and then down; but our blood was up, and danger added only an
exhilarating thrill to the nerves.
The shelf was hardly more than two feet wide, and the granite so smooth
that we could find no place to fasten the lasso for the next descent; so
I determined to try the climb with only as little aid as possible. Tying
it round my breast again, I gave the other end into Cotter's hands, and
he, bracing his back against the cliff, found for himself as firm a
foothold as he could, and promised to give me all the help in his power.
I made up my mind to bear no weight unless it was absolutely necessary;
and for the first ten feet I found cracks and protuberances enough to
support me, making every square inch of surface do friction duty, and
hugging myself against the rocks as tightly as I could. When within
about eight feet of the next shelf, I twisted myself round upon the
face, hanging by two rough blocks of protruding feldspar, and looked
vainly for some further hand-hold; but the rock, besides being perfectly
smooth, overhung slightly, and my legs dangled in the air. I saw that
the next cleft was over three feet broad, and I thought, possibly, I
might, by a quick slide, reach it in safety without endangering Cotter.
I shouted to him to be very careful and let go in case I fell, loosened
my hold upon the rope, and slid quickly down. My shoulder struck against
the rock and threw me out of balance; for an instant I reeled over upon
the verge, in danger of falling, but, in the excitement, I thrust out my
hand and seized a small alpine gooseberry bush, the first piece of
vegetation we had seen. Its roots were so firmly fixed in the crevice
that it held my weight and saved me.
I could no longer see Cotter, but I talked to him, and heard the two
knapsacks come bumping along until they slid over the eaves above me,
and swung down to my station, when I seized the lasso's end and braced
myself as well as possible, intending, if he slipped, to haul in slack
and help him as best I might. As he came slowly down from crack to
crack, I heard his hobnailed shoes grating on the granite; presently
they appeared dangling from the eaves above my head. I had gathered in
the rope until it was taut, and then hurriedly told him to drop. He
hesitated a moment and let go. Before he struck the rock I had him by
the shoulder, and whirled him down upon his side, thus preventing his
rolling overboard, which friendly action he took quite coolly.
The third descent was not a difficult one, nor the fourth; but when we
had climbed down about two hundred and fifty feet the rocks were so
glacially polished and water-worn that it seemed impossible to get any
farther. To our right was a crack penetrating the rock perhaps a foot
deep, widening at the surface to three or four inches, which proved to
be the only possible ladder. As the chances seemed rather desperate, we
concluded to tie ourselves together, in order to share a common fate;
and with a slack of thirty feet between us, and our knapsacks upon our
backs, we climbed into the crevice, and began descending with our faces
to the cliff. This had to be done with unusual caution, for the foothold
was about as good as none, and our fingers slipped annoyingly on the
smooth stone; besides the knapsacks and instruments kept a steady
backward pull, tending to overbalance us. But we took pains to descend
one at a time, and rest wherever the niches gave our feet a safe
support. In this way we got down about eighty feet of smooth, nearly
vertical wall, reaching the top of a rude granite stairway, which led to
the snow; and here we sat down to rest, and found to our astonishment
that we had been three hours from the summit.
After breathing a half-minute we continued down, jumping from rock to
rock, and, having by practice become very expert in balancing ourselves,
sprang on, never resting long enough to lose equilibrium, and in this
manner made a quick descent over rugged debris to the crest of a
snow-field, which, for seven or eight hundred feet more, swept down in a
smooth, even slope, of very high angle, to the borders of a frozen lake.
Without untying the lasso which bound us together, we sprang upon the
snow with a shout, and slid down splendidly, turning now and then a
somersault, and shooting out like cannon-balls almost to the middle of
the frozen lake; I upon my back, and Cotter feet first, in a swimming
position. The ice cracked in all directions. It was only a thin,
transparent film, through which we could see deep into the lake. Untying
ourselves, we hurried ashore in different directions, lest our combined
weight should be too great a strain upon any point.
