Audio
The Stories of Phantom Ranch by Keith Green
Transcript
2000 01 01 Keith Green - Phantom Ranch Stories
0:02
I’ve always wanted to give this program and drink a beer at the same time.
0:08
[Applause]
0:21
Get him another!
0:22
Well, I usually start with the stories about the hoop snakes and the stick lizards.
0:26
I think everybody knows those, so go past that.
0:32
But this program is sort of a modified version of what I give on the rim, a story called, or a program called, the stories of Phantom Ranch.
0:46
And well, I kind of modified it so that it's, it's such that those of us who know the Canyon, who are in the Canyon will like it.
0:58
I hope. What it was to begin with was sort of this is where Phantom Ranch is.
1:07
There's three ways to get to Phantom Ranch, etcetera.
1:13
So, hopefully our technology will work for us at the bottom of the Canyon.
1:20
Then we can get somebody to turn the lights out.
1:27
All right, there we are.
1:31
All right, so this is this is Phantom Ranch.
1:35
Phantom Ranch as you know, is a little bit of civilization in the middle of the wilderness.
1:42
Next picture, as you know, at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
1:55
Next, three ways to get there, hiking, boating and mules.
2:17
The story of Phantom Ranch, though, goes way, way back, way back.
2:22
And this is the ruins, down by the Kaibab Bridge.
2:32
Those ruins have a pretty interesting history in themselves.
2:38
They're two different, different times when it was occupied.
2:45
The first one was in 1050 AD.
2:50
One or two families lived in one subterranean pit house, and stayed there for about a generation, not very long, 20 years —and then left.
3:10
But then when you think 20 years, that's longer than I've been here.
3:15
[applause]
3:26
A second occupation began in, let's see, in 1100 and this time was 4 rooms.
3:40
They built 4 rooms and a kiva for religious ceremonies, and probably 3 or 4 families.
3:51
As many as 16 people lived here.
3:55
Can you imagine how cool it would be to live, well, right on the edge of the river, wake up every morning to the meandering river and the cliffs above it?
4:05
What did you have for breakfast?
4:10
That sounds like the Bunk House today.
4:12
Yeah, Truly, truly. [Applause] Kind of a neat thing about this though.
4:29
Well, these people were from, came here from the Kayenta region, which is kind of where Navajo National Monument is.
4:38
And then before that, probably from the Mesa Verde area.
4:44
There were also influences from the Virgin River area, they kind of crossed here.
4:53
These people were farmers, and guess where they farmed?
4:59
Right here, where we're sitting right here between the chairs and the table. [laughter]
5:06
No, this big area here, where Phantom Ranch has been built, is suspected to have been where they grew most of their crops.
5:17
And there was probably quite a lot of prehistoric remains around, before Phantom Ranch was built.
5:27
So that, because Phantom Ranch was built here, there would there has been a lot of disturbance of that, so much that we can't really learn anything from what we have found anyway around this particular area.
5:46
But this was really where they grew their crops.
5:53
They lived down, down by the river —the Creek would have flowed that way.
6:01
So it would have been right above the Creek.
6:04
An interesting thing about them, I think is that, well, when I was here back in 1980 when they were building the Sewage plant, when they were digging up the delta, they dug up a female and a child skeleton and it had a bracelet on it.
6:33
So, which leads to some kind of interesting conclusions that, you know, we get the idea that these people had a really hard time eking out a lifetime.
6:43
But, if you've got time to make a bracelet, you aren't having that much trouble getting enough food to eat.
6:51
So it's probably —and plus it shows that several generations live there, several generations, and that they were burying the last generation, and new generations were living.
7:05
So anyway, these would be the first of the residents of this particular area. Our ancestors.
7:19
Exactly. Where did they go?
7:24
You know, there's all this stuff about the amazing disappearance of the Anasazi and also this idea of two different occupations, one being for the first 20 years from 1050 to 1070 and the other from 1100 to 1140.
7:52
This idea has come from looking at tree ring data up here on, I mean up on the rim from tree ring data they have, they find that from 10:50 to 1070, and also from 1100 to 1140, were really wet periods and between 1070 and 1100, there was a dry period.
8:22
This doesn't make sense to me because they were using Bright Angel Creek and as you know, Bright Angel Creek seems to flow whether it's a dry period or not.
8:34
So that probably isn't the reason they left because it got drier.
8:39
I think it was the isolation.
8:42
It was the isolation.
8:43
The closest place to go was, well, the closest people would be up above Upper Ribbon Falls, or they could hike for a day or two to get over to Clear Creek or they wanted the closest town.
9:08
It was a several days walk over to Unkar Delta, so it was pretty remote.
9:15
And so, I don't know, that maybe they just all got sick of each other, huh?
9:19
[laughter] You guys know what that's like! [laughter] [applause]
9:38
Next picture OK, this is of course the Phantom Ranch area where they would have probably lived.
9:53
The next people to come to this area, at the beginning of the Euro American invasion of this area, began well, in 1869 with John Wesley Powell.
10:08
John Wesley Powell, as you probably remember, stopped here in in August that year and they had broken an oar in Grapevine Canyon and climbed up into Bright Angel Canyon.
10:29
Well, their description sounds like they went up at least through the Box 3 miles up North Kaibab or up Bright Angel Creek, 'cause they got to up to where you can see, kind of the rim.
10:45
You can do that once you get up above the box.
10:50
They also climbed up a ways and found a ponderosa log and skidded it, all the way down from where they found it, down the Creek, and they carved it into oars —into two oars, to go on down the river.
11:14
John Wesley Powell saw Bright Angel Creek, and looked to him like it was, like the rock in it was silver ore, and thus named it Silver Creek.
11:30
Later when he wrote the book, he named it Bright Angel Creek.
11:34
You guys know that story, right?
11:36
No, no, no, he named it.
11:42
He named it Bright Angel Creek.
11:44
Bright Angel Creek, in that as he came down the river up in Utah, he found a side stream.
11:55
You know, back then the river was always muddy, so you had to look for the side creeks and side streams to find fresh water.
12:06
And so, he came up to one in Utah.
12:10
And the story is, as I understand it, is that they saw this creek.
12:15
So they pulled off the river, pulled the boats out and started unloading.
12:19
And somebody went over to the creek and tasted it, and it tasted like funky seawater. Bad!
12:30
And so they named it The Dirty Devil.
12:34
And it was so an opposite to right Angel Creek, this creek, this creek being sweet water, cool water.
12:43
He named it, the opposite of that, Bright Angel. [Keith spills his drink]
12:50
Oh, no! Get him another!
13:15
That must be why they don't let me drink beer. [laughter] [applause] RESUME EDITING
13:23
The next people to come into this area were prospectors and a man named Ashurst came into this area in the 1880s, which is really only, less than 10 years after Powell, after his second trip anyway, came up here in the 1880s snooping around looking for ore.
13:50
But the interesting things about these people, is what this means about the trails.
