Bright Angel Trail

This is such a special place for Granpa because his daddy was with the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) and this is one of the places Daddy John was sent.  The CCC was a public work relief program instituted through the leadership of Franklin D. Roosevelt.  It was active from 1933 to 1942, and was for unemployed, unmarried men, ages 18-25, from "relief" families.  The men were paid $30 a month (not bad money for back then), but they only got $5 because the rest was sent to their folks back home.  Granpa is 63 years old, and this is the first time he's gotten to come here.


It was a beautiful day in all ways.  We had no fantasy about going down the trail very far, but we did want to walk a bit of it. The first part is probably the neatest anyway (at least, that's what we told ourselves.)  This path was first traveled eons ago by the pre-written-history peoples.  When the white man showed up it was being used by the Havasupai Indians.  The prospectors of the late 1800's pretty quickly realized that the gold was in the pockets of tourists and so began to capitalize on that.  Ol' Ralph Cameron cleverly figured out that if he staked mining claims in a way that made the trail "his" property that he could charge a $1 toll per person.  (That would be a bit over $25 in today's money!)  That ended in 1928 when the National Park Service finally ended his quasi-legal claims that he was mining the rocks, not the tourists.  Now there is no charge to hike in the National Park.)


As usual, to get down the side of a steep incline, it's a switch-back trail.  This leads to a rock outcropping which the CCC dug a tunnel through.  (I wonder if folks crawled through that small opening on the right before the tunnel??)

When you come out of the tunnel the trail begins another swicth-back, and then it gets really, really steep.  A trained athlete might get down and back up the Bright Angel, but not Granpa and I.  If we had, we would have had to pack in our camping gear because it takes a full day to get to the bottom.  (I don't know how on earth one would be able to climb back to the top in one day!  Whew!)  There are warning signs that say, "Never try to hike from the rim to the river and back in one day.  Many who tried suffered serious illness or death."  And it's printed in four languages!!

  The Bright Angel Trail drops 4,500 feet in just under 8 miles.  Then you pick up the River Trail and in just under 2 more miles you reach Phantom Ranch.  But it's beautiful enough right where we stand.  If we'd been Daddy John's ripe young age of 16, it might have been a different story though!

 Arizona is absolutely gorgeous - every single day!

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