第28章 CHAPTER IX(3)

Moran Point. Grand View Point and the points east are all reached from the Grand View Hotel. The first of these is Moran Point, seven thousand one hundred and fifty-seven feet elevation, five miles east. The trip may be made in a vehicle, over a road from which the Canyon is not visible until the point is reached; or in the saddle, over a trail, the last two miles of which are along the rim. This is a unique trail, from the fact that it overlooks Hance Creek, and further along, gives commanding outlooks down Red Canyon.

Zuni Point. From Zuni Point, two miles further east, a still more extensive view is obtained. The trip to these two points may be made in half a day, but many prefer to give a full day.

Navaho Point and Desert View. Ten miles from Grand View is Navaho Point, over seven thousand feet elevation. The ride thither, after leaving Zuni Point, is through the Coconino Forest, without a trail. It is necessarily a saddle trip. The outlook is especially attractive, as it presents portions of the Painted Desert and the mouth of Marble Canyon.

Comanche Point, seven thousand and seventy-nine feet, and Cape Solitude, six thousand one hundred and fifty-seven feet, are respectively about seventeen and twenty miles east of Grand View, and may be visited in the saddle during a camping-out trip of two days. They both command views of the amphitheatre where the Colorado River makes an almost right angle curve from Marble Canyon into the Granite Gorge. The walls are precipitous to three thousand five hundred feet below, and the outlook afforded is about seventy miles in either direction, up and down the Canyon. In addition to the Canyon outlook, Cape Solitude, which might well be called Desert View, commands a fine expanse of the Painted Desert, extending a hundred miles in either direction, the colorings of which are especially dazzling at sunset.

The Little Colorado River flows through this desert, one thousand five hundred feet below Cape Solitude, in a gorge of about two thousand five hundred feet in depth. From the narrow canyon of the Little Colorado, the desert rises to the east in three successive, gigantic steps of about one thousand feet each. This affords a panorama of glorious colorings at sunset, while the view in the opposite direction glows best in the early hours of dawn.

To those who wish to camp out, sleeping in the open for two or more nights, the trip may be extended to the Canyon of the Little Colorado. In this excursion, one gets a fine breath of the desert, a sight of the narrow and boxed-in Little Colorado Canyon, and extended desert views, passing by Cedar Mountain, one of the few spots where fragments of the almost vanished strata of the Permian age are still visible.

Tuba City and Moenkopi. Tuba City, sixty miles east of Grand View Hotel (a four days' saddle and camping-out trip), is situated in the Painted Desert, and is the headquarters of the Navaho Indians of this locality. Here also is located the United States Government Indian School, where the children of several tribes are being civilized. Two miles away is Moenkopi, a Hopi village, or pueblo, of some thirty homes, where this pastoral and home-loving people may be found engaged in their quiet agricultural pursuits, the women also busy at basket-making and the fashioning of pottery. At Tuba City there are many Navahos living in their hogans, where the rude silversmiths are at work creating their "arts and crafts" ware, and the looms of the blanket-weavers are incessantly busy.

Crater Mountain. Crater Mountain, thirty-nine miles south of Grand View Hotel, is an extinct volcano with one side eroded, leaving a sheer wall five hundred feet high in circular form, with a variety of pillars standing high above the bottom of the amphitheatre. Its red, yellow and black colors combine in a peculiar harmony, and novel effects are witnessed at sunset, or by moonlight. To enjoy this trip aright, one should drive there, and arrange to sleep in the amphitheatre, returning on the following day.

Extinct Volcanoes. Or, if a more extended trip is desired, one can drive on to the many cinder cones and extinct volcanoes that lie to the north and east of the San Francisco Mountains, including Sunset Crater and O'Leary Peak, and then into Flagstaff.