Every time I pass Bass Camp around river mile 110 on a rafting trip, I remember one of my favorite little tidbits of info about Canyon history…

William Bass established a tourist camp in the 1890s on the North side of the river here. He brought tourists in via an improved Native American trail from the South Rim area down to the Colorado River, crossed the river on a cable tramway (while on a Colorado River tour, you can still catch a view of the cables – ask your Grand Canyon Whitewater guide to point them out) and hiked up to Bass Camp along the Shinumo drainage. Bass even tended an orchard full of fig, peach and apricot trees in this area!
My favorite part of Bass's story is really his wife, Ada's, story. Ada was a classic pioneer woman, raising a family with William on the South Rim, two days from the nearest town. During dry spells on the rim, Ada Bass had to pack up the family's laundry on a mule, and take it down to the nearest water – the Colorado River. This feat took her THREE days to do the laundry and haul it back up to the rim! And we complain about our washing machines…