EXHIBITS
Zane Grey's 1922 Rainbow Bridge Trip: Embarking on the Journey
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Embarking on the Journey
The Ranch Near Flagstaff, Arizona
“The ranch lay just outside of Flagstaff and afforded a splendid view of the pines and slopes and the magnificent peaks, half obscured by the clouds. Always my gaze seemed impelled upward. That is the secret of the uplifting influence of mountains. The snow was melting, for a torrent of muddy water was running down the stream bed through the ranch.”—Zane Grey, “Down into the Desert” [1]
At the ranch, Grey and the party assembled the supplies for their journey. Grey was also reunited with his horse “White Stockings.”[2] There are several photographs in this album that features Zane Grey’s rider-less horse, which implies that Grey himself was one of the primary photographers. In one of the photographs, Grey can also be seen holding a camera, although the identity of the other photographer is unknown.
Sunset Peak
Before embarking on the long horseback journey, Zane Grey and some of his party drove to a place he calls “Sunset Peak” which was located an hour’s automobile ride from Flagstaff. This location appears to refer to Sunset Crater Volcano.
Grey explains that Sunset Peak was “a mound of cinders, differing only in its lofty height and in the red sunset hue of the cinders that crowned it. Black shiny slopes and red gleaming dome. This peak can be seen for many miles in all directions whatever the weather, it is always Sunset Peak.”[3]
Similarly, Grey discusses Sunset Peak in his novel The Vanishing American:
“From a ridge top Marian's eyes were greeted by a strange and desolate spectacle—a wide black valley, a slope of black cinders, and a stream of red lava crusted and jagged, and beyond these foothills of black cinders smooth and steep, all waved and ridged like sand dunes carved by wind. A line of pines crested the first hill, and under this green stretch was a long bank of snow, its pure white contrasting markedly with the ebony cinders. A range of these foothills rose off toward the south, growing higher and smoother, weird and sinister monuments to the havoc of volcanic action in the ages past. Beyond and above this range towered a mountain of cinders, strangely barren, marvelously colored in purple, black and red.”—The Vanishing American[4]
