By Davy Crockett 


This is the second part of the Rim-to Rim story. Read/Listen/Watch to Part 1 here.

Descending into the inner Grand Canyon is an experience you will never forget. Part one covered the very early history of crossing the Canyon from 1890-1928. Trails that could accommodate tourists were built, including Bight Angel and South Kaibab trails coming down the South Rim. A tourist in 1928 explained, "the Kaibab trail is a fine piece of work, easy grade, wide and smooth, while the Bright Angel trail still belongs to the local county and is maintained by it, and is steep, narrow and poorly kept up. Each person going down Bright Angel pays a toll of one dollar." There was no River Trail yet, so those who came down the Bright Angel Trail used the Tonto Trail at Indian Garden to connect to the South Kaibab Trail. "The Tonto trail was perfectly safe and the scenic views were wonderful."

Phantom Ranch was established in the early 1900s. The same tourist continued, "It is beautiful down here now in the dusk with the towering cliffs above and a mountain brook singing along in front of my cabin, and the weather at least 20 degrees warmer than up on the rim, where the ground is covered with snow. After a hearty, well-cooked beefsteak dinner, I am settled in a one-room, stone walled, cement floored cabin, with a roaring fire in a cute corner open fireplace."

The North Kaibab trail coming down from the North Rim was completed in 1928.  The steep, rough Old Bright Angel Trail coming down the North Rim was abandoned and today is an unmaintained rugged route.  A scary swinging suspension bridge spanned the Colorado River, bringing tourists over to Phantom Ranch. Multi-day rim-to-rim hikes had begun both from the North Rim and the South Rim. How all this came to be by 1928 is told in Part One. If you have not read, listened to, or watched Part One first, you should.

Black Bridge

On the Swinging Suspension Bridge

In 1926. nearly 23,000 automobiles entered the park, bringing 140,000 visitors. As tourist traffic continued to increase to Phantom Ranch, a new bridge was needed. The swinging suspension bridge that was constructed in 1921 was nearly impossible to cross when it was windy. High winds had capsized it more than once. "In using the old swinging bridge, it was necessary for tourist parties to dismount in crossing, the animals being taken over one at a time. This caused congestion and delay at one of the hottest points on the trans-canyon trip." One visitor mentioned, "We crossed the Colorado river on a frail looking bridge, one mule at a time only, rider unmounted, and the bridge waving up and down under the weight. Having gained so much weight since leaving home, I was obliged to cross considerably in advance of my mule."

Bringing down a main cable

In 1927, $48,000 was quickly appropriated for a new bridge to connect the two Kaibab trails. Construction began on a new bridge on March 9, 1928 with nine laborers who established their camp on the confluence with Bright Angel Creek. The crew soon grew to twenty. All the 122 tons of structural materials were brought down into the canyon on mules except for the massive four main support cables. Forty-two men, mostly Havasupai Indian workers, spaced 15 feet apart, carried the huge 550-foot main bridge support cables down the South Kaibab Trail on their shoulders, about fifty pounds per man. Each of the four cables weighed 2,154 pounds.

Bringing down a wind cable

“When they got to the bottom of the canyon, after getting rid of the cable, they went down onto a flat, gathered brush, made sort of a trench of it, and placed big boulders on the brush. Then they set fire to it. After the fire died down, they spread their blankets over a wooden frame that they had constructed, doused the rocks and live coals with water, and walked through this tunnel of blankets getting steam baths and then jumped into the muddy Colorado River.”