With curiosity and wonder we scanned every shelf and niche of the last
descent. It seemed quite impossible that we could have come down there,
and now it actually was beyond human power to get back again. But what
cared we? "Sufficient unto the day"--We were bound for that still
distant, though gradually nearing, summit; and we had come from a cold
shadowed cliff into deliciously warm sunshine, and were jolly, shouting,
singing songs, and calling out the companionship of a hundred echoes.
Six miles away, with no grave danger, no great difficulty, between us,
lay the base of our grand mountain. Upon its skirts we saw a little
grove of pines, an ideal bivouac, and toward this we bent our course.
After the continued climbing of the day, walking was a delicious rest,
and forward we pressed with considerable speed, our hobnails giving us
firm footing on the glittering glacial surface. Every fluting of the
great valley was in itself a considerable canon, into which we
descended, climbing down the scored rocks, and swinging from block to
block, until we reached the level of the pines. Here, sheltered among
loose rocks, began to appear little fields of alpine grass, pale yet
sunny, soft under our feet, fragrantly jewelled with flowers of fairy
delicacy, holding up amid thickly clustered blades chalices of turquoise
and amethyst, white stars, and fiery little globes of red. Lakelets,
small but innumerable, were held in glacial basins, the scorings and
grooves of that old dragon's track ornamenting their smooth bottoms.
One of these, a sheet of pure beryl hue, gave us as much pleasure from
its lovely transparency, and because we lay down in the necklace of
grass about it and smelled flowers, while tired muscles relaxed upon
warm beds of verdure, and the pain in our burdened shoulders went away,
leaving us delightfully comfortable.
After the stern grandeur of granite and ice, and with the peaks and
walls still in view, it was relief to find ourselves again in the region
of life. I never felt for trees and flowers such a sense of intimate
relationship and sympathy. When we had no longer excuse for resting, I
invented the palpable subterfuge of measuring the altitude of the spot,
since the few clumps of low, wide-boughed pines near by were the highest
living trees. So we lay longer with less and less will to rise, and when
resolution called us to our feet the getting up was sorely like Rip Van
Winkle's in the third act.
The deep glacial canon-flutings across which our march then lay proved
to be great consumers of time; indeed it was sunset when we reached the
eastern ascent, and began to toil up through scattered pines, and over
trains of moraine [glacial] rocks, toward the great peak. Stars were
already flashing brilliantly in the sky, and the low glowing arch in the
west had almost vanished when we reached the upper trees, and threw down
our knapsacks to camp. The forest grew on a sort of plateau-shelf with a
precipitous front to the west,--a level surface which stretched
eastward and back to the foot of our mountain, whose lower spurs
reached within a mile of camp. Within the shelter lay a huge fallen log,
like all these alpine woods one mass of resin, which flared up when we
applied a match, illuminating the whole grove. By contrast with the
darkness outside, we seemed to be in a vast, many-pillared hall. The
stream close by afforded water for our blessed teapot; venison frizzled
with mild, appetizing sound upon the ends of pine sticks; matchless
beans allowed themselves to become seductively crisp upon our tin
plates. That supper seemed to me then the quintessence of gastronomy,
and I am sure Cotter and I must have said some very good after-dinner
things, though I long ago forgot them all. Within the ring of warmth, on
elastic beds of pine-needles, we curled up, and fell swiftly into a
sound sleep.
I woke up once in the night to look at my watch, and observed that the
sky was overcast with a thin film of cirrus cloud to which the reflected
moonlight lent the appearance of a glimmering tint, stretched from
mountain to mountain over canons filled with impenetrable darkness, only
the vaguely-lighted peaks and white snow-fields distinctly seen. I
closed my eyes and slept soundly until Cotter awoke me at half-past
three, when we arose, breakfasted by the light of our fire, which still
blazed brilliantly, and, leaving our knapsacks, started for the mountain
with only instruments, canteens, and luncheon.
