The first and last thirds of the stage ride to the Cañon are through the great Conconino Forest of long leaved pines—much scattered and with no underbrush—but commonly with splendid grass and unnumbered wild flowers covering all the open spaces between them.
The middle third is over a more desert region, but not destitute of grass, and with stunted pines and cedars growing on most of the ridges and hills along the way.
For the past two years there has been little rain and the route last July was much more dusty than when I went over it first in 1895, and deemed it one of the most enjoyable stage rides I had ever taken; but rains late in July made it much pleasanter when I returned in August, this year, for a third visit.
Along the whole seventy-three miles there is no lake, pond, river, creek, brook, rivulet, or rill, no running water except springs at two points many miles apart which have been piped into troughs for stock.
This absence of water over so wide an expanse seems at first wholly incompatible with the splendid forests of stately pines, with some aspens and scrubby oaks interspersed, and the luxuriant grass and innumerable flowers.
They are kept alive by the moisture of the heavy snows of winter, and the coolness of the nights in the warmer months, checking the evaporation, and by occasional rains in summer, mostly in July and August.
We are promised a branch railroad in the near future from the main line of the Santa Fe to the Cañon.
All previous observations of cañons fail utterly to give any adequate ideas of the immensity and the splendor of this, "the sublimest spectacle on earth." No narrow crack in the earth's crust is this cañon, but a vast chasm 217 miles long, from five to twelve miles wide and from 5,000 to 6,000 feet deep, with a great river rolling tumultuously along its bottom, miles away from us as the crow flies, and nearly a mile below us vertically.
As there are very few places where it is possible to climb down to the river, one might perish from thirst while wandering along the brink of this cañon, and having in plain view at many points one of the greatest rivers of the west coast of America.
It is the only cañon on earth vast enough to have scores of mountains within it.