Horses and Guides in the Valley.
For a good horse and saddle the charge is $2.50 a day, or for a trip, if it occupies such part of the day that the animal cannot go out on any other one the same day. If you propose to stay a week or more, and wish to engage the same horse for your regular and exclusive use every day during that time, you can do so for one fifth less; sometimes lower than that.
The horses are good, trusty, serviceable beasts, trained to their business and generally safe and reliable.
Going into or coming out from the valley with any regular trip, over any route, you have nothing to do with providing or paying for a guide. One accompanies the saddle-train each way.
In and about the valley, you can have the company and attention of a practiced and competent guide for $3.00 a day—or, a trip. The guide's fee is the same whether the party be small or large.
No tourist who has the nerve and muscle of an average man or woman really needs either horse or guide. The valley is only seven miles long and but a mile wide. The perpendicular walls, from three to five thousand feet high, shut you in all around. You certainly can't get out; and with so many prominent landmarks all about you, you can't get lost, unless you try very hard indeed. With a good guide-book before you and well-rested legs under you, a very moderate exercise of common sense will take you all about the valley, and enable you thoroughly to explore its wonders "on foot and alone" if you choose so to go.
Bear in mind, however, that you are nearly a mile—in some places more than a mile—above the sea; that the atmosphere is rare and light; that you need to restrain your impulse to dash about, especially at first. For the first two or three days "go slow"—take it moderately; see less than you think you might, rather than more. As you become more familiar with the character of the rocks and ravines and accustomed to the exertion of climbing about them, you can extend your excursions and attempt harder things.
For the longer trips, such as the ascent of the Sentinel Rock, it may be safer and wiser to employ a good guide.