In the indistinct moonlight climbing was very difficult at first, for
we had to thread our way along a plain which was literally covered with
glacier boulders, and the innumerable brooks which we crossed were
frozen solid. However, our march brought us to the base of the great
mountain, which, rising high against the east, shut out the coming
daylight, and kept us in profound shadow. From base to summit rose a
series of broken crags, lifting themselves from a general slope of
debris. Toward the left the angle seemed to be rather gentler, and the
surface less ragged; and we hoped, by a long detour round the base, to
make an easy climb up this gentler surface. So we toiled on for an hour
over the rocks, reaching at last the bottom of the north slope. Here our
work began in good earnest. The blocks were of enormous size, and in
every stage of unstable equilibrium, frequently rolling over as we
jumped upon them, making it necessary for us to take a second leap and
land where we best could. To our relief we soon surmounted the largest
blocks, reaching a smaller size, which served us as a sort of stairway.
The advancing daylight revealed to us a very long, comparatively even
snow-slope, whose surface was pierced by many knobs and granite heads,
giving it the aspect of a nice-roofing fastened on with bolts of stone.
It stretched in far perspective to the summit, where already the rose of
sunrise reflected gloriously, kindling a fresh enthusiasm within us.
Immense boulders were partly imbedded in the ice just above us, whose
constant melting left them trembling on the edge of a fall. It
communicated no very pleasant sensation to see above you these immense
missiles hanging by a mere band, and knowing that, as soon as the sun
rose, you would be exposed to a constant cannonade.
The east side of the peak, which we could now partially see, was too
precipitous to think of climbing. The slope toward our camp was too much
broken into pinnacles and crags to offer us any hope, or to divert us
from the single way, dead ahead, up slopes of ice and among fragments of
granite. The sun rose upon us while we were climbing the lower part of
this snow, and in less than half an hour, melting began to liberate huge
blocks, which thundered down past us, gathering and growing into small
avalanches below.
We did not dare climb one above another, according to our ordinary mode,
but kept about an equal level, a hundred feet apart, lest, dislodging
the blocks, one should hurl them down upon the other.
We climbed alternately up smooth faces of granite, clinging simply by
the cracks and protruding crystals of feldspar, and then hewed steps up
fearfully steep slopes of ice, zigzagging to the right and left to avoid
the flying boulders. When midway up this slope we reached a place where
the granite rose in perfectly smooth bluffs on either side of a
gorge,--a narrow cut, or walled way, leading up to the flat summit of
the cliff. This we scaled by cutting ice steps, only to find ourselves
fronted again by a still higher wall. Ice sloped from its front at too
steep an angle for us to follow, but had melted in contact with it,
leaving a space three feet wide between the ice and the rock. We entered
this crevice and climbed along its bottom, with a wall of rock rising a
hundred feet above us on one side, and a thirty-foot face of ice on the
other, through which light of an intense cobalt-blue penetrated.
Reaching the upper end, we had to cut our footsteps upon the ice again,
and, having braced our backs against the granite, climb up to the
surface. We were now in a dangerous position: to fall into the crevice
upon one side was to be wedged to death between rock and ice; to make a
slip was to be shot down five hundred feet, and then hurled over the
brink of a precipice. In the friendly seat which this wedge gave me, I
stopped to take wet and dry observations with the thermometer,--this
being an absolute preventive of a scare,--and to enjoy the view.
