From This Plateau Another Rapid Descent Is Made Through Masses Of Rock To The Bed Of Long (Or Boucher) Creek, Where, At The Distance Of About A Mile From The River, Is Located The Lower Camp.

Here Boucher has planted a garden of all kinds of vegetables, and with seventy-five trees, which include oranges,

Figs, peaches, pears, apricots, apples, nectarines, and pomegranates; he boasts of his melons, canteloupes, beets, onions, tomatoes, chile, carrots, cucumbers, parsnips, etc., and I can vouch for the sweet and refreshing qualities of his melons. Tomatoes, ripe and green, covered his vines in January, and he has them throughout the year. It needs no comment to explain how delightful fresh vegetables are, after one has made this trail trip, especially if it should be in the hot summer months.

Good and comfortable beds and other camp accommodations are provided here, so that a stop may be made over night. In the morning, the river is visited, and the return trip accomplished in easy time for dinner. The distance from rim to river has not been measured, but it is estimated to be from eight to ten miles.

Boucher also has a copper mine, rich in mineral. He claims that it is a continuation of the copper ledge of Bass's mine, and is possibly the same deposit that continues east to the Canyon Copper Company's mine on the Berry Trail.

The return trip can be made over various routes, including the ascent of Bass or Bright Angel Trails, but a majority of visitors will wish to return by way of Hermit Trail, across Hermit Basin from Boucher Trail. In that way they will get the experience of using two trails with their different outlooks and a journey across the plateau down in the Canyon, as well as a drive back to El Tovar on Hermit Rim Road.

CHAPTER VII. How Fully To See And Know The Grand Canyon Region

Advantages of Camping Trips. The suggestions in this chapter are mainly for the strenuous and strong, though this by no means excludes members of the gentle sex. Many women and girls - some who have never before been on horseback - have made these extended trips, even those that have required weeks of rough camping. For detailed particulars of the scenery, those interested are referred to the various chapters devoted to the respective trails. The transportation department at El Tovar is under the control of competent men, and is thoroughly well equipped to send visitors on prolonged camping trips with everything needed for a week, a month, or six months. It is merely a question of time and meeting the necessary expense. On the occasion of my last visit to El Tovar, a small party of both sexes was equipped and started out for a trip to last fully three weeks. Reference to the chapter entitled "Across the Grand Canyon to Point Sublime," mainly written as her diary by an elderly lady, will give the ideas of a woman who had next to no previous experience of the hardships, as well as the immediate enjoyments of such a trip.

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