Suggestions for Two Days. Suppose the visitor to the Canyon arrives in the morning on an early train and must leave the next night; how can he best fill in his time?
In the morning of the first day he should take the popular drives to Yavapai and Hopi Points, and the afternoon can be spent in driving out on the Hermit Rim Rto the head of Hermit Trail, with a stop, returning, to view the sunset from Hopi Point.
The second day can be well spent in going down Bright Angel Trail.
Suggestions for Three Days. If the visitor has three days at his disposal, let him spend the first day on Hermit Rim R the second day he can drive to Grand View and enjoy the eastern end of the Canyon. 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 R and an extensive panorama stretching many miles from the end of the r
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. There are no sharp descents. For about half a mile the trail is in Dripping Spring Amphitheatre, an alcove on the edge of Hermit Basin, so named by Louis P. Brown, a miner and prospector, who, in the early eighties, made this basin his home while engaged in prospecting operations in the Canyon.
As the plateau passes across the basin and out to the open Canyon, the scene becomes more and more enlarged, until it is stupendous and vast beyond description. Down on the right, Hermit Creek cuts its narrow path deeper and deeper, until it reaches the red-wall limestone, where it makes a narrow gorge, that, from the elevation of the plateau, seems more like a mere slit in the rock than a gorge. Louis Boucher assures me that it is so narrow and deep that he has seen stars from its recesses at midday, and I record his statement in spite of the fact that eminent astronomers have told me that such a sight is impossible. Anyhow, the effect of that stupendous descent is such as to almost make the rider on the trail see stars, though there is no danger to any one with ordinarily steady nerves. Two miles out, one sees the continuation of one arm of the Bright Angel fault in the shattered strata of the red sandstone, some masses of which are toppled over at the base of Pima Point. It was this fault that made the talus slopes, down which the Boucher Trail descends, and also the great eroded recess of Hermit Basin.
Columbus Point. The nose of the plateau on which we have been traveling, now directly under Yuma Point, is named Columbus Point, and from this spot, where several noted American painters have made paintings destined to become memorable, the outlook in three directions, east, west, and north, forms one of the noblest of all the panoramas of the Canyon my eye has ever rested upon. Shiva's Temple is almost directly opposite, as we look towards the northeast. Stretches of the river are exposed east and west, where raging rapids send up their roar to us. Overhead is a great castellated structure, surmounted by a lesser building, with a round tower, embattlements and all the architectural accompaniments of an elaborately equipped castle of ancient Europe. An attempt to describe all the objects seen in the heart of the Canyon is needless. Suffice it to say that the panorama takes in every tower, temple, butte and structure, seen from Point Sublime on the north side; or any of the points on the south side, from Havasupai Point on the east, to Yavapai Point on the west; and includes Wotan's Throne, Vishnu Temple, and the wall of the Little Colorado to the faraway east.
On the Lower Trail to the River. The trail then winds under Yuma Point, and zigzags down the thinner strata of the red sandstones on to the red-wall limestones, where it affords more extended views on a lower plateau of lesser area, the rocky butte on the end of which is named Bunker Hill Monument. From this plateau another rapid descent is made through masses of rock to the bed of Long (or Boucher) Creek, where, at the distance of about a mile from the river, is located the lower camp. Here Boucher has planted a garden of all kinds of vegetables, and with seventy-five trees, which include oranges, figs, peaches, pears, apricots, apples, nectarines, and pomegranates; he boasts of his melons, canteloupes, beets, onions, tomatoes, chile, carrots, cucumbers, parsnips, etc., and I can vouch for the sweet and refreshing qualities of his melons. Tomatoes, ripe and green, covered his vines in January, and he has them throughout the year. It needs no comment to explain how delightful fresh vegetables are, after one has made this trail trip, especially if it should be in the hot summer months.
Good and comfortable beds and other camp accommodations are provided here, so that a stop may be made over night. In the morning, the river is visited, and the return trip accomplished in easy time for dinner. The distance from rim to river has not been measured, but it is estimated to be from eight to ten miles.
Boucher also has a copper mine, rich in mineral. He claims that it is a continuation of the copper ledge of Bass's mine, and is possibly the same deposit that continues east to the Canyon Copper Company's mine on the Berry Trail.
The return trip can be made over various routes, including the ascent of Bass or Bright Angel Trails, but a majority of visitors will wish to return by way of Hermit Trail, across Hermit Basin from Boucher Trail. In that way they will get the experience of using two trails with their different outlooks and a journey across the plateau down in the Canyon, as well as a drive back to El Tovar on Hermit Rim R
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