13:57
The trails coming into the into the Canyon, coming down at least into the inner gorge.
14:05
Ashurst came into this area was known to have been in Bright Angel Canyon and may have been the man responsible for the minor trail.
14:24
You know, the trail that comes down the other side of the Silver Bridge may have been the guy responsible for that because there was a boat across the the river from Bright Angel Delta by 18 the 1890s and actually 1890 in the winner of that year a group Dan Hogan.
14:56
Dan Hogan was the guy who who was responsible for the lost orphan mine upon on Maricopa Point.
15:06
Dan Hogan and a man named Sykes and another man nicknamed McClain.
15:13
They actually brought a boat down the right Angel Trail in 1890 that wasn't really a trail, much of A trail.
15:22
And they brought this canvas frame boat down to Indian Gardens and also brought down some livestock horses to graze the winter of 189091.
15:36
And these, these guys, these three guys apparently just left the boat at Indian Gardens with the hull of that and hiked down, found a way down Pike Creek down to the bottom of Pike Pike Creek Canyon and swam across the river there, scrambling along this side of the river over to this Canyon, to Bright Angel Canyon and came up into this Canyon.
16:09
Also Prospect in 18, also in 1891.
16:15
This year was quite an important year for Bright Angel Canyon.
16:21
1891 to Dan Hogan and Henry Ward came down and across probably that same way, but they were hiking, carrying everything on their backs, and they found a way all the way up to the North Rim and then hiked all the way back across the Canyon.
16:47
This would be the first rim to rim to rim with backpacks and but except for there was no trail.
16:55
It was really amazing, pretty amazing.
17:02
It was 1891.
17:06
Later then that year this man Ashurst, the same guy that had that had probably bought brought the boat down.
17:16
Ashurst and four other guys this time came down the Hans Trail bringing down livestock, horses and cattle, bringing them down to the plateau, brought them all the way across the plateau, winded them in at Indian Gardens, and then came back from Indian Gardens and found a way then down to a rickety boat, which I think means that they came down in the Miners Trail and found this rickety boat of well, Ashurst was one of the people.
17:56
So you no doubt knew there was a rickety boat down there and take this rickety boat across the river over here, the Bright Angel and came up here next slide.
18:11
Yeah, came up here and prospected that whole winter of 189192.
18:19
Those mine shafts that are up across from Clear Creek Trail are probably from the Ash.
18:32
This Ashurst Group.
18:33
It was Ashurst and four other guys and John Hans.
18:38
John Hans was here that winter, and once you listen, Bucky O'Neill.
18:45
Bucky O'Neill was was here for a little while, prospecting.
18:49
Next slide.
18:52
Can't remember.
18:54
Yeah.
18:54
Another picture of those.
18:55
You've never seen those, those places.
19:01
Just a little one like that.
19:02
The Bright Angel Trail, too.
19:05
Yeah, that was Ralph Camera.
19:07
Oh, wasn't that one all right?
19:10
So anyway, 1891, quite a year.
19:15
I wasn't until about 10 years later, which would be 19/01, the last turn of the century.
19:23
Next slide, that Beaver.
19:28
That's the best I can do to get Beavers.
19:42
Not really.
19:47
I went into the Park Service.
19:49
I said listen, I need a Beaver shop.
20:09
Want to take that off the tape there and that in 19 O1 there were a couple guys wash Henry and another guy who you said Porter guppy.
20:46
Yeah, that's a Porter Guppy guppy, Porter guppy and watch Henry came down Beaver hunting, came down from the South Rim, came down across the Canyon.
21:00
Not sure what trail these folks used.
21:03
Came down across the Canyon and haunted Beaver up right Angel Creek and came up with 30 or 40 Beaver.
21:13
Climbed out the North Rim and hiked around then from the North Rim or yeah, hiked well, no came around.
21:22
I'm not sure exactly how they came around, whether they had Burrows or not.
21:27
I believe they did Burrows and and came around from the the North Rim back to Flagstaff.
21:37
That was in 19 one and 1922 trappers, a man named Sid Farrell and who's the other one named Jim Murray, Jim Murray.
21:51
Sid Farrell and Jim Murray crossed the Canyon coming down the South side, coming across, getting across.
22:00
I'm not sure how, but came up then through here, made it all the way to the North Rim, climbing out from the North Rim and ran into Francois Mathis, who was the government surveyor who was surveying the king in 19.
22:21
Well, this was in 19 two Francois Mathis did not know that the North Rim.
22:28
In fact, it was common knowledge on the on the South Rim that Brian Eagle Canyon was a box Canyon that he couldn't get out.
22:37
Now I don't know why this is considering all these people that had climbed out to the North Rim.
22:44
It was really, maybe it was quite, quite poor communication, I'm sure.
22:53
But anyway, Francois Mathis, working for the US Geological Survey, in order to get across the Canyon, knowing that the end of Bright Angel Canyon was impassable, went down the Bass trail, cross the river, the bass trail up the north bass with quite a bit of difficulty.
23:13
These folks were carrying big heavy map making equipment coming up the Bass trail.
23:21
If you've ever seen that one, you know, that's quite amazing.
23:25
They had the horses and mules carrying all this stuff up and then mapping the Canyon from the North Rim, from the top of the bass trail on over this way on over to the top of the Bright Angel Canyon.
23:44
And they Francois Mathis was looking down and he could see that the end of the Canyon that the the all the rock layers were broken by a fault line.
23:59
The old Bright Angel fault had broken, broken it.
24:03
And so it should be easy to get down there.
24:07
And then, duh, up comes Sid Farrell and Jim Murray.
24:12
They're just like, so Mathis.
24:23
Mathis had.
24:25
And then I guess they were out of water.
24:28
They were referred to by Mathis as Hagar Gentleman.
24:38
Well, I don't know about you, but every time I hike out of the Canyon, I'm a haggard gentleman too.
24:48
These guys had quite a description.
24:52
Sid Farrell and and Jim Murray had quite a a description of trying to figure out a way out.
24:59
They were definitely bringing Burroughs and made it up right.
25:02
Angel Canyon up the bright Angel Creek aways and then found it very difficult trying to get out of the Canyon.
25:10
They came up, they come up the cliffs and have to back back down and start over again and eventually though found a route out.
25:21
Well, that was in 19 two and then Francois Mathis that November.
25:29
That was the about the time when they discovered each other in November, started down and just made it down far enough to where they were safe from the first winter storm on the North Rim.
25:48
Francois Mathis then well of course by now there was a route to well established route.
25:55
So, but he didn't make it widen it to make a trail to bring all of these, these Burrows and horses on down into the Canyon, came down to the to the Creek, cross the Creek about 94 times before he got he got down to here and he came down to the river at the delta and looked across the delta and there was a miner sitting at the bottom of the trail.
26:28
Is this that miner's trail again sitting at the bottom of the trail and that miner had a boat.
