, quietly and calmly faced the most frightful dangers and risked awful death so often that they became unconscious of their sublime heroism. To read and picture such scenes, powerfully and healthfully stimulates the soul, and, in these da3^s of money-getting and militarism, it is well not to overlook the glorious deeds of our "heroes of peace."

In the arrangement of this book I have first of all described the Colorado River and its series of connecting canyons. Then, after allotting due space to condensed narrations of the various exploring parties, I have described the stage and railway rides to the Canyon from the main line of the Santa Fe route. After recording a few of the " First Impressions " many visitors have written, I ask the reader to accompany me to various portions of the " rim " of the Canyon and make the descent down

INTRODUCTION xvii

all the easily accessible trails to the river, viz., The Grand View, Bright Angel, Mystic Spring, and Peach Springs Trails, after which several chapters are devoted to the trails more difficult of access; then to the Cataract or Havasu Canyon ; the Havasupai Indians; the waterfalls and caves of their canyon ; the Botany and Geology of the Grand Canyon ; with a final chapter on " Religious and other Impressions" felt and enjoyed at various times while under the Canyon's spell.

If the record of the daring explorations of Ives, Powell, Wheeler, Stanton, and others, and of my own wanderings and adventures in this wondrous region in the heart of the United States, excites in the minds of my readers even a small part of my own enthusiasm, my years of toil, trial, deprivation, and accompanying pleasures will find most adequate and satisfactory complement.

Contents

Page

Preface vii

Introduction xv

Chapter I The Colorado River And Its Canyons

THE Colorado River is unlike any other great river in the world. For present purposes it seems to be almost useless. In a large part of its course it drains an arid country which needs every drop of water thus carried away. It is, therefore, a vampire curse instead of a fructifying blessing. It is inaccessible to the general traveller, who, standing on its banks and gazing upon its far-away stream, yet perishes with agonizing thirst. No ordinary boat, whether propelled by oars, steam, or electricity, can live and either ascend or descend its turbulent waters. Practically no fish are found in its undisturbed solitudes. Though the country through which it flows is dreadfully arid, it is so unaccommodating as to refuse to be piped or pumped by any simple method to relieve the Sahara above.

Though its carrying power is enormous, no commerce can place useful loads upon its rudely tossing back. Though its electric potentiality is great, it refuses to yield a single volt for any useful purpose. It is the wild, untamed, ferocious stallion of rivers, proud, self-willed, impetuous, iri^«^ mEu^;

-flMcsa^'

Across thk Canyon, from Grand View (Paiuti Point) — Newberry Terrace and Vishnu Temit.e well shown.

powerful, wholly unrestrained and unrestrainable, yet attractive, grand, and majestic.

And it is well that man finds such intractable forces in nature. It is good for him to be held in check occasionally. It is not beneficial for the human to imao;ine that he is so divine that nothino^ earthly can withstand him. It is good to be made to bow and to wait.

This great river, named by the Spaniards " Colorado," or the " Red," either because of the color of its water or the striking red which is the predominating color of its walls, has its rise in the far-away snowy mountains of Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. Its upper branches are the Green and the Grand rivers. The former of these, which is the upper continuation of the Colorado, has its source in Alpine lakes, fed by the everlasting snows of the mountains. It heads approximately in latitude 43° 15' and longitude 109° 45'.

"Thousands of these little lakes, with deep, cold, emerald waters, are embosomed among the crags of the Rocky Mountains. These streams, born in the cold, gloomy solitudes of the upper mountain region, have a strange, eventful history as they pass down through gorges, tumbling in cascades and cataracts, until they reach the hot, arid plains of the Lower Colorado, where the waters that were so clear above, empty, as turbid floods, into the Gulf of California, in latitude 31° 53' and longitude 115°." — J. W. Powell.

There are two distinct portions of the basin of the Colorado, — the lower third and the upper twothirds. This upper portion rises from about four to eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, and is set about with mountains ranging upwards to over fourteen thousand feet.

