MOUNTAINS AND PLATEAUS.
GREEN RIVER has its source in Fremont's Peak, high up in the Wind River
Mountains among glacial lakes and mountain cascades. This is the real
source of the Colorado River, and it stands in strange contrast with
the mouth of that stream where it pours into the Gulf of California.
The general course of the river is from north to south and from great
altitudes to the level of the sea. Thus it runs "from land of snow
to land of sun." The Wind River Mountains constitute one of the most
imposing ranges of the United States. Fremont's Peak, the culminating
point, is 13,790 feet above the level of the sea. It stands in a
wilderness of crags. Here at Fremont's Peak three great rivers have
their sources: Wind River flows eastward into the Mississippi; Green
River flows southward into the Colorado; and Gros Ventre River flows
northwestward into the Columbia. From this dominating height many ranges
can be seen on every hand. About the sources of the Platte and the Big
Horn, that flow ultimately into the Gulf of Mexico, great ranges stand
with their culminating peaks among the clouds; and the mountains that
extend into Yellowstone Park, the land of geyser wonders, are seen.
The Yellowstone Park is at the southern extremity of a great system
of mountain ranges, the northern Rocky Mountains, sometimes called the
Geyser Ranges. This geological province extends into British America,
but its most wonderful scenery is in the upper Yellowstone basin, where
geysers bombard the heavens with vapor distilled in subterranean depths.
The springs which pour out their boiling waters are loaded with quartz,
and the waters of the springs, flowing away over the rocks, slowly
discharge their fluid magma, which crystallizes in beautiful forms and
builds jeweled basins that hold pellucid waters.
68 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
To the north and west of Fremont's Peak are mountain ranges that give
birth to rivers flowing into the great Columbia. Conspicuous among these
from this point of view is the great Teton Range, with its towering
facade of storm-carved rocks; then the Gros Ventre Mountains, the Snake
River Range, the Wyoming Range, and, still beyond the latter, the
Bear River Range, are seen. Far in the distant south, scarcely to be
distinguished from the blue clouds on the horizon, stand the Uinta
Mountains. On every hand are deep mountain gorges where snows accumulate
to form glaciers. Below the glaciers throughout the entire Wind River
Range great numbers of morainal lakes are found. These lakes are
gems--deep sapphire waters fringed with emerald zones. From these lakes
creeks and rivers flow, by cataracts and rapids, to form the Green. The
mountain slopes below are covered with dense forests of pines and firs.
The lakes are often fringed with beautiful aspens, and when the autumn
winds come their golden leaves are carried over the landscape in clouds
of resplendent sheen. The creeks descend from the mountains in wild
rocky gorges, until they flow out into the valley. On the west side of
the valley stand the Gros Ventre and the Wyoming mountains, low ranges
of peaks, but picturesque in form and forest stretch. Leaving the
mountain, the river meanders through the Green River Plains, a cold
elevated district much like that of northern Norway, except that the
humidity of Norway is replaced by the aridity of Wyoming. South of the
plains the Big Sandy joins the Green from the east. South of the Big
Sandy a long zone of sand-dunes stretches eastward. The western winds
blowing up the valley drift these sands from hill to hill, so that the
hills themselves are slowly journeying eastward on the wings of arid
gales, and sand tempests may be encountered more terrible than storms
of snow or hail. Here the northern boundary of the Plateau Province is
found, for mesas and high table-lands are found on either side of the
river.
69
On the east side of the Green, mesas and plateaus have irregular
escarpments with points extending into the valleys, and between these
points canyons come down that head in the highlands. Everywhere the
escarpments are fringed with outlying buttes. Many portions of the
region are characterized by bad lands. These are hills carved out of
sandstone, shales, and easily disintegrated rocks, which present many
69 powell-canyons-42.jpg
MARBLE BASINS, MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, YELLOWSTONE PARK.
70 powell-canyons-43.jpg
TERRACED BASINS, MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, YELLOWSTONE PABK.
MOUNTAINS AND PLATEAUS. 71
fantastic forms and are highly colored in a great variety of tint and
tone, and everywhere they are naked of vegetation. Now and then low
mountains crown the plateaus. Altogether it is a region of desolation.
