There was Wotan's Throne on the right, and the
"Copper Mine Mesa" on the left. Three or four miles below the junction
a four-hundred foot perpendicular wall rose above us. The burro, on
our previous visit, was almost shoved off that cliff when the pack
caught on a rock, and was only saved by strenuous pulling on the
neck-rope and pack harness. Soon we passed some tunnels on both sides
of the river where the Mormon miners had tapped a copper ledge. At
4.15 P.M. we were at the end of the Tanner Trail, the outlet of the
Little Colorado Trail to the rim above. It had taken seven hours of
toil to cover the same ground we now sped over in an hour and a
quarter. Major Powell, in 1872, found here the remnant of a very small
hut built of mesquite logs, but whether the remains of an Indian's or
white man's shelter cannot be stated. The trail, without doubt was
used by the Indians before the white man invaded this region.
The canyon had changed again from one which was very narrow to one
much more complex, greater, and grander. The walls on top were many
miles apart; Comanche Point, to our left, was over 4000 feet above us;
Desert View, Moran Point, and other points on the south rim were even
higher. On the right we could see an arch near Cape Final on Greenland
Point, over 5000 feet up, that we had photographed, from the top, a
few years before. Pagoda-shaped temples--the formation so typical of
the Grand Canyon--clustered on all sides.
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