" All winter long, on its mountain-crested rim, snow falls, filling the gorges, half burying the forests, and covering the crags and peaks with a mantle woven by the winds from the waves of the sea, — a mantle of snow. When the summer sun comes, this snow melts, and tumbles down the mountain-sides in millions of cascades. Ten million cascade brooks unite to form ten thousand torrent creeks; ten thousand torrent creeks unite to form a hundred rivers beset with cataracts ; a hundred roaring rivers unite to form the Colorado, which rolls a mad, turbid stream, into the Gulf of California." — J. W. Powell.

Measuring the distance from the head of the Green River, in the Wind River Mountains, to the mouth of the Colorado River in the Gulf of California, the whole length of the stream is about two thousand miles.

" The area of country drained by the Colorado and its tributaries is about eight hundred miles in length, and varies from three to five hundred in width, containing about three hundred thousand square miles, — an area larger than all the New England and Middle States, with Maryland and Virginia added, or as large as Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri." — J. W. Powell.

It will readily be seen that these waters, dashing down to the sea, laden with rock debris, possess a power of corrasion far in excess of any ordinary river, and, as a result, each of these upper and side streams, as well as the Colorado itself, cuts deeper, and deeper, and deeper still into the rocks through which lie their beds, until their sides are towering cliffs of solid rocks. And it is to these deep, narrow eorees that the name of canyons has been given.

" For more than a thousand miles along its course, the Colorado has cut for itself such a canyon; but at some few points, where lateral streams join it, the canyon is broken, and narrow, transverse valleys divide it properly into a series of canyons." These are all named from some distinctive feature possessed by each, such as Horseshoe Canyon — " where the river takes a course directly into the mountain, penetrating to its very heart, then wheels back upon itself, and runs out into the valley from which it started only half a mile below the point at which it entered, thus forming an elongated letter U, with the apex in the centre of the mountain;" Whirlpool Canyon ; Split Mountain Canyon ; Flaming Gorge ; Canyon of Desolation; Labyrinth Canyon ; Stillwater Canyon ; Cataract Canyon ; Glen Canyon, and Marble Canyon ; and last and greatest, and most wonderful of all, THE Grand Canyon.

The Grand Canyon begins at the mouth of the Colorado Chiquito (the Little Colorado) and terminates at thg Grand Wash, a distance of two hundred and seventeen and a half miles; and were it not separated from the Marble Canyon above by the narrow canyon valley of the Little Colorado, it would be sixty-five and a half miles longer, and thus become possessed of additional grandeur.

" The name, the Grand Canyon, has been repeatedly infringed for purposes of advertisement. The Canyon of the Yellowstone has been called 'The Grand Canyon.' A more flagrant piracy is the naming of the gorge of the Arkansas River in Colorado 'The Grand Canyon of Colorado,' and many persons who have visited it have been persuaded that they have seen the great chasm. These river valleys are certainly very pleasing and picturesque, but there is no more comparison between them and the mighty chasm of the Colorado River than there is between the Alleghanies or Trosachs and the Himalayas.

" Those who have long and carefully studied the Grand Canyon of the Colorado do not hesitate for a moment to pronounce it by far the most sublime of all earthly spectacles. If its sublimity consisted only in its dimensions, it could be sufficiently set forth in a single sentence. It is more than two hundred miles long, from five to twelve miles wide, and from five thousand to six thousand feet deep. There are in the world valleys which are longer and a few which are deeper. There are valleys flanked by summits loftier than the palisades of the Kaibab. Still the Grant! Canyon is the sublimest thing on earth. It is so not alone by virtue of its magnitudes, but by virtue of the whole — its tout ensemble.

