Many Grand Canyon trails are named for pioneers who came to the canyon in the late 1800s.

William Wallace Bass headed west in 1880 because of his failing health. By the time he took the newly completed A&P line to Williams in 1883, he was fit enough to tackle a number of jobs, including town constable, but the canyon lured him northward.

He began prospecting and trail building, and within a couple of years, he had a tent camp on the rim near Havasupai Point, linking it by road to Williams and by trail to the river. He improved several old Indian trails, often with the help of Havasupai Indians he’d befriended, added a road to Ash Fork, and guided tourists during the summer.

In 1894, music teacher Ada Diebendorf and her aunt stayed for a few days at the rimside camp. Five months later, Ada became Mrs. Bass. She and Bill raised four children at the canyon, dividing their time between tent camps and two houses that offered visitor accommodations.

By the turn of the century, Bass had completed the first rim-to-rim trail, which crossed the river via a cable system at Bass Camp. The park service acquired his enterprise in 1927, and Bass died in 1933. His ashes were scattered over Holy Grail Temple, known for years as Bass Tomb. South Bass Trail is half of that rim-to-rim trail.

Seth Tanner, a scout and guide for Mormon colonists, began exploring and prospecting in eastern Grand Canyon in the 1870s. He located several claims along the Colorado River downstream from its confluence with the Little Colorado, and improved an Indian trail that was later extended by another prospector to Lipan Point. Before Glen Canyon Dam, seasonal river crossings were possible in this area. Fording the river linked the Tanner Trail to the Nankoweap Trail, built by John Wesley Powell in 1882. Horse thieves used the route to drive stolen stock down the Tanner Trail, altered their brands, then used the Nankoweap Trail to take the horses north for sale, repeating the process in reverse.

Brothers Philip and William Hull came to Grand Canyon in the early 1880s with a herd of sheep and a part-time employee and hopeful prospector by the name of John Hance. In 1884, the trio hosted Mr. and Mrs. Edward E. Ayer of Flagstaff, arguably the canyon’s first tourists. Hance’s Red Canyon Trail, now known as the New Hance Trail, was his second route to his asbestos and copper mines along the river. His first, an old Havasupai trail along Hance Creek, was buried under rockslides.

By all accounts, Hance was an accomplished guide who thoroughly enjoyed entertaining guests with his fantastic canyon fables. He gave up mining for tourism and remained a fixture at the canyon until his death in 1919, a few weeks before President Woodrow Wilson signed Grand Canyon National Park into being.

French-Canadian miner Louis D. Boucher, who arrived at the canyon around 1890 and became known as “the Hermit,” built trails between the rim, Dripping Springs, and his mine in Long Canyon (now known as Boucher Canyon). Like Hance and Bass, he learned that it was more profitable to take tourists into the canyon than to pack minerals out.

Boucher guided visitors over his trails and hosted them at his camps. Though hardly a hermit, he may have looked the part with his white hat and beard, riding a white mule named Calamity Jane. Hermit or not, he is honored with more Grand Canyon place names than any other individual, from Eremita Mesa (eremita is the Spanish word for hermit) to Hermits Rest.

The dashing and daring Kolb brothers set up a tent photo business in Grand Canyon Village in 1902. They ran the river and traveled trails, photographing scenic views and thrilling exploits. In 1937, Emery Kolb climbed Shiva Temple ahead of a highly publicized “first ascent” backed by the American Museum of Natural History. The museum’s team hoped to find isolated species and other marvels, but their most embarrassing discovery (not divulged in any of the scientific reports) was an empty Kodak box. Emery, perhaps miffed that he hadn’t been asked to guide the expedition, had beaten the scientists to their goal and left his calling card.

Harvey Butchart (1907–2002), a Northern Arizona University (NAU) math professor, hiked some 15,000 miles in Grand Canyon, making daring loops, bushwhacks, and first ascents — including some escapades today’s park rangers would beg you not to try, such as crossing the Colorado River on an air mattress. Butchart’s map, complete with notes, hangs in the map room at the Backcountry Information Center. NAU’s Cline Library has a copy of his personal hiking log, a thousand pages long. Butchart, who published several guidebooks describing his routes, continued to hike Grand Canyon until he turned 80.

Colin Fletcher (1922–2007) made the first recorded hike through the length of the inner canyon. He backpacked across the Esplanade and Tonto Platform for two months in 1963, describing his trip in The Man Who Walked Through Time, a book as much about the inner journey of canyon hiking as the external journey.

Though many canyon trails are named for pioneers, most routes existed long before settlers or Spanish explorers arrived. The Hopi, Hualapai, and Havasupai have traveled the canyon for centuries, seeking plants, game, and salt, and leaving behind rock art and legends. Anasazi farmers migrated between the rims and the river to raise corn, and archaic hunters secreted split-twig figurines inside the canyon’s caves.

As you hike in their footsteps, think about those who have passed before you — and consider those who will pass after you.