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135: Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim History – Part 6: Early Guides

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By Davy Crockett


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Running the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim and back is one of the ultimate experiences for ultrarunners. Before the Grand Canyon National Park was established in 1919, there were several individuals who helped to bring attention to the wonder of the world and set the stage for rim-to-rim travel in the future. In 1913, getting to the North Rim from Utah was still a difficult endeavor, requiring support and guides. Roads to the rim were still primitive. Traveling rim-to-rim involved nearly 100 Bright Angel Creek crossings and a dangerous climb up to the North Rim. Visitors to the Rim were mostly hunting parties, looking for big game hunts. But as more of the public reached the Canyon and told others of their spectacular rim-to-rim adventures, more efforts were made to open up the North Rim to anyone desiring to go there.

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J. Cecil Alter – Weatherman Adventurer

J. Cecil Alter

John Cecil Alter (1879-1964) was born in Indiana in 1879, the son of a civil engineer and surveyor. He studied at Purdue University in Indiana. In 1902, he moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, taking on an assistant position in the weather bureau office which oversaw 65 stations throughout the state. He soon married Jennie Oliva Greene (1874-1949) and quickly developed into an influential pillar in the community. He became widely published with papers such as, “Agriculture in the Great Basin.” By 1905, he became a frequent contributor to the local newspapers and developed a wide following. Besides his weatherman duties, he became an editor for a monthly magazine, The Salt Lake Outlook, with interesting articles about farming, mining, and business in Utah. In 1910, he took over as section director for the weather bureau office in Salt Lake.

By 1913, Alter was fascinated with the automobile and became experienced driving cars to tough places. He successfully drove up a rugged canyon road to Brighton Resort in Big Cottonwood Canyon above Salt Lake City. In August 1913, he set off from Salt Lake City, hoping to reach the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in three days and be the first person to drive an automobile all the way to the rarely visited North Rim trailhead at the head of Bright Angel Canyon.

Edwin D. Woolley Jr.

Four years earlier, in 1909, Edwin “Dee” Woolley Jr. (1846-1920) who had overseen the creation of the first trail down from the North Rim to the Colorado River took two automobiles on a round trip from Salt Lake City to his cabin on the North Rim, proving to skeptics that it was possible. He had shipped gas by horse wagon up to the Kaibab Plateau to support the vehicles, which had to receive many repairs along the way. The cars made it to within three miles of the Rim.

Alter wanted to prove that it was possible to drive all the way to the North Rim trailhead. During 1913, some rugged tourists visited the North Rim from Utah by horseback, horse wagons, and none were trying to get there in automobiles. To get there without getting lost, hired guides were needed from Woolley‘s company, because of the various networks of trails, cattle paths, and dirt roads on the Kaibab Plateau.

Alter’s automobile nearing North Rim

Alter’s journey took place in August 1913 and Utah readers were fascinated with his adventure written up in newspapers across the state. He made the successful drive to the trailhead with his wife and another couple. They then drove an additional few miles to an overlook called Greenland. He praised efforts taking place to establish a usable road to the canyon by the forest service, and believed that the views on the North Rim were better than the South Rim. He wrote, “I confidently expect that every automobile that has the courage to start will return home on its own wheels and under its own power, with as few punctures and other mishaps as could be expected in a similar mileage in almost any other direction from Salt Lake City.”

J. Cecil Alter’s 1913 Double-Crossing

Alter became the leading Grand Canyon advocate in Utah and a few weeks later in September 1913, he returned, leading an expedition to descend into the inner canyon and cross rim-to-rim and back. They made an 80-mile journey on horseback from Kanab, Utah, reached Jacob Lake in a rainstorm, and stayed overnight at the ranger station where the forest service left unoccupied cabins unlocked for those seeking shelter.

A day and a half later, they reached Camp Woolley at Catalo Springs “where Dee Woolley has built a substantial log cabin, some good corrals, and a mammoth pasture with a fence on three sides and developed a good spring.”

David Rust

Early the next morning, Alter met up with their guide, Dave Rust, to wrangle their horses in the forest. In 1906, David Dexter Rust (1874-1963) of Utah, Woolley’s son-in-law, oversaw the construction of a rough trail coming down Bright Angel Canyon from the North Rim that they referred to as Woolley Trail, now called old Bright Angel Trail, which descends steeply down into the Canyon. The trailhead is a few miles northeast of present-day North Kaibab trailhead. Rust had also established Rust Camp near the future Phantom Ranch, which served as a stopping point for those doing early rim-to-rim travel.

