By the late nineteenth century, Thomas Moran had established himself as one of America's most celebrated landscape painters. His views from the 1870s and 1880s of the American West captivated the public and influenced Congress to designate Yellowstone as the country’s first national park, initiating America's tradition of natural preservation. Despite his success, by the late 1880s Moran sought fresh inspiration. He first visited Venice in 1886, creating prints, paintings, and watercolors there, while continuing his almost annual journeys to the American West for new visual stimulation.

The south rim of the Grand Canyon was becoming a popular destination for wealthy Americans in the 1890s, made accessible by the Santa Fe Railroad's newly completed route to Flagstaff, Arizona. In pursuit of unexplored terrain, Moran and eleven other artists ventured deeper into the canyon with support from early local businessmen and the railroad company, which sought to generate further interest in canyon tourism. Key figures in this exploration were P.D. Berry and John Hance, businessmen who developed access to remote areas of the canyon basin for mining. Moran and several other artists, including George Herbert McCord, traveled to the Canyon in May 1901, staying at Hance's cabin. For nearly three weeks, they hiked daily along Berry's and Hance's trails. The present canvas depicts a view along the Berry Trail which provided access to the important Grandview Mine. By this time, Moran was confident in his ability to capture the canyon's light and color qualities and focused on capturing accurate topographical details. William H. Simpson of the Santa Fe Railroad described Moran's distinctive approach:

When others hurried from place to place, lest some new view escape their attention, he sat on a convenient rock near the brink and gazed silently into space, watching the shadows come and go and absorbing the subtle transformations as intense as anybody else's...He sketched scarcely at all, contenting himself with pencil memoranda of a few rock forms, and making no color notes whatsoever. He depended upon keen powers of observation and a well-trained memory for the rich tones which perhaps a year later were to reappear on canvas, true to nature and likewise true to the interpretive touch of genius. [1]

Moran’s paintings documented views previously seen by very few people, generating excitement among Eastern audiences who had never witnessed such remote landscapes.

[1] T. Wilkins, Thomas Moran: Artist of the Mountains, Norman, Oklahoma: 1966, p. 291