1947

In the summer of 1947 we had our first real vacation after the war. We had a brand new car, a Mercury. Burt had changed jobs right after the war, and we were living in Charlottesville, Virginia. He had a month's vacation. But so we could go farther in his allotted time, the children and I left Charlottesville early, stopping to visit our old home and friends in Akron and my father in Wisconsin. One of the high lights of the trip was our visit at the Grand Canyon.

On Sunday, August 3, 1947 we saw the Grand Canyon for the first time and it's quite a sight. As I heard someone say this morning, "Gerry, we could stay here two days and not see all of it!".

Before going farther, we heard a lecture at Yaki Point on the geological history of the Canyon. The park ranger said that of the five geological ages in the history of the world, only the first three were present here because the Grand Canyon has for many millions of years been a high region, and the last two ages could not be deposited on it. In some places, the 3d layer was directly on the 1st layer, and no one knew what happened to the 2nd layer. The top layer is composed of white limestone in which animal bones are found.

After lunch we drove out on the west rim and stopped at all the observation points. At the first overview we could look down on the trail which led to Indian Gardens and beyond. It was interesting to see how the path curved and turned up the mountain side. Further down we could see the Colorado River at several points and we thought we could even hear it. We continued out to the end of the road to Hermit's Rest.

We returned to the camp ground, had supper, and later went to see the Kolb brothers movie about their trip down the Colorado River, about which Robert and I had read in their book.

Daddy and Betty made their trip down the Grand Canyon on mule back. Burt was well worn out before he got back and even got slightly sick on the way up, but Betty felt fine. She would have gone a second time the next day.

Robert, Richard, and I walked up on the point where we could see the mule train go down, but Robert became restless, so we bought some groceries at the trading post which is an institution here. It is a combination grocery, hardware, dry goods, and curio shop, but it doesn't have quite the versatility of a big city department store.

We returned to camp to do some laundry and to hang out the blankets which had gotten wet the night before.

In the afternoon we walked down the Kaibab Trail for a short ways to watch the pack train come up from the river, but we learned this group had not gone down to the river but had stopped at INDIAN GARDENS. The Kolb brothers still had the photo concession and had taken pictures of the mule train in the morning, and the pictures were finished when the riders returned.

That night we went to a campfire and heard an interesting talk about the prehistoric Indians in the park.

Today Robert and I went down into the canyon on mule back, while Burt and Betty stayed with Richard who was too young for the trip. It was rather frightening at first, and not knowing anything about riding, it was difficult, but I learned that it was more comfortable to stand in the stirrups than to sit all the time. Our mules would gradually fall behind, and then they would trot to catch up, and that was frightening. Robert was immediately behind the guide, so he didn't have so much catching up to do. We were given no choice about whether to go to the Plateau or the River - so we went to the river. Since I wasn't too tired, I was glad to go the whole way, and the last half was fully as exciting as the first half of the trip. The trail was very steep and quite hot below Indian Gardens. We saw no animals except little lizards... and several Rocky Mt. squirrels. These were very large and a uniform color of tan or red.

The river did not impress me as I thought it would. It didn't even look as muddy as the Missouri River. Neither did it look as wide as I thought it should look. Robert did put his finger in the water, and some people took off their shoes to get their feet wet in the Colorado.

The plants along the way interested me mightily. In Indian Gardens because of a spring caused by what is known as Bright Angel Fault, large cottonwoods and willows grow. There were also different varieties of cactus, but actually very little vegetation in the lower canyon.

In the evening we went to a campfire talk on plants and animals. The ranger mentioned again about the Kaibab and Abert Squirrels. The Abert squirrel has white underparts and a black tail, while the Kaibab squirrel has a snow-white tail. Both have tufted ears, and at one time before the canyon was formed, they were the same. But since the canyon was formed and because the two canyon walls have different altitudes, the north rim has much more snow than the south rim - 212 " to 96". Thus the white tailed squirrel is better protected in the long months (7) when snow lies on the ground. Nowhere else in the world, too, are there any squirrels with tufted ears.

We have also learned that of the seven life zones of the earth, six of them are represented here in Grand Canyon region. It has been worked out that for each 1000 ft. elevation on a mountain, you have the same climate changes you do for 300 miles in latitude. Two other factors are involved - one is air currents (or perhaps water currents, too) and slope. The seven life zones are tundra or alpine - this one not actually present in Grand Canyon, but is present in the San Francisco peaks about 60 miles from the south rim. Then the 2nd - the Hudsonian which is present in the highest levels in the park - 9000 ft. Here grow trees like the Engelman and blue spruce and aspen.

Then come the Canadian zone, the transitional, upper Sonoran, lower Sonoran, and tropical. The firs are typical of the Canadian zone, the ponderosa pine of the transitional, junipers and pinon pines of the upper Sonoran, and yucca, ephedra, and cacti of the lower Sonoran.

Trees and shrubs which he pointed out to us were - ponderosa pine, alpine fir, Douglas fir, pinon pine, juniper, manzanita, service berry, ephedra, mahogany, cliff rose, and century plant.

The ranger naturalist on the North Rim gave a very good talk on his nature walk and he showed the relationship between plants and animals, and between different plants. He told how once the lions in the forest had eaten so many calves and colts that were grazing in the National Forest, that the ranchers wanted them killed. These were also the natural enemies of the deer. When the lions were killed off - as many as 700 of them by a man known as Uncle Jim Owens, the deer increased in such numbers that there wasn't enough food for them. At one time in the 20's and 30's, there were 100,000 in the Kaibab Forest and the North Rim. Then the ranchers were in trouble too, because there was no food left for their herds. So once again the Park and Forest service had to tamper with nature.

So they had an open season on deer in the Forest, but not in the Park. But the deer moved into the Park for protection. Then they tried to chase them across the river to the South Rim, but apparently none went over- although deer are known to swim the river. They offered the deer to zoos, and finally they had to hire expert riflemen to kill them off. They saved the skins, and the meat was given to hospitals and institutions. Now they let the mountain lion live and the deer herd has been reduced to about 14,000 which the forest can support. The deer on the South Rim apparently were flown over and now seem tamer and more numerous than those on the North Rim. The deer in the Kaibab are the Rocky Mountain mule deer and are supposed to be some of the biggest in the US. Their big ears give them their name. We saw one fawn and several large deer on the North Rim, but not nearly so many as on the South Rim. Going back to the nature walk- at one point on the trail to Bright Angel Point, there were pinon pine and junipers on one side of the trail, and on the other side were Douglas fir and ponderosa pine which are Canadian zone type of plants. The Canadian zone faced northwest and had much snow and little sun; the Upper Sonoran side had sun most of the time.

We heard the noise from Roaring Spring which is 3900 feet below and 4 1/2 miles by trail. Where Bright Angel creek and Roaring Springs meet, there is a power plant which transmits power back to Roaring Springs and lifts water up to the North Rim. This is the highest water is lifted anywhere in the world. (1992-I wonder why water had to be lifted to the North Rim with the abundant snow.)

The century plant, which he showed us, is a plant of the lower Sonoran region and it grows 15-20 years before bearing flowers and seeds. As the flower stalk grows, the parent plant dies. To protect itself the Century Plant is very prickly and it has only two enemies - the gopher and the rock squirrel which can climb up on rocks and feeds on the growing flower stalk. This stalk sometimes grows as much as 28" in 24 hours.