Читать книгу One Best Hike: Grand Canyon. Everything You Need to Know to Successfully Hike from the Rim to the River—and Back онлайн

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In addition to acquiring and retrofitting these important corridor trails, the park service lost no time in building a bridge across the Colorado River that was accessible to stock. In 1921 they completed a wooden suspension bridge to replace Rust’s cable car. Unfortunately this bridge was susceptible to great contortions, even flipping over, and in 1928 a sturdier bridge, the current Kaibab Suspension Bridge (or “black” or “mule” bridge), was constructed. The eight 550-foot-long main suspension cables were each carried to the bottom of the canyon by a team of 42 Havasupai Indians.

The River Trail, the 1.7-mile trail along the Colorado River between the Bright Angel Trail and the Kaibab Suspension Bridge, was built between 1933 and 1936 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, under park service supervision. Long sections were blasted into vertical rock, providing hikers with airy views into the river. Until its construction, hikers descending the Bright Angel Trail and wishing to cross to the north side of the river, would leave the Bright Angel Trail just beyond Indian Garden and cross over on the trail that followed the Tonto Platform to the South Kaibab Trail. The last of the corridor trail network, the Silver Bridge was constructed in the 1960s as part of the transcanyon water system.