26:35
And so he brought the the Mathis and talked the miner into taking them across the river and they went out from there.
26:49
This is the story then of of this area of the conquest, I suppose of this area up until 19 three.
27:03
In 19 three next slide, I got it right.
27:09
Yes, in 19 three, this is a man named Uncle D Woolley.
27:16
Uncle D Woolley was a Mormon, a cattle rancher out of Moab, out of No, out of Kanab, and he's running his cattle on the North Rim.
27:30
Next, Francois or, or or Uncle Dee heard about the trains coming in on the South Rim, bringing all these tourists in in 1900.
27:45
And next, you can imagine him standing on the North Rim, looking across at the South Rim, thinking Ching, Ching, Ching, Ching.
28:00
Yeah, really.
28:06
He was an unusual guy in in Utah at the time.
28:10
You know, people really didn't want anybody to come visit them at all.
28:14
But Uncle Dee, Uncle Dee's gone.
28:19
How can I get these tourists across the Canyon?
28:24
I mean, we could take them big game hunting.
28:26
We could take them sightseeing that we could make money out of.
28:32
And so in 19 three he put together next that oops, sorry.
28:52
All right, you put together the the Grand Canyon Transportation Company, the Grand Canyon Transportation Company and the Grand Canyon Transportation Company.
29:03
His main devotee was Woolly's son-in-law, Dave Rust.
29:13
And they, you know, this Dave Rust is an interesting guy.
29:17
He, you don't think of him as being, you know, just just being some old prospector or something.
29:25
But you know what?
29:26
He was a graduate at Stanford University.
29:30
He was teaching school in Fredonia during the winter times.
29:35
And in the summer times would come down into the Canyon.
29:40
So anyway, he talked his son-in-law Dave Rust into building a trail all the way across the Canyon.
29:49
But of course, now remember, this trail was already there.
29:55
So even though he did build the trail, it was pretty much already there.
30:00
He probably, he definitely improved it somewhat built the trail coming down.
30:07
Probably what now is the old Bright Angel Trail came down that trail down to the the Creek along the Creek still crossing the Creek.
30:20
All those 90 something times that Francois Mathis had for his trail next when he got just to above the just to this area, he built a little camp next on down to the river and on the whoops wait a minute rodded sequence here, here he is.
30:51
This is this is problem.
30:53
This is oh anyway, this is the camp anyway that they built here W camp next.
31:07
Then the trail went on down to the river had to bring bring down the material for a boat.
31:13
This trail, by the way, was being built in 19 six I I know in my previous work I said 19 three better research has discovered some.
31:29
Anyway, so a boat at the river and then on the other side of the river.
31:37
Next he built a trail going out now this is an interesting thing this rest trail that he built out of the inner gorge.
31:48
It starts, it starts hadn't have started by descriptions of his cable car, which I'll get into next, but hadn't have started around where the black bridge is next.
32:04
And it's thought to come up to the tip off.
32:10
But I think looking at the at the terrain and also looking at the the dynamining that had to be done to build the present day Kaibat trail.
32:25
I don't think it went the same way that the Kaibat does exactly.
32:33
Sort of the next this is if you come up, coming up the Kaibab, this is as you may recall, this is just above where that big black Brahma shish Cliff is.
32:54
There's you walk across this wash and then the trail comes up.
32:59
This side switch backs up and it's straight down off the side, obviously dynamited the trail, and then comes on up this way.
33:09
This is the trail up here.
33:13
I'm going to knock over my beer again.
33:21
Wow, I got another one but this this program could last a while.
33:37
So anyway, follow with me.
33:39
This would be a good review for tomorrow.
33:42
Everybody the trail probably rush trail came up this side and this brush came up to get up above this Cliff here came up this side up onto the next slide, the saddle of the of this saddle of little panorama and then across the saddle over to this side.
34:14
Next slide from a little panorama, it would come up and cross the kind where the kind of is now across that on the east side of panorama point going up toward the train rack.
34:34
Next slide and the train racks over here coming up onto up that side.
34:45
Next slide, somebody got their shadowing.
34:50
The train wreck is over here.
34:54
Coming trail coming up this way.
34:57
Next slide.
35:01
Now instead of the trail as it goes now up through the Hakatai and through big shade and on up to the tip off.
35:11
That would all take dynamiting, which probably Russ didn't do, I think, but I've never gotten a chance to check it out.
35:22
This is looking up from the Kaibab is over here.
35:28
This is looking up this way.
35:30
I think the rust trail went up this way and up through this break up onto the plateau next slide And then once it got up to the plateau tunnel plateau across the tunnel plateau and that's to to Indian gardens.
36:00
Where's that bear in Indian gardens?
36:11
Then they caught, caught the Cameron Trail, which, well, you guys, that's a long story too.
36:18
But Cameron would eventually become the Bright Angel Trail.
36:24
So there he had it, our trail all the way across the park from Indian Gardens down to the well, down to the river.
36:36
Russ named the Wash Henry Trail and that's what it was called for a little while one our next line.
36:47
This is at camp, though.
36:49
This is at Russ camp, which was here Russ camp.
36:54
Actually, I've got a another picture which I couldn't find the slide of, but I can pass it around.
37:02
I brought the the photo of it.
37:08
The the if you check out the skyline, the cliffs from that photo to reality, you find out that Rescamp was in well, where the present well, where the Fred Harvey Barn is, except for behind it, where the Phantom Ranch old septic system used to be.
37:36
That's where Rescamp was next.
37:41
Oh, back that up.
37:46
Important story about this was Rescamp.
37:55
Their biggest problem at Rescamp was getting those mules across the river.
38:02
You know, it's really hard to get mules in a boat like that and it's it's hard to get them to swim across behind you.
38:18
So they had this system set up that what would happen is the train would come in on the South Rim, the the train, Grand Canyon transportation.
38:29
People would meet that train, meet the people on that train and try to talk people into or get people together who had reservations to come across the North Rim.
38:41
They get those people together and then the night before, next flight, the next night before they would build, well, let's say they got five people.
38:56
The one that come across, they go out to Yankee Point and they build 5 bonfires, one for each of those people.
39:05
And then somebody on the North Rim would look across and count them 12345 and know that the next morning they had to send down 5 empty mules from the North Rim.
39:18
5 empty mules and a guide, of course.
39:21
So the next morning, the five people and their South Rim guide would come down from the South Rim.
39:27
The five empty mules and their guide would come down from the North Rim.
39:32
The people would get down to the river, get off of their South Rim mules.
39:37
The South Rim mules would then be taken back up to the South Rim.
39:41
The people would get in the boat, get rowed across the river over to this side, and then have to wait.
39:48
Rush camp, probably later on that day, too late to to go out that day.
39:55
Their N Rim mules would show up and then the next morning, then of course they go on up to the North Rim.
40:03
It works, but what a hassle.
40:09
Can you imagine?
40:13
Can you imagine trying to do that day after day?
