BY ELLEN HEYN
We all go to the Grand Canyon in search of something — beauty, solitude, a check off our bucket list. Rafters see the canyon as the ultimate river trip, a chance to dance with whitewater. It’s a racetrack for ultrarunners chasing rim-to-rim-to-rim records, and it’s the backdrop of casual park-goers in pursuit of the perfect selfie. Gazing into the Grand Canyon is a bit like looking into a mirror — its terraced cliffs reflecting our personal dreams and aspirations.
But where most people see inherent values of preservation and collective good glinting off the canyon walls, others see opportunity. For in its wrinkled shadows hide darker desires — fame and profit.
The canyon has seen its fair share of crazy schemes throughout the years, from Charles H. Spencer’s failed gold-mining attempt at Lees Ferry, to Robert Brewster Stanton’s dream of building a rail line at river level. The harsh realities of doing business in the Grand Canyon quashed the worst ideas, but that didn’t stop early profiteers from making a buck off the canyon.
Grand Canyon National Park’s history is as layered with complexities as the mile-deep geologic wonder itself. Footprints of Indigenous people, developers, mules, and park visitors are compacted into the canyon’s tread.
Explore these storied routes and you find cautionary relics — rusty tin cans, cracked cement foundations, and abandoned mining tools scattered throughout the canyon — reminders that everyone has a stake in protecting the canyon for generations to come.
This centennial, join us on the trail as we recognize the past and step forward into the next century of Grand Canyon National Park.
Today, more than 6 million tourists visit Grand Canyon National Park in a year, and where do the bulk of them end up? The ice cream shop and the first 300 yards of Bright Angel Trail (purely a guess). Most park visitors who dip below the rim shuffle down a switchback or two then return (to get the ice cream). Hikers who continue deeper into the canyon hit rest houses, water spigots, restrooms, and eventually Indian Garden, a shady respite 4.5 miles down the trail and 3,000 feet below the rim. Farther still, is the mighty Colorado River.
Bright Angel Trail is the most popular rim-to-river route, but gear-clad hikers are only recent arrivals to the Grand Canyon. Humans have occupied the canyon for centuries, and the Havasupai people were living and farming in the Bright Angel tributary when Anglos arrived in the late 1800s.
Ralph Cameron and his mining partners were among the first opportunists to set up camp on the South Rim, originally scouting for mining claims. But Cameron quickly realized tourist lodes, not ore, held the wealth he was seeking. He widened the natural route along Bright Angel Fault that Indigenous people had long used, charging $1 for passage, and built tourist camps at Indian Garden and on the rim. Though his toll-road registration expired in 1906, Cameron ignored the park’s trespassing charge and refused to leave. He went to great lengths to keep the route his own, using his newly acquired Senate seat to retaliate against the park service and cut its operating funds. The park service finally gained control of the Bright Angel Trail in 1928, after which it forced the last Havasupai out of the newly appropriated Indian Garden. And today the Bright Angel Trail is the launching point for many a Grand Canyon adventure.
Nothing puts the size of the Grand Canyon into better perspective than a jaunt below the rim. You might have trouble walking for a few days after your hike, but the soreness will fade. Memories though — those last a lifetime.
Distance: 9 miles (roundtrip) to Indian Garden
Hours: 6
Restrictions: None, but know before you go: Hiking in the canyon is unforgiving. Bring more food and water than you think you’ll need. The park service likes to say, “Hiking down is optional. Hiking up is mandatory.”
Haul yourself and your gear through the Grand Canyon on a backpacking trip, and you become intensely aware: water is life. Sure it’s a common adage in the Southwest, but it’s true, down to the last drop.
The Tonto Trail is one of the few in the canyon that snakes in and out of drainages rather than plunging thousands of feet to the Colorado River. Perched 1,300 feet above the main waterway, suspended between river and rim, springs along the Tonto Trail are liquid gold.
One drainage downstream of Bright Angel Creek is Horn Creek. At the turn of the century, prospector Dan Hogan laid claim to a copper mine near what’s known today as Maricopa Point. Hogan, like Cameron, quickly discovered that tourism proved more profitable than mining and built a trading post, cabins, and a saloon on the South Rim. But when new ownership discovered it was sitting on some of the richest uranium deposits in the Southwest, it dusted off the mining equipment. By the late 1950s, Orphan Mine was producing 9,000 tons of ore a month.
But where the uranium deposits extended onto National Park Service land, an invisible boundary stood between the mining company and even greater riches.
The mine owners essentially blackmailed Congress, threatening that, if they weren’t allowed to follow the ore, they would build an 18-story hotel cascading into the canyon instead. Congress granted them permission to expand operations. When Orphan Mine closed in 1969, it had produced 800,000 tons of ore, 60 percent of which came from inside park boundaries.
Meanwhile, radiation had leached into Horn Creek and contaminated its waters. The company predictably declared bankruptcy and left the government to foot the bill. Today, the park service warns hikers: “There is water in the bed of Horn Creek about half the time, but unfortunately it is radioactive so don’t drink it unless death by thirst is the only other option.”
The toxic legacy at Horn Creek is permanent, but the future contamination of these precious lifelines is preventable. One of the biggest conservation wins in the last century was the 20-year ban on new uranium claims — but it’s temporary, set to expire in 2032 if political whim doesn’t blow it away sooner. Now we have the opportunity,with the Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act, to put our best foot forward and make the ban permanent.
We can’t right all the wrongs of the past century, but we can read the lessons left behind on the canyon walls. May we tread more lightly into the second century of Grand Canyon National Park.
Escape the South Rim hubbub and spend your days contouring along the Tonto platform instead. Just be sure to save enough energy to huff it back up to the rim. Oh, and don’t drink the water in Horn Creek. It’s radioactive.
Distance: 25-mile loop via the Bright Angel, Tonto, and Hermit trails
Number of days: 4
Restrictions: This route requires a backcountry permit (suggested campsites include BL4, BL7, and BM7).
Ellen Heyn is the Grand Canyon Trust's communications manager and writes for the Colorado Plateau Explorer.
