Bright Angel Trail

Gustave Baumann

Using his home in Santa Fe as a base, Baumann took excursions throughout the west, where he recorded his impressions in woodcut. Baumann, like everyone who has ever viewed it, was enchanted by Arizona's Grand Canyon, and he made five color woodcuts featuring the canyon, in this instance Bright Angel Trail, a 9.9-mile trip that starts at 6860 feet and ends at 2480 feet, a climb of 4300 feet. It is the same going back up.

This impression is from the second edition of a projected 125 impressions. Earlier impressions in the first edition are feature a darker, earthier palette, and include the horseback riders in the lower-left corner and Baumann's dog in the lower right on the large rock outcropping. By the second edition, these have been omitted, and a cooler, brighter palette distinguishes the impressions.

"Bright Angel Trail is the most famous trail in the Grand Canyon, a destination for many of Baumann's pilgrimages. In his first edition of this color woodcut, Baumann's dog looks out over the canyon, and horseback riders descend what was once known as the Old Indian Trail toward the Colorado River, which has carved the canyon for centuries. The trail riders would have been visible to Baumann as he sat tucked into his favorite hiding place under the South Rim." - Chamberlain, pp. 269, 2.