Pima Point

Far below Pima Point, you can see the ruins of historic Hermit Camp. The Santa Fe Railway built Hermit Trail [1] and established the tourist camp here in 1912 to compete with Ralph Cameron’s Bright Angel Trail [2] and Indian Garden [3] camp. Tourists traveled to the camp on mules after taking the train to the village and the stagecoach to Hermits Rest [4], where the Hermit Trail began.

During its glory days, Hermit Camp offered mule riders well-furnished tent cabins, a dining hall presided over by a Fred Harvey chef, stables, a blacksmith, restrooms, phones, and showers. Operating until 1930, the camp got its supplies via an aerial tramway leading 6,000 feet down from Pima Point. At the time, the tramway was the longest single-span cable system in the world.