Taking these pictures was a fun and exciting endeavor. There was also a lot of work that went into taking these photos. For the first three trails we shot, we had to carry supplies for a six-day trip. Along with the pack weight of 45 pounds, I carried 15 pounds of camera gear. My wife carried a 30-pound pack and the tripod. We traversed up and down 13,000 feet of trails and hiked 45 miles in a six-day period.  We had days that reached up to 110 degrees and a storm that caught us in a flash flood. But the diversity of the hike made for some of the most beautiful pictures.

     I shot over 2000 photos of the first three trails. The first trail, South Kaibab, averages about 37 slides for every mile of trail that we hiked. Thats over 260 slides for the 7.3 miles of the South Kaibab trail. We had to do very little editing of the photos we took, but still it is taking us hundreds of hours to put them into a slide show format. Along with the slide format we had to find the right music and purchase it for the slide shows. Once the photos and music were in place, we added text narration to certain slides. With all the work, it still has been a joy producing this slide show. I think the greatest reward for us is to know there is now a way for everyone to Experience The Hike of the Inner Canyon Trails.

     This is called the "Black Bridge" or the "South Kaibab Bridge". Before the bridge was built, people were ferried across the river. In 1907, David Rust installed a cable car just large enough to haul one mule. In 1921, the first swinging suspension bridge was put in. The present bridge was built in 1928 and is 440 feet long. The eight main cables are 550 feet long. There are 67 tons of structural steel and 11,000 field rivets in the bridge. There were approximately 122 tons of material and supplies packed to the bridge. For two full weeks there were seven packers, 42 pack animals and seven saddle animals packing to the bridge every day. The new bridge will support all the live load that can be placed on it. The building started March 9th of 1928 and was completed February 1929. It was build 16 feet above the 1921 bridge.