Читать книгу Backpacking Arizona. From Deep Canyons to Sky Islands онлайн

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DESCRIPTION The South Bass Trail descends to the east through open pinyon pine and juniper forest and switchbacks down to cross the head of Garnet Canyon. Eroded, short switchbacks take you through the Coconino sandstone.

Eventually the trail comes out onto the Esplanade, a broad terrace formed in the soft, red Hermit shale. The South Bass Trail can’t descend the head of Bass Canyon because of the Esplanade sandstone cliff. Instead, it heads north along the west rim of the canyon for nearly a mile before finding such a fault break and descending. Once below the Esplanade sandstone, the trail rounds a point and doubles back toward the head of the canyon, exploiting breaks in the Supai sandstone layers as it finds them. It descends the Redwall limestone down to the bed of the canyon. Routes through the Redwall limestone are scarce because of the highly resistant nature of the limestone, and its constant thickness of more than 500 feet throughout the Grand Canyon. Only about 200 known routes have been discovered through the hundreds of miles of Redwall cliff exposed in the canyon. William Bass built his trail through one of these breaks, following an old Native American route.