40:20
So in 19, five actually well.
40:27
Or before really, Russ was improving this trail.
40:35
They ordered the parts.
40:37
It took a year or so for them to get here from, they ordered them from Salt Lake City for the parts to get here.
40:44
But they finally did.
40:45
And they had to bring them down, of course.
40:47
And that's why the cable across the river and run down the material to, to to build this cable.
40:55
The the car was big enough for about four people.
41:00
This is Emery Cole and his family.
41:04
About four people and or one mule could get across.
41:09
But you definitely wouldn't want to have four people and one mule.
41:15
I don't know, you know, a lot of you have done this, but you know how it is to take a cable car across the river.
41:21
Anybody been on Roy's cable car?
41:24
Yeah.
41:25
So.
41:26
Yeah, y'all get in this thing and in this case the way it seems to have run is something like this.
41:34
I'm going to have to put this down.
41:37
The cable car, of course you've got you've got the the cable running through the the pulleys up here.
41:45
The cable car, you'd be up on one side and have it hooked to something, and everybody gets in the car and pulls it loose from the hook.
41:57
Let's go of it.
41:59
And you start zinging across the river.
42:01
Now this thing, this thing's about 45 feet above the river.
42:06
So you start across the river.
42:13
Do you remember faster and faster the middle of the river?
42:23
You start going slower, slower, and then you stop.
42:33
But guess what?
42:34
You're not on the other side yet.
42:38
And if something doesn't happen here, you're going to be pulled.
42:41
You're going to start going back towards the middle of the river, remember?
42:52
So here the the they had the the wherewithal these other cables up here so that they could grab the cable car, stop it from swing from going back and somebody on shore on this side was able to with a crank crank the cable car on across the river.
43:17
This was such a scary thing that the Wash Henry trail got renamed the cable trail and it was called the cable trail from then on, because, you know, probably everybody was so scared.
43:31
You know, by the time they left Indian Gardens, they were like, Oh God, now the cable, now the cable.
43:48
Well, next one that was built in 19 six, the cable car in 1913.
44:00
This is Theodore Roosevelt.
44:03
Theodore Roosevelt and his boys and some other folks.
44:09
We're going to come across to the North Rim and hunt mountain lions.
44:14
And so they I think were the only presidents to ever come across the Canyon or even ex president or he was Theodore Roosevelt.
44:25
He came down Came, down and got to this cable car and he thought it was just bullying I mean, have you ever seen any of the things he's?
44:45
Well, anyway, the story that Emery Cole wrote about about Roosevelt is that he got to the cable car and he went across it and then he stayed on it and came back across it and then went across it a third time and then climbed up there and started cranking people across the river.
45:10
Wouldn't it be cool to be cranked across the river by the next president?
45:18
Anyway, so his autobiography isn't that great about this.
45:29
Stay here next.
45:32
The story is that they came down and spent the night at Rust camp and it was so hot, so hot that they couldn't sleep.
45:45
And thus they got up at about 1:30 in the morning and cooked up a few mouthfuls of mush and then started up.
45:56
As soon as it got light enough started up but next, but but somehow next slide, somehow that was a momentous enough occasion to cause the renaming of Roosevelt's camp of Rust Camp.
46:16
Roosevelt's camp, which is what it was called, what this was called from 1913 until it became Phantom Ranch.
46:25
This Roosevelt's camp, Rust Camp, was thought often to be abandoned.
46:32
But the truth was that, yes, it was abandoned in the winter time 'cause you can't bring people to the North Rim in the winter time.
46:41
Well, this winter you couldn't, but normally you couldn't, you couldn't bring people across.
46:47
So it would close everybody go to work doing their jobs for us would would go back to teaching English in in Fredonia and the place would be left until the next year, the next summer.
47:05
So anyhow, next slide.
47:14
These are some of the first Rangers 1919 this became a National Park.
47:33
And this slide by this time, these mule rides to the bottom of the Canyon had become quite important, quite well known really.
47:45
I mean, all across the nation.
47:48
Grand Canyon meant mule rides next.
47:54
So the the companies, well, let's see.
48:00
What do I got here first cable for the Oh yeah.
48:06
So this I'm sorry.
48:07
And so the I lost some brain cells yesterday.
48:11
So that was the last Millennium.
48:24
So any anyway, these the first thing this brand new Park Service decided to do was to improve this this cable car because everybody was scared of it.
48:37
Actually it did keep falling in the river.
48:39
So, so, so they brought down a couple of cables.
48:52
Now this is before, this is in 1921, before there was a Kaibab trail.
49:00
And so this is so they had to bring it down.
49:03
The bride Angel.
49:04
This is I think in the red wall here.
49:08
But they had one mule with the with the lead of the cable carrying, carrying it, and then ten guys with carrying the cable over their shoulder, and then another mule behind carrying the rest of the cable on the spool.
49:25
They brought down these cables next and they felt what I like to refer to as the flimsy bridge.
49:44
They had two cables, two cables holding it up and look, there's nothing much on the sides of it.
49:50
You can almost see that mule's knees knocking.
50:00
It was it was big enough, it was good enough.
50:02
It could carry one person and one mule and the person couldn't even be on the mule to get across the river, but and it was about 60 feet above the river.
50:14
It's if any of you have ever discovered it, if you climb around the tunnel, that is if you don't come into the tunnel, come down the Kaibab and you go around the outside underneath the bridge is a is a platform and that platform is the platform for this bridge.
50:39
Anyway, the thing about this bridge is that it didn't have anything keeping it from swinging from side to side.
50:51
So you're walking like 6 stories above the river and the wind's blowing and the whole bridge is going whoa, you're like, so it wasn't much better than the cable ride.
51:08
They just put it up and a few months later, a few months later, somebody showed up that morning to to go across the bridge and the wind in the night had twisted the whole middle of the bridge upside down.
51:26
Those guys kind of stuck that way.
51:27
I don't know how they got it opened up again.
51:30
It took it.
51:31
It only was stood until 1925 when somebody showed up and the entire bridge was in the river.
51:40
I had to pull it, remake it, but anyway, so that's the the 1921 bridge next.
51:52
All this the people, the the company Fred Harvey, subsidiary of Santa Fe Railroad had built the Altavar Hotel in Bright Angel and so they were chosen to be the the concession for this new park, Grand Canyon.
52:17
And so they were asked to build a dude ranch at the bottom of the Canyon.
52:23
And their architect next was Mary Jane Coulter, right?
52:33
Mary Jane who was asked to build this dude ranch at the bottom of the Canyon.
52:40
And and so she did, she designed and Mary Jane Coulter is quite an amazing architect.
52:49
She was born and, and died almost the same days as Frank Lloyd Wright had the had very similar ideas to him building buildings that fit into the environment.
53:03
But she didn't get any recognition because she was female.
53:07
She was, she couldn't be called an architect.
53:09
She was a building designer.
53:12
But anyway, Coulter is the one that designed Phantom Ranch next.
