STEEP TRAILS 



by the northern roads; and last the Grand 

 Canon of the Colorado, which, naturally the 

 hardest to reach, has now become, by a branch, 

 of the Santa Fe, the most accessible of all. 



Of course, with this wonderful extension of 

 steel ways through our wildness there is loss 

 as well as gain. Nearly all railroads are bor- 

 dered by belts of desolation. The finest wil- 

 derness perishes as if stricken with pestilence. 

 Bird and beast people, if not the dryads, are 

 frightened from the groves. Too often the 

 groves also vanish, leaving nothing but ashes. 

 Fortunately, nature has a few big places be- 

 yond man's power to spoil — the ocean, the 

 two icy ends of the globe, and the Grand 

 Canon. 



When I first heard of the Santa F^ trains 

 running to the edge of the Grand Canon of 

 Arizona, I was troubled with thoughts of the 

 disenchantment likely to follow. But last 

 winter, when I saw those trains crawling along 

 through the pines of the Coconino Forest and 

 close up to the brink of the chasm at Bright 

 Angel, I was glad to discover that in the 

 presence of such stupendous scenery they are 

 nothing. The locomotives and trains are mere 

 beetles and caterpillars, and the noise they 

 make is as little disturbing as the hooting of 

 an owl in the lonely woods. 

 348 