Mountain Lion

On that early morning, as Alter and Rust were chasing horses, Alter saw a yellowish cougar flash by. He said, “A little chill swept over me, and my skin seemed to draw up so tight I couldn’t run. Rust had just related how cougars (mountain lions) had attacked and eaten some barn horses out there recently, and I was glad when we found our team later grazing contently.” The cougar story spread like wildfire among Alter’s company and a forest service man went to find Uncle Jim Owens, the government’s hunter. Owens and dogs quickly arrived, got details from Alter and Rust, and ran off for a mountain lion hunt.

Jimmy Owens – Mountain Lion Hunter

James T. Owens (1849-1936) was born near San Antonio, Texas. He became a key player in early North Rim development as an experienced guide and a famous mountain lion hunter. In 1905, this Texas cowboy came to the Grand Canyon. Theodore Roosevelt designated a portion of the forest on the Kaibab Plateau as the Grand Canyon Game Preserve. Owens and frontiersman, Charles Jesse “Buffalo” Jones (1844-1919) imported a herd of Buffalo from Yellowstone National Park where Jones had been working as the game warden, and Owens had been the buffalo keeper.

At the North Rim, Owens was hired by cattlemen to hunt the mountain lions that were killing cattle. There were so many that at times he would earn up to $500 a day in bounties. He became known to tourists and settlers in the area as “Uncle Jimmy,” and had a large pack of hounds that he used to tree the mountain lions for the kill. “He was a familiar sight on the North Rim, often seen galloping along on his mule, preceded by a pack of hound dogs.”

In 1907, Owens became the game warden for the Preserve with the primary job to hunt and trap cougars and wolves on the North Rim to protect the deer, mountain sheep, and cattle. Over his career, Owens claimed to have killed 532 lions. He also spent many days hired by groups as a guide with Dave Rust. Hunting mountain lions became very popular among big-game hunters, and most groups would come over from the South Rim. As predators were killed, the deer population grew from about 4,000 to about 100,000 by 1924, causing serious over-grazing.

Alter Company’s Descent into the Canyon

Alter’s group spent a day exploring many overlooks on the rim. The next day, a group of ten with three pack animals filed through the forest from Camp Woolley toward the Woolley Trail. “We rounded the rocks on the perilous precipices. On the trail through talus flowed like molasses at times down a slope that ended in the blue air below. We all dismounted and led when the trail dived almost straight down. The canyon scenery was slowly rising all around us. The silvery creek thirty feet wide first glinted at us from 1,800 feet below, like a shiny, crooked wire. We reached it at last and buried our faces in it. We camped before the wind-tangled Ribbon Falls for lunch, a 120-foot liquid ribbon which lands on a mossy ledge halfway down and finally showers in a silvery skirt about a mossy base.”

Traveling down Bright Angel Creek, wading constantly back and forth through the 96 fords was difficult, and they wished there was an actual trail to use, rather than dodging all the hidden boulders. Twilight came at 3 p.m., while they were in the Box Canyon, and they arrived at Rust Camp in the early darkness and camped for the night.

Crossing the Colorado River on the Cable Tram

At 5 a.m. the next morning at Rust Camp, Alter woke up Dave Rust who would take Alter and his friend Jimmie over the scary cable tram that spanned the Colorado River.

A cable tram that predated the bridges, was an amazing contraption, making rim-to-rim travel possible without using boats. The tram had been put into operation in 1907. Getting it constructed and working turned out to be a major job. Once it seemed ready for operation, a test was performed in March 1907 without passengers. Rust wrote, “All goes lovely and jubilant until the car is nearly halfway over, then buzz! whang! ka-splash! She sinks out of sight–the river eats it up like the monster she has proved herself.” It took them a week to haul the cage out of the river. Finally, on July 20, 1907, Rust took the first passengers across and back, Ellsworth Kolb (1876-1960), and two women from Los Angeles, California, who worked at El Tovar Hotel, Eliza Jane “Lida” Belveal (1877-1973), and Rose Evans.