53:21
So she designed and it was built in 1922 to 1923, a lodge and four cabins.
53:35
The lodge is everything, Well, almost everything except for the dining room.
53:44
That was the lot and the the cabins were cabins, 8911 and the manager's cabin.
53:54
Keith, which ones?
54:00
And the pictures are which, you know, 8's on the left, eight's on the left and just the corner.
54:15
All right, yeah, look at all the trees.
54:27
So this is the regional phantom rant.
54:43
The material this #9 yeah, the materials to build the ranch, to build these buildings.
54:50
This is before helicopters.
54:52
So the materials had to all be brought down by mule, which was, you know, of course, the the most readily available material down here is what you got it and you All right, you guys are really smart.
55:17
You'd be amazed how many times I answer that question.
55:19
People look at me like what?
55:29
But she needed to build, she needed crossbeams to hold out the roof, she needed girders.
55:38
And a mule can only carry about a six foot section of wood.
55:44
So that next time you're in one of these cabins that has the the girders exposed, look at it because it's actually they're a whole bunch of 6 foot sections that are bolted together.
55:56
So anyway, this was her design.
56:02
Actually the Park Service like this design.
56:05
So well, it's said that they have used it in parks all over the country, although I I've never noticed it, but I have read that next she's the one that named Phantom Ranch.
56:26
Phantom Ranch.
56:28
She named it after Phantom Creek next.
56:33
Well, why'd she do that?
56:34
They'll tell you.
56:37
You know, you'd, you'd think this would be a good story, but she named it Phantom Ranch after Phantom Creek and Phantom Creek.
56:53
I don't know why she named it after Phantom Free Guy, but she doesn't like the name.
56:57
I guess.
56:58
It was named by the US Geological Survey and they are are some really creative folks.
57:12
They named it that because it's in such a narrow little Canyon that there's a lot of places from the rim where you can't tell it's there, such as most of the South Rim, you can't tell it's there.
57:28
A few places on the North Rim.
57:30
So because some places you can see it and some places you can't, it's a phantom yawn.
57:49
Charlie, was it?
57:50
Was it you that was up up this Canyon at the confluence of writing of phantom and and haunted?
58:01
Was that you that told that story?
58:03
I don't know.
58:05
You heard a bunch of screaming up in the cliffs.
58:11
Oh no, that was done.
58:17
It was Dan Suthers.
58:20
Dan Suthers was screaming up in the cliffs.
58:22
He was up there and I didn't know who he was.
58:38
Oh well, nice picture.
58:47
I think this has something to do with it, but I can't find it anywhere in the books.
58:52
The the Phantom Rock, which is, as you know of Bright Angel Creek, about two and three quarters miles for about 100 yards of the trail.
59:04
There's a place where you can turn around and look over your shoulder and see the Phantom.
59:09
Phantom Rock kind of looks like he's rolling, you know?
59:25
Anyway, anyway, I think this must have something to do with the naming of Phantom Creek and the naming of Phantom Ranch next.
59:48
So for the next next 10 years, the rest of Phantom Ranch was being built the the other let's see 8 cabins next the next the shower house.
1:00:11
The shower house.
1:00:13
They had to bring down a hot water heater by mule, which means they from then on you had to bring down fuel oil and the lots of evidence of of storage of fuel oil.
1:00:29
I think it's still oily around where the old generator used to be, which is where the cowboy dorm is now, and and the back of the shower house next.
1:00:45
And they built the lodge, built this dining room in 1928, a dining room big enough to to feed 44 people at once.
1:00:59
You'd think probably in 1928 they thought they'd probably never be 44 people at the bottom of the Canyon at one time.
1:01:09
Oh well.
1:01:16
So meanwhile, all right, right.
1:01:36
Yeah, This is, if you haven't noticed it before, it's just just on the porch on the well.
1:01:44
If you're looking out, it'd be on your left on the left side.
1:01:47
If you're looking at it, it's on your right side, I believe.
1:01:51
Unless I'm, I am.
1:01:54
But anyway, that being the Matata being, being part of this building here, probably this Matata is interesting because John Wesson Powell mentions in his 1871 diary a Matata at the ruins down there and nothing up here.
1:02:19
And so it's possible that this is the one, this is the Matata that he could see that was down there, that if somebody hyped it out.
1:02:35
So anyway, meanwhile, yeah.
1:02:39
What is a matate?
1:02:40
I'm sorry.
1:02:41
We don't know.
1:02:42
Oh, I'm sorry.
1:02:44
A matate is a grinding stone used by the and the savier's hits up to noon.
1:02:49
The people that were here 1000 years ago, the people who built the the ruins.
1:02:55
It looks like that.
1:02:59
It's a Spanish word.
1:03:00
And of course the Spanish weren't around then either.
1:03:09
So anyway, something had to be done down at the river, something to that flimsy bridge.
1:03:16
And so next, in 1928, they took to building 22, yeah, cable bringing cable that Oh yeah, that's right, The building of the bridge, the in order to do that, they had to bring down 10 cables.
1:03:42
And now this time they're going to use steel cables, these cables weighing more than a ton apiece, 10 of them to build this new bridge.
1:03:52
And the Kaibab Trail had just been built or, and so the they hired 42 Havasupai to carry this, these cables down the trail.
1:04:06
Can you imagine?
1:04:08
But no, it'd be one about every 13 feet, one person every 13 feet.
1:04:14
The cable's about 440 feet long, bringing it down, down through the red and whites.
1:04:24
This cable, of course, you could.
1:04:28
You bring one down and set it down along the the river and then hike back out and pick up another one and bring it down.
1:04:37
And they did it all in one day next.
1:04:52
Now, can anybody tell who those can anybody tell who those people are?
1:05:03
All right, cool.
1:05:07
I know you guys know who they are.
1:05:11
Anyway, this this is a snake here at the bottom of the Canyon.
1:05:15
You know, it is a Grand Canyon router.
1:05:21
Yeah, it might be a hoop snake.
1:05:24
I don't know.
1:05:26
Now this picture I used to to show, because these these men who were bringing these cables down, they had to walk as a different cadence to the guy in front of him.
1:05:45
That is, if the guy in front of him was taking a step with his right foot, you'd have to take a step with your left foot and vice versa.
1:05:55
Because if everybody took a step with the same foot at the same time, the cable would start swinging.
1:06:04
And if it started swinging, it weighs more than a ton.
1:06:08
You could lose control of it and who knows where it would stop bouncing if you you know if you did.
1:06:15
So you had to walk into the House of Canes.
1:06:18
It's the guy in front of you got to take a leak.
1:06:22
You got to take a leak.
1:06:37
So they built this bridge, of course they built this bridge.
1:06:40
And then the hardest part was building the the Kibab suspension bridge.
1:06:45
Well, one of the parts of it that would be anchoring those cables.
1:06:52
Now they picked this place actually 10 feet above where the the old bridge was.