" The common notion of a canyon is that of a deep, narrow gash in the earth, with nearly vertical walls, like a great and neatly cut trench. There are hundreds of chasms in the Plateau Country (the country drained by the Colorado River) which answer very well to this notion. Many of them are sunk to frightful depths and are fifty to a hundred miles in length. Some are exceedingly narrow, as the canyons of the forks of the Virgen, where the overhanging walls shut out the sky. Some are intricately sculptured, and illuminated with brilliant colors; others are picturesque by reason of their bold and striking sculptures. A few of them are most solemn and impressive by reason of their profundity and the majesty of their walls. But, as a rule, the common canyons are neither grand nor even attractive upon first acquaintance. They are curious and awaken interest as a new sensation, but they soon grow tiresome for want of diversity, and become at last mere bores. The impressions they produce are verytransient because of their great simpHcity and the hmited range of ideas they present. But there are some which are highly diversified, presenting many attractive features. These seldom grow stale or wearisome, and their presence is generally greeted with pleasure.

" It is perhaps in some respects unfortunate that the stupendous pathway of the Colorado River through the Kaibabs was ever called a canyon, for the name identifies it with the baser conception. But the name presents as wide a range of signification as the word ' house.' The log-cabin of the rancher, the painted and vine-clad cottage of the mechanic, the home of the millionaire, the palaces where parliaments assemble, and the grandest temples of worship are all ' houses.' Yet the contrast between St. Mark's and the rude dwelling of the frontiersman is not greater than that between the chasm of the Colorado and the trenches in the rocks which answer to the ordinary conception of a canyon. And as a great cathedral is an immense development of the rudimentary idea involved in the four walls and roof of a cabin, so is the chasm an expansion of the simple type of drainage channels peculiar to the Plateau Country. To the conception of its vast proportions must be added some notion of its intricate plan, the nobility of its architecture, its colossal buttes, its wealth of ornamentation, the splendor of its colors, and its wonderful atmosphere. All of these attributes combine with infinite complexity to produce a whole which at first bewilders and at length overpowers." — C. E. DUTTON.

A canyon indeed it truly is, but entirely different from what all visitors expect to see. It is not a deep, narrow, gloomy gorge, into which the sun fails to shine even at midday. It is, in reality, a series of canyons one within and below the other. Picture one canyon, a thousand feet deep and ten or twelve miles across ; below this, another canyon, but two miles less in width and a thousand feet deeper than number one ; then, still another, two thousand feet deeper and four miles narrower, followed by yet another, deeper still and more miles narrower, until the inner

Cherty limestone. ^ Talus.

Cross-bedded sandstone.

s^^Talus.

I Red

I sandstone. \^ Talus and interior lateau.

""-^i^ Steps of red sandstone.

Marble wall.

Talus and lower plateau.

Steps of — subcarboniferous.

The inner \ / gorge

through

which the

Colorado River

flows.

Crude Sketch of Canyon Outline as seen from Paiuti, Hopi, OR Havasupai Points.

Q^oroe of o-ranite is reached, throuo^h which the roaring river flows, and you will have a better idea than ever before.

With these descriptions in mind the accompanying crude outline sketch of the Canyon, as seen from Paiuti, Hopi, or Havasupai Points will become perfectly clear. On the " rim " is a stratum of cherty limestone about six hundred feet thick. At its base the debris that has fallen from the face of the cliff forms a sloping talus, which leads to the edtre of a stratum of cross-bedded sandstone, also about six hundred feet thick. Below this is the fiery red sandstone that leads to the upper plateau. Then, steps of an earlier deposit of red sandstone descend to the marble or red-wall limestone, — as Dutton calls it, — at the base of which there are more taluses and another plateau sloping towards the subcarboniferous rocks, which are superposed upon the archcean schists, commonly called granites, of the "inner gorge," through the dark depths of which the river wends its winding way.

The Grand Canyon District, which lies in the arid region of southern Utah and northern Arizona, contains an area which is roughly estimated at from thirteen thousand to sixteen thousand square miles, or about the size of the State of Maryland. In this district there are, in less than five hundred miles, five hundred and twenty falls, cataracts, and rapids. This district is arbitrarily divided into various canyons as before stated.

" Cataract and Narrow Canyons are wonderful, Glen Canyon is beautiful, Marble Canyon is mighty ; but it is left for the Grand Canyon, where the river has cut its way down through the sandstones, the marbles, and the granites of the Kaibab Mountains, to form those beautiful and awe-inspiring pictures that are seen from the bottom of the black granite gorge, where above us rise great wondrous mountains of bright red sandstone, capped with cathedral domes and spires of white, with pinnacles, and turrets, and towers in such intricate form and flaming colors that words fail to convey any idea of their beauty and sublimity." — Robert Brewster Stanton.

