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Updated: June 15, 2025
This, then, is the man whose name is given to the railway building at Needles, in order that his heroic labors for the Indians of the Colorado River region may not be forgotten. In the chapters on Tovar and Cardenas, Fray Marcos and Garces, I have given some idea of the history of the Spanish explorations of the Grand Canyon region.
It is nine miles west of El Tovar to the head of Hermit Trail on the new Hermit Rim Road, and about three and one-half hours are required for the trip in addition to whatever time is consumed in sightseeing at the various points on which stops are made.
Yet Ives enjoyed the Canyon, and wrote some truly eloquent descriptions of it. How surprised he would be could he come back now, approach it from the north, cross the river in a steel cage, and find at El Tovar such an hotel as even the city of Washington never surpassed in Ives's day.
To the north and to the south are towering peaks. You forget that you have ridden down, down, to reach this spot. You are in a new country. A majestic range of glorious peaks soars away above you to the north. Now, by merely turning in the other direction, you see another and entirely different range, with peaks, canyons, ravines, gorges, points, ridges all its own. The Return to El Tovar.
Here is a beautiful mass of green, and not far away the trail that leads from the plateau to the river is in sight. El Tovar Point. Its elevation is seven thousand feet. Coconino Forest and Angel Plateau. To the west and south is the Coconino Forest; beyond is seen the dry bed of the ancient Eocene lake, and the blue ridge, where the lava-flows from Mount Floyd shut in the view.
There are also interesting remnants of Algonkian directly opposite El Tovar to the west of the Bright Angel Creek. They are easily discernible by their brilliant geranium or vermilion color. They extend for a mile or more westward, and rise above the Tonto sandstones, which properly belong above them.
This trip, giving panorama views to the west of El Tovar, can be made in one half of the day, let us say the afternoon, leaving the morning for a drive to Yavapai Point, which gives corresponding panoramas to the east, though Yavapai is only three miles from the Hotel.
At Needles, California, on the Colorado River, is another reinforced concrete building, named after another Franciscan priest, Francisco Garces. Both Fray Marcos and El Garces are managed by Fred Harvey, who also has charge of El Tovar Hotel.
El Tovar, above, is six thousand eight hundred and sixty-six feet, and we have thus descended four thousand four hundred and thirty feet, nearly a mile, from rim to river. And what a river it is! No one can form any idea of it, unless he stands on the very brink, almost deafened by the sound of its sullen roar and turbulent rapids. It is hungry, insatiable, murderous, cruel.
"Are you feeling entirely well, Jimmie, dear?" she asked; and before I could reply: "You had a bad turn of some sort while we were at table. I saw it in your face and eyes." I hastened to assure her that there was nothing the matter with me; that there couldn't be anything the matter with a man who had died and gone to heaven nearly a month previous to the dinner at El Tovar.
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