The wall of our mountain sank abruptly to the left, opening for the
first time an outlook to the eastward. Deep--it seemed almost
vertically--beneath us we could see the blue waters of Owen's Lake,
10,000 feet below. The summit peaks to the north were piled up in
titanic confusion, their ridges overhanging the eastern slope with
terrible abruptness. Clustered upon the shelves and plateaus below were
several frozen lakes, and in all directions swept magnificent fields of
snow. The summit was now not over five hundred feet distant, and we
started on again with the exhilarating hope of success. But if Nature
had intended to secure the summit from all assailants, she could not
have planned her defences better; for the smooth granite wall which rose
above the snow-slope continued, apparently, quite round the peak, and we
looked in great anxiety to see if there was not one place where it might
be climbed. It was all blank except in one place; quite near us the snow
bridged across the crevice, and rose in a long point to the summit of
the wall,--a great icicle-column frozen in a niche of the bluff,--its
base about ten feet wide, narrowing to two feet at the top. We climbed
to the base of this spire of ice, and, with the utmost care, began to
cut our stairway. The material was an exceedingly compacted snow,
passing into clear ice as it neared the rock. We climbed the first half
of it with comparative ease; after that it was almost vertical, and so
thin that we did not dare to cut the footsteps deep enough to make them
absolutely safe. There was a constant dread lest out ladder should break
off, and we be thrown either down the snow-slope or into the bottom of
the crevasse. At last, in order to prevent myself from falling over
backwards, I was obliged to thrust my hand into the crack between the
ice and the wall, and the spire became so narrow that I could do this on
both sides; so that the climb was made as upon a tree, cutting mere
toe-holes and embracing the whole column of ice in my arms. At last I
reached the top, and, with the greatest caution, wormed my body over
the brink, and rolling out upon the smooth surface of the granite,
looked over and watched Cotter make his climb. He came up steadily, with
no sense of nervousness, until he got to the narrow part of the ice, and
here he stopped and looked up with a forlorn face to me; but as he
climbed up over the ledge the broad smile came back to his face, and he
asked me if it had occurred to me that we had, by and by, to go down
again.
We had now an easy slope to the summit, and hurried up over rocks and
ice, reaching the crest at exactly twelve o'clock. I rang my hammer upon
the topmost rock; we grasped hands, and I reverently named the grand
peak MOUNT TYNDALL.
THE GRAND CANON OF THE COLORADO
MAJOR JOHN WESLEY POWELL
[In 1869-72 Major John Wesley Powell was the chief of a party
which explored the Colorado River of the West and its
tributaries. The chapter subjoined is from his official
report, published by the Government Printing Office,
Washington, 1875. The substance of that report, with much
additional matter of great interest, appears in "The Canons
of the Colorado," by Major Powell, published by Flood &
Vincent, Meadville, Pa., 1895, with superb illustrations. For
fourteen years, beginning with 1880, Major Powell was
director of the United States Geological Survey; since 1879
he has been director of the United States Bureau of
Ethnology.]
_August 13, 1869._ We are now ready to start on our way down the Great
Unknown. Our boats, tied to a common stake, are chafing each other, as
they are tossed by the fretful river. They ride high and buoyant, for
their loads are lighter than we could desire. We have but a month's
rations remaining. The flour has been resifted through the mosquito net
sieve; the spoiled bacon has been dried, and the worst of it boiled; the
few pounds of dried apples have been spread in the sun, and reshrunken
to their normal bulk; the sugar has all melted, and gone on its way down
the river; but we have a large sack of coffee. The lightening of the
boats has this advantage: they will ride the waves better, and we shall
have but little to carry when we make a portage.
We are three-quarters of a mile in the depths of the earth, and the
great river shrinks into insignificance, as it dashes its angry waves
against the walls and cliffs, that rise to the world above; they are but
puny ripples, and we but pigmies, running up and down the sands, or lost
among the boulders.
We have an unknown distance yet to run; an unknown river yet to explore.
What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know
not; what walls rise over the river, we know not. Ah, well! we may
conjecture many things. The men talk as cheerfully as ever; jests are
bandied out freely this morning; but to me the cheer is sombre and the
jests are ghastly.
With some eagerness, and some anxiety, and some misgiving, we enter the
canon below, and are carried along by the swift water through walls
which rise from its very edge. They have the same structure as we
noticed yesterday--tiers of irregular shelves below, and, above these,
steep slopes to the foot of marble cliffs. We run six miles in a little
more than half an hour, and emerge into a more open portion of the
canon, where high hills and ledges of rock intervene between the river
and the distant walls. Just at the head of this open place the river
runs across a dike; that is, a fissure in the rocks, open to depths
below, has been filled with eruptive matter, and this, on cooling, was
harder than the rocks through which the crevice was made, and, when
these were washed away, the harder volcanic matter remained as a wall,
and the river has cut a gateway through it several hundred feet high,
and as many wide. As it crosses the wall, there is a fall below, and a
bad rapid, filled with boulders of trap; so we stop to make a portage.