1:06:58
They picked this place because there were some pretty good anchors.
1:07:04
So they were anchoring the cable into that Cliff there.
1:07:08
That's nice not to have to describe the Cliff, you guys.
1:07:17
So they I putting these cables in that clip must have been pretty incredible actually.
1:07:27
Next they did this work at night because the IT was it was done in the summer of 28 and that wall was too hot to touch.
1:07:44
And so they did all the work at night under floodlights.
1:07:49
I think the reason I did it at 900 floodlights is because they didn't have to see how far down it was to the bridge next.
1:08:02
This is from the top of that looking down, the old bridge is still there and they but they had some of the new cables across next.
1:08:17
So when they finished, they had the new bridge and the old bridge using the old bridge of course, to take things across the river to build the new bridge and then took the old bridge down next.
1:08:33
So that's how they got the the Kaibab suspension bridge.
1:08:36
This is before the present floor of it.
1:08:42
They tested it by bringing down all of the mules from the South Rim and lining them up head to tail all the way across it.
1:08:54
I don't know what they'd have done of it and falled it.
1:09:01
So they had all these mules head head to tail all the way across it, and then they got all the mules to jump up and down.
1:09:19
Next, next, of course, they used 8 cables.
1:09:27
There's 8 cables, 2 sets of four wound together, which is the the suspension cables, and then the final two cables.
1:09:37
They stretch along the side to keep it from swinging side to side.
1:09:42
Great idea.
1:09:47
Of course, the end of it, I don't know, you guys can probably know these stories, but the end of this, this coming up to that rock to that Rockwall means they had to dig a tunnel through the wall to the trail on the other side.
1:10:05
And it looks like to me the way they did it is they had one group dynamiting in from the bridge side and another group dynamiting in from the trail side, and they met in the middle, but they didn't meet head on.
1:10:19
Oh, no, they didn't.
1:10:21
No, no, they didn't.
1:10:23
No, they missed.
1:10:24
They meant didn't meet head on.
1:10:26
So that means that's why there's that turn in the middle of the tunnel, which is a constant source of problems for the old guys.
1:10:38
You know how you got when you got a new mule?
1:10:41
You got to try to get that mule to go into the complete darkness and gigging it and whooping it and gigging it and whooping it and then jumps forward and jumps back and finally jumps forward and up forward to where you can see around the corner and sees the light at the end of the tunnel and runs, finds yourself out in the middle of the bridge.
1:11:07
New mules.
1:11:10
I like to tell the story about about how, you know, it seems like especially this time of year, there's always hikers that are come down late and they get, it's a rainy night, just like tonight, a rainy night.
1:11:31
And they get to that tunnel and it's nice and dry and there's no wind blowing.
1:11:36
And they go and let's see, do we want to walk another half a mile and put up a tent or do we want to just stay here?
1:11:46
So they throw their sleeping bags across the floor of the tunnel, not understanding the Packers.
1:12:02
So there they are, sleeve sit, laying along that tunnel, dreaming about Tahiti or something.
1:12:12
And they started hearing this poopy Clopsy and then wake up just in time to see the lead fuel coming around that corner in the tunnel.
1:12:24
Stop, stop.
1:12:34
This causes a wreck.
1:12:49
And the amazing thing is how 10 mules all tied together, 5 mules all tied together, all of the big old pan yards full of full of steaks and beer and everything else on the sides of them in this skinny little tunnel can turn around and run back the same direction.
1:13:17
They leaving the Wrangler on the ground that was like 28, the tunnel, the the bridge, the tunnel 1929 the stock market fell.
1:13:38
And an answer to the Depression was the Civilian Conservation Corps.
1:13:45
And the Civilian Conservation Corps, as you know, were, was the government's answer to unemployment.
1:13:55
That is if you were male anyway and without a job, you could join the CCC.
1:14:02
It was kind of a military type organization actually, run by the Army and they stationed people all over the country to work on what we now call the infrastructure.
1:14:14
The, the group Troop 619 was stationed at Grand Canyon.
1:14:22
They worked in the summers on the North Rim and the winters down here.
1:14:29
And the most amazing thing, the the neatest thing, the OR one of the best things that they did was build trails.
1:14:36
Next probably the most amazing trail they built was the the river trail just blasted into the rock.
1:14:46
And I've in fact, the silver bridge is where there was a cable that went across the river and, and it was kind of a seat type cable.
1:14:59
And you can sit in this on this kind of tee and pull yourself across the river.
1:15:06
That's how the men went to work.
1:15:09
And they also brought dynamite across that way, brought all the materials together to build this this river trail next.
1:15:20
They also built, I know this is the river, but they also built the, the trail that goes over to Clear Creek next.
1:15:30
And they built the trail that goes from Ribbon Falls up to Upper Ribbon Falls.
1:15:35
I know that's a real thing.
1:15:38
Oh, that's it.
1:15:38
Oh, no, that's Upper River Falls.
1:15:41
I'm sorry.
1:15:42
From River Falls.
1:15:43
I forgot.
1:15:43
I changed that slide.
1:15:46
They built the the anyway.
1:15:48
They built that trail too.
1:15:49
Next, the place where they stayed, their kitchen, the place where they stayed was across the Creek from Right Angel, from Phantom Ranch, just right across the Creek and down a bit.
1:16:04
This, which is, as you know, part of the campground, was probably the kitchen of the CCC camp.
1:16:14
The rest of the camp, the rest of the camp the when they left, they made into the next into the campground.
1:16:26
The men weren't allowed, though, to cross the Creek to come over to Phantom Ranch because there were some really evil influences of Phantom Ranch even back then, like women.
1:17:04
And alcohol.
1:17:10
So they couldn't come across.
1:17:11
They couldn't come across.
1:17:12
However, the officers of the CCC brought their families down and they did live here on this side of the Creek.
1:17:22
Next they lived in what we used to call the tent tops.
1:17:31
The tent tops were actually as they took them apart.
1:17:36
We discovered this were actually tents sitting on platforms and had later gotten covered over on the outside by roofs and walls and on on the inside a little bit.
1:17:50
But still, when you when you lay down in the on a bunk in the tent tops, you were looking up at canvas.
1:18:00
Anyway, they built these these four tent tops for officers.
1:18:06
One of those people that were was there was, oh, shoot, I forgot what her name was, but she was the Coxes, the Coxes who who owned Kaibab Lodge until that was bought by Canyoneers.
1:18:29
The cost is their grandmother told the story about her time in the tent tops.
1:18:37
She said that when they brought down, they brought down a, a wood burning stove for everybody.
1:18:42
Of course there was lots of driftwood down at the river.
1:18:45
Then they had to get your driftwood down there.
1:18:48
But the stove that they brought down for her, the wood burning stove had a panel missing.
1:18:57
So you can always tell her bread because it was kind of grey and had all this ash in it anyhow.
1:19:10
Next.
