Peach Springs Route
The trip in winter from Peach Springs station down to the Colorado River, through Diamond Creek Canyon, is most enjoyable. Owing to the low altitude here (4,780 feet at Peach Springs and approximately 2,000 feet at the river) the air is usually balmy from November to April; in summer the heat is a considerable drawback.
A journey of but twelve miles leads you through a miniature Grand Canyon with scenery increasingly sublime. On either side are abrupt walls and wonderfully suggestive formations—castles, domes, minarets. On your left, glancing backward, is an exact reproduction of Westminster Abbey.
This comparatively easy jaunt brings you by team to the very brink of the swift-rolling Colorado, whereas by the other Grand Canyon gateways you are landed on the rim and must go down thousands of feet by a steep trail. The outlook here is restricted to the river itself and the great walls rising precipitously from its banks—a scene well worth while, but not so impressive as the wide sweep of the canyon visible from the rim.
Following Diamond Creek to its source you may walk along the bed of the stream between walls thousands of feet high and glistening in the white sunlight as if varnished. The upper part of Diamond Creek is a veritable terrace of fern bowers, luxuriant vegetation, crystal cascades, and sequestered meadow parks.