Then on we go, gliding by hills and ledges, with distant walls in view;
sweeping past sharp angles of rock; stopping at a few points to examine
rapids, which we find can be run, until we have made another five miles,
when we land for dinner.
Then we let down with lines, over a long rapid, and start again. Once
more the walls close in, and we find ourselves in a narrow gorge, the
water again filling the channel, and very swift. With great care and
constant watchfulness we proceed, making about four miles this
afternoon, and camp in a cave.
_August 14._ At daybreak we walk down the bank of the river, on a little
sandy beach, to take a view of a new feature in the canon. Heretofore
hard rocks have given us bad river; soft rocks, smooth water; and a
series of rocks harder than any we have experienced sets in. The river
enters the granite![1]
We can see but a little way into the granite gorge, but it looks
threatening.
After breakfast we enter on the waves. At the very introduction, it
inspires awe. The canon is narrower than we have ever before seen it;
the water is swifter; there are but few broken rocks in the channel; but
the walls are set, on either side, with pinnacles and crags; and sharp,
angular buttresses, bristling with wind and wave-polished spires, extend
far out into the river.
Ledges of rock jut into the stream, their tops just below the surface,
sometimes rising few or many feet above; and island ledges, and island
pinnacles, and island towers break the swift course of the stream into
chutes, and eddies, and whirlpools. We soon reach a place where a creek
comes in from the left, and just below the channel is choked with
boulders, which have washed down this lateral canon and formed a dam,
over which there is a fall of thirty or forty feet; but on the boulders
we can get foothold, and we make a portage.
Three more such dams are found. Over one we make a portage; at the other
two we find chutes, through which we can run.
As we proceed, the granite rises higher, until nearly a thousand feet of
the lower part of the walls are composed of this rock.
About eleven o'clock we hear a great roar ahead, and approach it very
cautiously. The sound grows louder and louder as we run, and at last we
find ourselves above a long, broken fall, with ledges and pinnacles of
rock obstructing the river. There is a descent of, perhaps, seventy-five
or eighty feet in a third of a mile, and the rushing waters break into
great waves on the rocks, and lash themselves into a mad, white, foam.
We can land just above, but there is no foothold on either side by which
we can make a portage. It is nearly a thousand feet to the top of the
granite, so it will be impossible to carry our boats around, though we
can climb to the summit up a side gulch, and, passing along a mile or
two, can descend to the river. This we find on examination; but such a
portage would be impracticable for us, and we must run the rapid, or
abandon the river. There is no hesitation. We step into our boats, push
off, and away we go, first on smooth but swift water, then we strike a
glassy wave, and ride to its top, down again into the trough, up again
on a higher wave, and down and up on waves higher and still higher,
until we strike one just as it curls back, and a breaker rolls over our
little boat. Still, on we speed, shooting past projecting rocks, till
the little boat is caught in a whirlpool, and spun around several times.
At last we pull out again into the stream, and now the other boats have
passed us. The open compartment of the _Emma Dean_ is filled with water,
and every breaker rolls over us. Hurled back from a rock, now on this
side, now on that, we are carried into an eddy, in which we struggle for
a few minutes, and are then out again, the breakers still rolling over
us. Our boat is unmanageable, but she cannot sink, and we drift down
another hundred yards, through breakers; how, we scarcely know. We find
the other boats have turned into an eddy at the foot of the fall, and
are waiting to catch us as we come, for the men have seen that our boat
is swamped. They push out as we come near, and pull us in against the
wall. We bail our boat, and on we go again.
The walls, now, are more than a mile in height--a vertical distance
difficult to appreciate. Stand on the south steps of the Treasury
Building, in Washington, and look down Pennsylvania Avenue to the
Capitol Park, and measure this distance overhead, and imagine cliffs to
extend to that altitude, and you will understand what I mean; or, stand
at Canal Street, in New York, and look up Broadway to Grace Church, and
you have about the distance; or, stand at Lake Street Bridge in Chicago,
and look down to the Central Depot, and you have it again.