1:19:11
Oh, and those Ted tops by the way, are obviously what became the the hyper dormant up here.
1:19:22
They were torn down in 1977 and rebuilt as a hyper dormant.
1:19:29
There was though one thing.
1:19:33
Wait a minute, OK, next.
1:19:38
There was one thing that the CCC did do at Phantom Ranch though and that is right in the very middle of the ranch.
1:19:47
Next, they built a swimming pool.
1:19:59
Next, it wasn't easy to do Bright Angel Creek, you know, I mean, this is a floodplain of Bright Angel Creek, so it's mostly rock with a few teaspoons of dirt.
1:20:13
But next when they did.
1:20:22
They had a pool that was, well, it was 60 feet long from north to South, about 40 feet wide in a Crescent shape.
1:20:35
The was it bowing out to the left as you look down?
1:20:39
Came down the ranch.
1:20:42
Did Mary Jane Coulter design at No, I don't think so anymore.
1:20:48
I've never heard that.
1:20:50
What years were that key?
1:20:52
It was built in 33.
1:20:55
Four.
1:20:56
Sorry, somewhere in the 30s.
1:20:59
How long was it?
1:21:04
Well, I'll get into that.
1:21:07
I'll get into that.
1:21:08
This is the deep end.
1:21:09
It was 10 feet deep from the deep end.
1:21:11
Next.
1:21:15
Wow.
1:21:23
It was 3 feet deep on the shallow end.
1:21:26
It has these are little stairs coming down.
1:21:28
You see little stairs, the walls.
1:21:31
Look at the walls of the pool.
1:21:33
They were rock was just cemented together.
1:21:38
So they looked like a natural pool in the Creek.
1:21:43
Really.
1:21:44
I mean, it's just in fact the the walls were about 3 feet thick of cemented rock.
1:21:53
Next this, the water for the pool came in through a waterfall coming off the irrigation distance came, which of course came from Bright Angel Creek.
1:22:08
The water came in on the shallow end and then flowed out on the deep end down closer to the bunkhouse, the Starkey Hall, and then flowed back over to the Creek.
1:22:23
But it was said that by this time there were enough trees that there were so many overhanging, and the pool was deep enough that even in the summertime the temperature of the water was about 55°.
1:22:39
So it felt great when you jumped into it, but it didn't.
1:22:42
It got a little cold after a while, but the water flowing through the irrigation ditches as it flowed through those through those ditches being shallow, it got all warmed up by the sun.
1:22:57
So this waterfall was nice and warm, and thus people tended to congregate around the waterfall.
1:23:03
Eventually next, so this would be probably the, you might call it the golden years of the Phantom Ranch when it was really a dude ranch.
1:23:21
These triangles down here is a baseball diamond part of the CCC camp.
1:23:31
This up here, of course, this up here is we're looking N up here is the buildings, the lodge, lodge and the and and the cabins, etcetera.
1:23:42
Below it, the water came through on this side you can see some corn plants.
1:23:49
So it was a vegetable garden on this side was and that would be just this side of where the Phantom Ranger station is now, but the other side is a orchard.
1:24:04
Probably that fig tree is the only thing.
1:24:06
The fig tree and the pomegranate tree are the only thing left of it, but it used to have apples and oranges and Peaches and apricots and etcetera.
1:24:21
And then this whole area down here is the alfalfa field, so you didn't have to bring down hay and grain for the mules.
1:24:30
And then the times we're such that this was when the rich and famous came here, you know, So you didn't just come here for overnight.
1:24:40
You came here for a week or maybe even a month.
1:24:43
You came here for a long time.
1:24:45
And you might one day, oh, go hang out by the Creek or another day go down to the river or go fishing or another day, maybe get your, your, your Wrangler to, to rank to saddle up your mule and take you up to Ribbon Falls or or whatever this end in the alfalfa field here that they could ride out on Supai.
1:25:14
But it was a little questionable eventually whether Supai could actually make it out of the can.
1:25:21
But Supai was apparently quite a, a docile mule.
1:25:25
And the kids or kids down here, they let they could crawl all over and climb all over.
1:25:30
And he didn't care, kept the grass cut, fertilized.
1:25:39
Also there was a gardener down here, Shorty Yarberry, a gardener who moved all the rocks, made all these fences around us, all these rock walls, planted all kinds of gardens of flowers all around.
1:26:01
So anyway, Sufi got to be kind of well known cause when new people came, new new riders came on, their mules came in from this end, Sufi would come running down the alfalfa field and greet them.
1:26:27
And this is a job that Warren has now.
1:27:01
So they say that a typical day back then, a typical evening, you have a a great dinner, most of which was home grown.
1:27:12
It's grown down here.
1:27:13
And after dinner, go walking, their lights strung through the trees, the sound of the generator putting off in the distance, perhaps come down to the swimming pool, throw out one of the OR take one of the open up one of the lounge chairs and headers and sit down.
1:27:40
Lay down there and watch the stars and, and perhaps the Cowboys.
1:27:45
Many times the Cowboys would come down and bring down or come out and bring it, bring it, bring their guitars or mandolins or or etcetera.
1:27:56
There used to be there's a band called the Grand Canyon Cowboy Band that used was made-up of real guides, Phantom Ranch mule guides that used to meet and congregate by the swimming pool and play country music and sing alongs.
1:28:15
You guys like to sing along.
1:28:21
Hey, let's try it.
1:28:24
Well, give me land, lots of land with the sun skies above.
1:28:29
Don't fancy.
1:28:33
All right, All right.
1:28:40
Now I think I have to change.
1:28:43
Try it here.
1:28:46
Yeah, I have to change to the second, a slight intermission.
1:29:08
Well, look at these cars.
1:29:23
Things change, and the change was that people discovered the national parks next, and probably more importantly, people began to hike.
1:29:37
I mean, if you remember before the 60s, it was well, hiking meant army surplus canvas backpacks, canvas stuff, heavy stuff, uncomfortable stuff.
1:29:56
And then in the 60s they started making things out of extra light materials, etcetera.
1:30:02
And so people started to hike and in 1964, believe it was 19, maybe 65 at Christmas, not Christmas at Easter that year, 1000, people came down to Phantom Ranch, came down to this area to camp.
1:30:22
This obvious was before there were permits.
1:30:28
They trashed the place.
1:30:30
Of course, I've seen pictures of the trash cans.
1:30:35
They had trash cans down here.
1:30:37
Then they were trash cans, but you couldn't see the trash cans because there was a big mountain of garbage, trash around it.
1:30:45
So anyway, people began to to, to hike.
1:30:50
Next picture and they come down into the swimming pool to this kind of rich man's Shangri-La.
1:31:01
And you know, to be honest, they didn't respect it.
1:31:05
They came down to this area.
1:31:09
Well, I don't know the story when I got here, it was all the hippies fault, but since I was a hippie, I was the rather.
1:31:19
I wouldn't believe that Republican.
1:31:26
Oh, it's a Republican.