Through the midst of the country, from east to west, flows an
intermittent stream known as Bitter Creek. In seasons of rain it carries
floods; in seasons of drought it disappears in the sands, and its waters
are alkaline and often poisonous. Stretches of bad-land desert are
interrupted by other stretches of sage plain, and on the high lands
gnarled and picturesque forests of juniper and piñón are found. On the
west side of the river the mesas rise by grassy slopes to the westward
into high plateaus that are forest-clad, first with juniper and piñon,
and still higher with pines and firs. Some of the streams run in canyons
and others have elevated valleys along their courses. On the south
border of this mesa and plateau country are the Bridger Bad Lands, lying
at the foot of the Uinta Mountains. These bad lands are of gray, green,
and brown shales that are carved in picturesque forms--domes, towers,
pinnacles, and minarets, and bold cliffs with deep alcoves; and all are
naked rock, the sediments of an ancient lake. These lake beds are filled
with fossils,--the preserved bones of fishes, reptiles, and mammals, of
strange and often gigantic forms, no longer found living on the globe.
It is a desert to the agriculturist, a mine to the paleontologist, and a
paradise to the artist.
The region thus described, from Fremont's Peak to the Uinta Mountains,
has been the home of tribes of Indians of the Shoshonean family from
time immemorial. It is a great hunting and fishing region, and the
vigorous Shoshones still obtain a part of their livelihood from mesa and
plain and river and lake. The flesh of the animals killed in fall and
winter was dried in the arid winds for summer use; the trout abounding
in the streams and lakes were caught at all seasons of the year; and the
seeds and fruits of harvest time were gathered and preserved for winter
use. When the seeds were gathered they were winnowed by tossing them
in trays so that the winds might carry away the chaff. Then they were
roasted in the same trays. Burning coals and seeds were mixed in the
basket trays and kept in motion by a tossing process which fanned the
coals until the seeds were done; then they were separated from the coals
by dexterous manipulation. Afterwards the seeds were ground on
72 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
mealing-stones and molded into cakes, often huge loaves, that were
stored away for use in time of need. Raspberries, chokecherries, and
buffalo berries are abundant, and these fruits were gathered and mixed
with the bread. Such fruit cakes were great dainties among these people.
In this Shoshone land the long winter night is dedicated to worship and
festival. About their camp fires scattered in forest glades by
brooks and lakes, they assemble to dance and sing in honor of their
gods--wonderful mythic animals, for they hold as divine the ancient
of bears, the eagle of the lost centuries, the rattlesnake of primeval
times, and a host of other zoic deities.
The Uinta Range stands across the course of Green River, which finds
its way through it by series of stupendous canyons. The range has an
east-and-west trend. The Wasatch Mountains, a long north-and-south
range, here divide the Plateau Province from what is known among
geologists as the Basin Range Province, on the west. The latter is the
great interior basin whose waters run into salt lakes and sinks, there
being no drainage to the sea. The Great Salt Lake is the most important
of these interior bodies of water.
The Great Basin, which lies to the west of the Plateau Province, forms
a part of the Basin Range Province. In past geological times it was the
site of a vast system of lakes, but the climate has since changed and
the water of most of these lakes has evaporated and the sediments of the
old lake beds are now desert sands. The ancient lake shores are often
represented by conspicuous terraces, each one marking a stage in the
height of a dead lake. While these lakes existed the region was one of
great volcanic activity and many eruptive mountains were formed. Some
burst out beneath the waters; others were piled up on the dry land.
From the desert valleys below, the Wasatch Mountains rise abruptly and
are crowned with craggy peaks. But on the east side of the mountains the
descent to the plateau is comparatively slight. The Uinta Mountains
are carved out of the great plateau which extends more than two hundred
miles to the eastward of the summit of the Wasatch Range. Its mountain
peaks are cameos, its upper valleys are meadows, its higher slopes
are forest groves, and its streams run in deep, solemn, and majestic
canyons. The snows never melt from its crowning heights, and an undying
anthem is sung by its falling waters.
73 powell-canyons-44.jpg
TABERNACLE CRATER AND LAVA BEDS OF THE BASIN PROVINCE.
74 powell-canyons-45.jpg
VIEW ON GREAT SALT LAKE DESERT, SHOWING MOUNTAINS HALF BURIED BY LAKE
SEDIMENTS.
MOUNTAINS AND PLATEAUS. 75
The Owiyukuts Plateau is situated at the northeastern end of the Uinta
Mountains. It is a great integral block of the Uinta system. A beautiful
creek heads in this plateau, near its center, and descends northward
into the bad lands of Vermilion Creek, to which stream it is tributary.
"Once upon a time" this creek, after descending from the plateau, turned
east and then southward and found its way by a beautiful canyon into
Brown's Park, where it joined the Green; but a great bend of the
Vermilion, near the foot of the plateau, was gradually enlarged--the
stream cutting away its banks--until it encroached upon the little
valley of the creek born on the Owiyukuts Plateau. This encroachment
continued until at last Vermilion Creek stole the Owiyukuts Creek and
carried its waters away by its own channel. Then the canyon channel
through which Owiyukuts Creek had previously run, no longer having a
stream to flow through its deep gorge, gathered the waters of brooks
flowing along its course into little lakelets, which are connected by a
running stream only through seasons of great rainfall. These lakelets in
the gorge of the dead creek are now favorite resorts of Ute Indians.