Here is how the cable tram worked. The cage with passengers was moved over the chasm, first by gravity to its sagging mid-point, forty feet above the Colorado River, and then the rest of the way by using a crank attached to a large drum. If the cage was on the wrong side, the operator would go over on a narrow seat with one pulley to retrieve the car.

It was this contraption that Rust took Alter and Jimmie across the River in 1913. Alter wrote, “The cage, a latticed human mouse trap with open ends, was soon reeled within reach by the mowing-machine pulley, and Jimmy and I got in. Our eyes were as big as owls’ eyes. We yelled, ‘Let her go!’ much as a criminal would signal to the hangman, and the wheels behind the cliff-rock anchor began to rattle, and then the whole mountainside and water’s edge began to move away from us. We glided out on the sag in the cable to the center of the river, where we swung like a bell in the belfry, only Jimmie and I were the bell clappers, and we clung to the steel girders of the cage until our hands were red. Then I looked down through the wide-open end of the swinging cage, and instantly my whole insides, leg, bones and all, tried to climb right up into my chest.” Jimmie said, “Why didn’t they bolt some doors in the darned cage and lock ‘em?” Rust cranked the wheel to bring them toward the black granite cliff on the south side.

They arrived safely, exited, and then on foot, climbed up the zig-zagging Cable Trail that pre-dated the South Kaibab Trail. From Tip Off, they then took the Tonto Trail to Indian Garden (now name Havasupai Gardens) that Alter described as “a willow patch along a pretty creek where there are a few summer camp houses.” A prospector there gave them a cantaloupe to revive their energy.

Up to the South Rim and Back

Alter and Jimmie continued up and marveled that Bright Angel Trail was a boulevard compared with the trail over on the north side of the Canyon. When they reached the top, they visited the El Tovar Hotel to see how the “rich folks” lived. They didn’t stay long and headed back down Bright Angel Trail, recrossed the river in “that cage on a wire” and reached Rust Camp again. The next morning, Alter’s group was guided back up to the North Rim. “Uncle Jimmy came up and modestly told us they had caught our cougar not far from where I saw it. It had come back there while we were in the canyon and he patted the silver-collared hound, Pot, who had thus been at the killing of his 176th cougar.”

Alter continued as a Grand Canyon supporter and became a renowned weatherman. He designed a precipitation gauge that became standard equipment in the U.S. and also originated “the mountain snow survey system.” He became chairman of the Utah State Parks Commission, the founding editor for Utah Historical Quarterly in 1928, and an honorary and life member of the Utah Historical Society. He published four books; Jim Bridger, Trapper, Frontiersman, Scout, and Guide: A Historical Narrative (1925), Through the Heart of the Scenic West (1927), Storied Domain (1932), and Early Utah Journalism. He left Utah in 1941 for a weather assignment in Ohio, retired in 1949, and died in 1964 in Los Angeles, California.

Theodore Roosevelt’s 1913 Rim-to-rim Adventure

Rust and Owens guided many hunting parties across the Canyon and on the North Rim. The most famous company came earlier in 1913. President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) had a special connection to the Grand Canyon. He first visited in 1903, rode along the South Rim and declared in a speech, “Leave it as it is. You cannot improve upon it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. Keep it for your children and your children’s children.” In 1906, he designated the Kaibab Plateau on the Rim as the “Grand Canyon Game Preserve,” and established the Grand Canyon National Monument in 1908. On March 16-17, 1911, he came back and descended into the Canyon to the river and back on a mule.

Theodore Roosevelt with sons Archie and Quinten in 1904

In July 1913, the former president announced that he would “hide himself from the public view for two months in the Grand Canyon, beyond the reach of reporters and out of touch with the wires.” He stated that he wanted to get away from the cares of his work and bury himself in the west. The plan was for Dave Rust and others from Woolley’s Grand Canyon Transportation Company to guide Roosevelt’s party. They were to meet him at the cable tram on the Colorado River and guide him up to the North Rim. Roosevelt and his two sons, Archibald “Archie” Bulloch Roosevelt (1894-1979) age 19, and Quentin Roosevelt (1897-1918), age 15, went down Bright Angel Trail on July 15, 1913.

