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Zane Grey's 1922 Rainbow Bridge Trip: Red Lake, Arizona

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Red Lake, Arizona

Zane Grey and his party left from Tuba City and traveled to the Red Lake trading post where they spent the night.[1] Grey explains that Red Lake was “a terrible barren hole, rock-ribbed crag-environed waste on waste of sand and silt where the Red Lake of the water was indeed Red.”[2] At Red Lake there was also a trading post where a young couple lived. Grey explains that the couple was very glad to have visitors as “Red Lake was a horribly lonely place. Sometimes for long a white man did not visit there.”[3] Grey also mentions that this area was prone to sandstorms, in fact, the party encountered one the next day they left the trading post.

SCAP0672Bx001Img105.tif
A lone rider next to Red Lake.
[click the image to enlarge]
(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Zane Grey Rainbow Bridge photograph collection, P0672, Box 1, Image 105)
SCAP0672Bx001Img100.tif
A mother and baby horse next to Red Lake in Northern Arizona.
[click the image to enlarge]
(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Zane Grey Rainbow Bridge photograph collection, P0672, Box 1, Image 100)
SCAP0672Bx001Img107.tif
A Navajo women and children weaving a rug.
[click the image to enlarge]
(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Zane Grey Rainbow Bridge photograph collection, P0672, Box 1, Image 107)
SCAP0672Bx001Img093.tif
An American Indian man packs his horse at Red Lake, Arizona.
[click the image to enlarge]
(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Zane Grey Rainbow Bridge photograph collection, P0672, Box 1, Image 093)
SCAP0672Bx001Img098.tif
Three riders from Elephant Feet, a rock structure near Red Lake, Arizona.
[click the image to enlarge]
(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Zane Grey Rainbow Bridge photograph collection, P0672, Box 1, Image 098)

Elephant’s Feet Rock formation

Zane Grey does not mention this rock structure in “Down into the Desert” although the album contains several pictures of it. It is called “Elephant’s Feet” as the two stone pillars resemble elephant legs.

[1] This area is also called Tonelea.
[2] Zane Grey, “Down into the Desert,” 43.
[3] Zane Grey, “Down into the Desert,” 43.