It is interesting here to quote a few lines on the Colorado River from the gallant " Pathfinder," John C. Fremont. He says, in " Memoirs of my Life": —

" Three hundred miles of its lower part, as it approaches the Gulf of California, is reported to be smooth and tranquil; but its upper part is manifestly broken into many falls and rapids. From many descriptions of trappers, it is probable that in its foaming course among its lofty precipices it presents many scenes of wild grandeur; and though offering many temptations, and often discussed, no trappers have been found bold enough to undertake a voyage which has so certain a prospect of a fatal termination. The Indians have strange stories of beautiful valleys abounding with beaver, shut up among inaccessible walls of rock in the lower course of the river, and to which the neighboring Indians, in their occasional wars with the Spaniards, and among themselves, drive their herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, leaving them to pasture in perfect security."

A singular geographical fact is connected with the Grand Canyon which well serves to illustrate the folly of some legislative boundary makers.

" The Grand and Marble Canyons cut the northwestern corner of Arizona completely oft" from the rest of the Territory. Except by Lee's Ferry, and the long hot road which leads to it, or by a far western route, this corner is inaccessible from the south. It looks small enough on the map, but it is rather larger than the State of Connecticut, and, save for a few scattered cattle-shacks, has no human habitation." — T. MITCHELL Prudden.

lo IN AND AROUND

If papers are to be served upon any person, taxes assessed, or jurors summoned from this sliced-off portion of Arizona, the sheriff or his deputy must ride from Flagstaff to Lee's Ferry, and then out over the Buckskin Mountains upon the Kaibab ere he can discharge his duty. To assess taxes costs more than they amount to. When the legislative bodies of Arizona and Utah are composed of intelligent and thinking men this senseless man-made boundaryline will be abolished, and that of the Almighty — the great chasm of the Colorado River — stand in its ordained relationship between these two domains.

THE GRAND CANYON ii

Chapter II

EXPLORATIONS FROM THE TIME OF THE SPANIARDS (1540) TO MAJOR J. W. POWELL (1869)

I

N less than fifty years after the landing of Columbus on the shores of the Western Hemisphere, Spanish explorers and missionaries were travelling upon the Colorado River, following its course a long way from its mouth, reaching it at various points, and even visiting it on the east side of its junction with the Colorado Chiquito, — the Little Colorado, — which, to this day, is one of its most inaccessible points.

These Spanish explorations were largely the result of that never to be forgotten first transcontinental journey, made on foot by Don Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, the unfortunate treasurer of the ill-fated expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez to the coast of Florida. The stories of what he saw and heard aroused the viceroy of New Spain ( Northern Mexico ) to send out a preliminary reconnoissance party under the direction of a trustworthy Franciscan friar, Marcos de Niza. Marcos penetrated Arizona and went east as far as the now known pueblos of Zuni, in New Mexico. These, he was told, were the seven cities of Cibola. On his favorable report being presented to the viceroy, a large and imposing expedition, under the command of that young, handsome, adventurous, wealthy, and favored caballero, Don Vazquez de Coronado, was sent forward to explore, subjugate, and possess the new lands in the name of God and the Kino^ of Spain. After reaching Zuni, an expedition under Ensign Tobar was sent to Moki, where he and his soldiers learned of a " large river, " on the banks of which "there were some people with very large bodies. "

" As Don Pedro de Tobar was not commissioned to go farther, he returned from there and gave this information to the general, who despatched Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas with about twelve companions to go to see this river. He was well received when he reached Tusayan, and was entertained by the natives, who gave him guides for his journey. They started from here loaded with provisions, for they had to go through a desert country before reaching the inhabited region, which the Indians said was more than tw^enty days' journey. After they had gone twenty days they came to the banks of the river, which seemed to be more than three or four leagues above the stream which flowed between them." — Castenada.