South of the Uinta Mountains is the Uinta River, a stream with many
mountain tributaries, some heading in the Uinta Mountains, others in the
Wasatch Mountains on the west, and still others in the western Tavaputs
Plateau.
The Uinta Valley is the ancient and present home of the Uinta Indians,
a tribe speaking the Uinta language of the Shoshonean family. Their
habits, customs, institutions, and mythology are essentially the same as
those of the Ute Indians of the Grand River country, already
described. In this valley there are also found many ruins of ancient
pueblo-building peoples--of what stock is not known.
The Tavaputs Plateau is one of the stupendous features of this country.
On the west it merges into the Wasatch Mountains; on the north
it descends by wooded slopes into the Uinta Valley. Its summit is
forest-clad and among the forests are many beautiful parks. On the south
it ends in a great escarpment which descends into Castle Valley. This
southern escarpment presents one of the most wonderful facades of the
world. It is from 2,000 to 4,000 feet high. The descent is not made by
one bold step, for it is cut by canyons and cliffs. It is a zone several
76
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
miles in width which is a vast labyrinth of canyons, cliffs, buttes,
pinnacles, minarets, and detached rocks of Cyclopean magnitude, the
whole destitute of soil and vegetation, colored in many brilliant
tones and tints, and carved in many weird forms,--a land of desolation,
dedicated forever to the geologist and the artist, where civilization
can find no resting-place.
Then comes Castle Valley, to describe which is to beggar language and
pall imagination. On the north is the Tavaputs; on the west is the
Wasatch Plateau, which lies to the south of the Wasatch Mountains and
is here the west boundary of the Plateau Province; on the south are
indescribable mesas and mountains; on the east is Grand River, a placid
stream meandering through a valley of meadows. Within these boundaries
there is a landscape of gigantic rock forms, interrupted here and there
by bad-land hills, dominated with the towering cliffs of Tavaputs, the
bold escarpment of the Wasatch Plateau, and the volcanic peaks of the
Henry Mountains on the south. It is a vast forest of rock forms, and
in its midst is San Rafael Swell, an elevation crowned with still more
gigantic rock forms. Among the rocks pools and lakelets are found, and
little streams run in canyons that seem like chasms cleft to nadir
77 powell-canyons-46.jpg
AN INDIAN HUNTER. ... ....
78 powell-canyons-47.jpg
RESERVOIR BUTTE, SHOWING TERRACES OF THE ANCIENT LAKE BONNEVILLE
SHORELINES.
79 powell-canyons-48.jpg
PAVANT BUTTE, OVER A SUBMARINE VOLCANO OF THE GREAT
BASIN.
MOUNTAINS AND PLATEAUS.
80
hell. San Rafael River and Fremont River drain this Castle land, heading
in the Wasatch Plateau and flowing into the Grand River. Along these
streams a few narrow canyon valleys are found, and in them Ute Indians
make their winter homes. The bad lands are filled with agates, jaspers,
and carnelians, which are gathered by the Indians and fashioned
powell-canyons-49.jpg
AN INDIAN CAMP.
into arrowheads and knives; along the foot of the canyon cliffs
workshops can be discovered that have been occupied by generations
from a time in the long past, and the chips of these workshops pave the
valleys. South of the Wasatch Plateau we have the Fish Lake Plateau,
the Awapa Plateau, and the Aquarius Plateau, which separate the waters
flowing into the Great Basin from the waters of the Colorado, which
81
80
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
here constitute the boundary of the Plateau Province. Awapa is a Ute
name signifying "Many waters."
All three of these plateaus are remarkable for the many lakelets found
on them. To the east are the Henry Mountains, a group of volcanic
domes that rise above the region. The rocks of the country
powell-canyons-50.jpg
INDIANS GAMBLING.
are limestones, sandstones, and shales, originally lying in horizontal
altitudes; but volcanic forces were generated under them and lavas
boiled up. These lavas did not, however, come to the surface, but as
they rose they lifted the sandstones, shales, and limestones, to a
thickness of 2,000 or 3,000 feet or more, into great domes. Then the
molten lavas cooled in great lenses of mountain magnitude, with the
82 powell-canyons-51.jpg
RUIN NEAR MOENKOPI. powell-canyons-52.jpg
RUINS OF PAYUPKI, SIX MILES NORTHWEST OF MASHONGNAVI, TUSAYAN.