1:31:27
Yeah, I probably was a hippie.
1:31:30
But anyway, I was probably the Panoraman staff.
1:31:37
Anyway, people would come down, come down and see the swimming pool and jump in close and all, or else take off all their clothes and jump in This, this pool had also been attacked by, what do we call it, regulation to be careful about it.
1:32:17
What had happened was, well, for one thing, the health department found this swimming pool down there and they realized they, they didn't like the fact that there's a swimming pool with which wasn't chlorinated.
1:32:34
And so they made them put chlorinators into the waterfall and then the part service found out that, you know, they had chlorinated water flowing back into Bright Angel Creek.
1:32:50
And then like that, so they said you got to close it in, You got to make it into a close filters filtration system, which took a lot of work because those walls, remember, are three foot thick, made out of rock and cement.
1:33:07
But they were able to get the pipes through and make a circulation system.
1:33:13
And still things kept happening.
1:33:18
The Park Service wouldn't let them put a fence around it.
1:33:21
They meant they wanted to do that so they could restrict the people coming in.
1:33:25
No, that was the answer to that.
1:33:27
So they asked if they could force people to wear swimming suits.
1:33:35
And so they put a sign up.
1:33:40
That's all they could do.
1:33:41
All the Park Service, I mean, all Fred Harvey could do, put a sign up.
1:33:45
And they built restrooms into the rec center so that people could change clothes, and they'd even rent them or give them the swimming suits or loan them swimming suits as they wear them.
1:34:01
Still, people were jumping in, closing all just totally messing this whole system up.
1:34:10
And so next, in 1969, they stopped filling the pool.
1:34:20
And the Fred Harvey Company petitioned the Park Service to fill in the pool, which was done, which was granted.
1:34:34
Let me tell you one one story here.
1:34:36
The there was one time when there was the, the crew came down to fix the pool and they were waiting in the backroom for the helicopter to show up to fly back out.
1:34:50
And before they could the helicopter even showed up, somebody rolled a big old boulder into the pool.
1:34:59
So this was the situation.
1:35:01
They the story about when it was filled in was filled in finally in 1972.
1:35:08
It was filled in by AD 9 Cat that was still down here in the 70s when when I was working down here, AD 9 Cat that was leftover from the burying of the Cross Canyon Pipeline.
1:35:23
And the man who was driving that cat was in tears as they filled up, filled in the pool next.
1:35:37
Is there anybody in here that's actually saw the pool?
1:35:40
Yeah.
1:35:43
Anybody.
1:35:43
Are you curious?
1:35:44
No, I never saw it.
1:35:48
Nobody did it.
1:35:52
I saw it.
1:35:53
Yeah, I that last picture, I saw it like that, but I never saw it full of water.
1:36:03
But anyway, hey, Phantom Ranch is still a piece of civilization in the middle of the wilderness.
1:36:11
It's amazing because of that.
1:36:15
Next.
1:36:19
And what do I mean by wilderness?
1:36:21
Well, the next few pictures you want to keep going here.
1:36:24
Water frogs.
1:36:30
The frogs.
1:36:30
Yeah.
1:36:31
The sound of frogs, the sound of water sensations.
1:36:35
These are the wilderness next.
1:36:37
That's good.
1:36:40
Water.
1:36:41
Water.
1:36:42
The side of water in the desert.
1:36:44
That's the wilderness next, and because of water, there's greenery.
1:36:51
That's because of water, there's flowering plants, right?
1:37:01
This is the actually, this is the picture I that's from the place where Rust Camp is, but it's got, you know, the typical other than today, typical Grand Canyon, Arizona blue sky and the red and yellow and white cliffs and brown cliffs and the greenery all around the water down below.
1:37:28
That's the wilderness next.
1:37:34
The smells, smells of seek Willow sequelow next to the Creek.
1:37:39
Seek Willow in the irrigation ditches next.
1:37:49
Sacred detour.
1:37:52
You know how in the summertime when you walk into walking up the the trail from the river, there's places where you come around the corner into one of those little alcoves and there's even in in the middle of the night and there's that smell.
1:38:09
Yeah.
1:38:11
Next.
1:38:21
This There's a whole slew of stories about these guys, but Ringtails, Ringtail cats, you know, when you take wilderness and civilization and put them together while they don't stay separated, they start to mix and that's a problem.
1:38:40
Sometimes that's remember the, yeah, remember that there's a gravy pan, remember in the kitchen look like that.
1:39:12
Well, you know, when the, when the canteen window was on here, the canteen window was out here.
1:39:20
Kind of what started to replace the morning cooks is they come in and there'd be all these Almond Joy wrappers all over the floor.
1:39:32
And, and you recall back then we used to sew candy out the window and we had all of the the just boxes of candy underneath the window, but there were all these Almond Joy rappers all over the place.
1:39:45
Couldn't figure that out, what was going on, Until one night when the Cowboys and the staff probably were all in the backroom playing poker or something late and heard a noise and looked up and saw those ringtailed cats.
1:40:04
So they really like Almond Joy.
1:40:13
Well, the health department didn't like that very much either.
1:40:19
So we we figured out a way to get them out of the Paddy from the lodge.
1:40:24
So they can't come down into the kitchen anymore, I think unless I knew we had next.
1:40:34
Also the problem of the deer.
1:40:36
The deer as you know, have instead of of being down here only in the winter time and hiking out in the summertime, spending the summers on the rim, which is their natural cycle or staying down here now because of the food sources.
1:40:56
One being the hay and grain that's left in the mule through after the mule sleep.
1:41:04
But last time I was down here, I don't know if it's still happening, but the deer weren't even waiting for the mules to leave.
1:41:10
They were in there straddling the mules heads trying to eat as much as they could.
1:41:20
So these are problems, problems next, problems faced by the National Park Service trying to our part of the mission is to protect the wilderness.
1:41:35
Hard to do, considering how many people come down here hard to do.
1:41:41
But isn't it nice to know that it'll always be here like it is now, because of the Park Service?
1:41:48
Because of their mission building up here next?
1:42:03
Keith's ******* for a raise all right and and Phantom Ranch is the Phantom Ranch is helps the the park in another way and that is by by making the wilderness more accessible, making it possible for people to experience the wilderness who have never well never would or could come down unless they could come down by mule like me are people who couldn't or wouldn't come into the Canyon if they had to camp and carry a 40 LB backpack.
1:42:51
Those people can come into the the middle of the wilderness because of this peace of civilization here.
1:42:59
So in that way, Phantom Ranch helps, OK, here it comes, helps with the second part of the mission of the Park Service, which is to provide for the enjoyment of the Grand Canyon by this and all future generations next.
1:43:24
Next.
1:43:30
Next there.
1:43:35
All right.
Description
Presented in the lodge during the Phantom Ranch Millennium Gathering - January 1, 2000.
Credit
Keith Green
Date Created
01/01/2000
Copyright and Usage Info