When they arrived at the cable tram, no one was there to meet them as planned with horses. But cattleman, J. H. Mansfield, the superintendent of the Bar Z Cattle Company, was seen across the river and flagged down to help. He did his best to operate the trolley.

Roosevelt’s nephew, Nicholas Roosevelt (1893-1982), recalled, “The cage went very slowly and irregularly, stopping for a minute at a time. I couldn’t imagine what was wrong. For several minutes, the car didn’t move at all.” Mansfield became exhausted, cranking. Roosevelt took control and cranked the cage over himself for the next group in their party.

When they reached Rust Camp, it was unoccupied. Rust, having the secret travel date wrong, was away attending a National Education Association convention in Salt Lake City. Roosevelt’s party stayed in Rust Camp for a brief night. The two cattlemen, Mansfield and Stephenson, kindly gave the company enough food for dinner and a breakfast and let them use two pack-mules and saddle horses for the trip up to the North Rim. Roosevelt recalled they got up at 1:30 a.m., to prepare to continue their journey, guided by the two cattlemen.

Roosevelt left one of the best descriptions of early travel up the Bright Angel Canyon Trail. “In the sultry darkness, which, in spite of the moon, filled the bottom of the stupendous gorge, we started up Bright Angel Canyon, up its boulder-filled bed. Groping and stumbling, we made our blind way along it, and over an hour passed before the first grayness of dawn faintly lighted our footsteps. At last, we left the stream bed, and the trail climbed the sheer slopes and zigzagged upward through the breaks in the cliff walls. At one place, the Bar Z men showed us where one of their pack-animals had lost his footing and fallen down the mountainside a year previously.” They reached the North Rim after eight hours.

Rust, thinking that he still had a day before the party arrived, was surprised to meet the party near the trailhead. Roosevelt was angry about the mix-up and no longer wanted Rust‘s help. Will Rust said of Roosevelt, “His anger would not be appeased.”

Buffalo Jones

He hired the mountain lion hunter, Jimmy Owens, and frontiersman Buffalo Jones, to guide them on their hunt for mountain lions. While at the Canyon, there was some controversy about whether Roosevelt had a proper hunting permit, but Washington D.C. quickly granted a special permit “for scientific purposes” to let his party “bag as much game as desired.”

As they journeyed on the North Rim to Woolley’s cabin, they were startled, hearing loud “war whoops” in the forest coming toward them. It turned out to be cattlemen trying to keep a herd together that had just come in contact with a mountain lion.

Left to right: Archie Roosevelt, Nicholas Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Jimmy Owens, Quintin Roosevelt, and Jesse Cummins

The company went to Owens’ cabin. “He instantly accepted us as his guest, treated us as such, and accompanied us throughout our fortnight’s stay north of the river. A kinder host and better companion in a wild country could not be found.” As they started their hunt, Owens told the party, “We’ll eat off the land – mountain lion meat and wild horse flesh.” Roosevelt found out that cougar meat was as tasty as venison.

Modern descendants of the North Rim buffalo/bison herd

Roosevelt observed, “A small herd of bison has been brought to the reserve; it is slowly increasing. It is privately owned, one-third of the ownership being in Uncle Jim, who handles the herd. The government should immediately buy this herd. Everything should be done to increase the number of bison on the public reservations.”

One of Roosevelt’s hunting objectives was to shoot a fabled white cougar and he carried a news clipping about the animal in his pocket. Owens commented, “I had heard that yarn before too, and of course took no stock in it.” Roosevelt asked, “There isn’t any such thing, eh?” Owens replied, “Well Colonel, I’ve been in this forest a good many years and killed a good many cougars here and seen a lot more I didn’t get, and I’ve never seen a white one.”

Roosevelt was very impressed with Owens. “Uncle Jim hunted his hounds excellently. He had neither horn nor whip; instead, he threw pebbles, with much accuracy of aim, at any recalcitrant dog—and several showed a tendency to hunt deer or coyote. ‘They think they know best and needn’t obey me unless I have a nose-bag full of rocks,’ observed Uncle Jim.”

They had some success, bagging a few mountain lions, but spent much of the time searching for their runaway horses and pack animals and trying to stop the hounds from chasing coyotes. After the trip was over, they exited north, and visited Native American reservations. Roosevelt died about five years later on January 6, 1919, just 51 days before the Grand Canyon became a national park.

Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim Series

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