MOUNTAINS AND PLATEAUS. 83
sedimentary rocks domed above them. Then the clouds gathered over these
domes and wept, and their tears were gathered in brooks, and the brooks
carved canyons down the sides of the domes; and now in these deep clefts
the structure of the mountains is revealed. The lenses of volcanic rocks
by which the domes were upheaved are known as "laccolites," i. e., rock
lakes.
Looking southwestward from the Henry Mountains the Circle Cliffs are
seen. A great escarpment, several thousand feet in height and 70 or 80
miles in length, faces the mountain. It is the step to the long, narrow
plateau. The streams that come down across these cliffs head in great
symmetric amphitheaters, and when first seen from above they present
a vast alignment of walled circles. The front of the cliffs, seen from
below, is everywhere imposing. On the southwest the Escalante River
holds its course. It heads in the Aquarius Plateau and flows into the
Colorado. Its course, as well as that of all its many tributaries, is in
deep box-canyons of homogeneous red sandstone, often with vertical walls
that are broken by many beautiful alcoves and glens. Much of the region
is of naked, smooth, red rock, but the alcoves and glens that break the
canyon walls are the sites of perennial springs, about which patches of
luxuriant verdure gather.
The Kaiparowits Plateau is an elevated table-land on the southwestern
side of the Escalante River. It is long and narrow, extending from the
northwest to the southeast approximately parallel with the Escalante.
It rises above the red sandstone of the Escalante region from 2,000
to 4,000 feet by a front of storm-carved cliffs. From the southeastern
extremity of this plateau, at an altitude of 7,500 feet, an instructive
view is obtained. One of the great canyons of the Colorado River can be
seen meandering its way through the red-rock landscape. In the distance,
and to the north, the Henry Mountains are in view, and below, the
canyons of the Escalante and the red-rock land are in sight. Across the
Colorado are the canyons of the San Juan, and below the mouth of the San
Juan is the great Navajo Mountain. Still to the south the Grand Canyon
of the Colorado is in view, and in the west a vast mesa landscape is
presented with its buttes and pinnacles. Still to the southward Paria
River is seen heading in a plateau on the margin of the province and
having a course a little east of south into the Colorado.
84 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
The region of country which has been thus described, from the Tava-puts
Plateau to the Paria River, was the home of a few scattered Ute Indians,
who lived in very small groups, and who hunted on the plateau, fished in
the waters, and dwelt in the canyons. There was nominally but one
tribe, but as the members of this tribe were in very small parties and
separated by wide distances the tribal bonds were very weak and often
unrecognized. The chief integrating agency was religion, for they
worshiped the same gods and periodically joined in the same religious
ceremonies and festivals. A country so destitute of animal and vegetal
life would not support large numbers, and the few who dwelt here gained
but a precarious and scant subsistence. To a large extent they lived on
seeds and roots. The low, warm canyons furnished admirable shelter for
the people, and their habitual costumes were loincloths, paints, and
necklaces of tiny arrowheads made of the bright-colored agates and
carnelians strung on snakeskins.
When the Mormon people encroached on this country from the west, and
when the Navajos on the east surrendered to the United States, a few
recalcitrant Navajos and the Utes of this region combined. They had long
been more or less intimately associated, and a jargon speech had grown
up by which they could communicate. Finally, the greater number of these
Utes and renegade Navajos took up their homes permanently on the eastern
bank of the Colorado River between the Grand and the San Juan rivers.
The Navajos are the dominant race, yet they live on terms of practical
equality and affiliate without feuds. These are the great Freebooters of
the Plateau Province--the enemies of other tribes and of the white men.
In their canyon fortresses they have been able to hold their ground in
spite of their enemies on every hand.
Throughout the region and the plateaus by which it is surrounded and the
mountains by which it is interrupted, everywhere ruins of pueblos and
many cliff dwellings are found. None of these ancient pueblos are on
a large scale. The houses were usually one or two stories high and the
hamlets rarely provided shelter for more than two dozen people. Some of
the houses are of rather superior architecture, having well-constructed
walls with good geometric proportions. Their houses were plastered on
the inside, and sometimes on the outside,
85 powell-canyons-53.jpg
SHUPAULOVI.
86 powell-canyons-54.jpg
GENERAL VIEW OF ZUÑI, LOOKING WEST.
MOUNTAINS AND PLATEAUS. 87
and covered with flat roofs of sun-dried mud. The real home of the
people in their waking hours was on their housetops.
The rocks of the mountain are etched with many picture-writings
attesting the artistic skill of this people. The predominant form is the
rattlesnake, which is found in the crevices of the rocks on every hand.
It is inferred that the people worshiped the rattlesnake as one of their
chief deities, a god who carried the spirit of death in his mouth.
88 powell-canyons-55.jpg
THE GRAY CLIFFS.
89