The One-armed Knight—A Bold Attack on the Canyons—Powell and His
Men—The Wonderful Voyage—Mighty Walls and Roaring Rapids—Capsizes and
Catastrophes.
When the Civil War was finally over, the wilds of the Far West again
called in seductive voice to the adventurous and the scientific. The
fur-trade as an absorbing industry was dead, but mining, prospecting,
ranching, and scientific exploring took its place. Among the
naturalists who crossed the Rocky Mountains for purposes of
investigation, fascinated by the broad, inviting field, was a one-armed
soldier, a former officer of volunteers in the Union Army. His right
forearm had remained on the battlefield of Shiloh, but when a strong
head is on the shoulders a missing arm makes little difference, and so
it was with Major Powell. In the summer of 1867, when he was examining
Middle Park, Colorado, with a small party, he happened to explore a
moderate canyon on Grand River just below what was known as Middle Park
Hot Springs, and became enthused with a desire to fathom the Great
Mystery. Consequently, he returned the next year, made his way to the
banks of White River, about 120 miles above its mouth, and there
erected cabins, with the intention of remaining through the snow season
till the following spring should once again unlock the frost-gates of
the range. There being now no bison trails hard-beaten into the snow,
it was a more difficult undertaking to cross, except in summer. Mrs.
Powell was with the party.
John Wesley Powell. John Wesley Powell.
Explorer of the Canyons of the Colorado. Founder and, till his death,
Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology, and long Director of the
U.S. Geological Survey. As he looked during the decade following his
two descents of the Colorado. Taken about 1876 in Washington. Major
Powell died September 23d, 1902.
During this winter of 1868-69, Powell made several important journeys
in connection with his purpose of exploring the great walled river; one
was down toward the south as far as Grand River; a second followed
White River to its junction with the Green, and a third went northward
around the eastern base of the Uinta Mountains, skirting the gorges
afterward named Lodore, Whirlpool, Red Canyon, etc. In these travels he
formed his plans for an attempt to fully explore, by means of a boat
voyage, the remarkable string of chasms which for more than three
centuries had defied examination. He decided that the starting point
must be where the Union Pacific Railway had just been thrown across
Green River, and that the only chance for success was to continue on
the torrential flood till either he should arrive at the end of the
great canyons near the mouth of the Rio Virgen or should himself be
vanquished in the endeavour. It was to be a match of human skill and
muscle against rocks and cataracts, shut in from the outer world,
always face to face with the Shadow of Death. It was to be a duel to
the finish between the mysterious torrent on the one side and a little
group of valiant men on the other. Never had plumed knight of old a
more dreadful antagonist. Like the Sleeping Beauty, this strange
Problem lay in the midst of an enchanted land guarded by the wizard
Aridity and those wonderful water-gods Erosion and Corrasion, waiting
for the knight-errant brave, who should break the spell and vanquish
the demon in his lair. No ordinary man was equal to this difficult
task, which demanded not alone courage of the highest order, but
combined with this courage a master-mind and the strategic skill of a
general. But there comes a time for everything. The moment for
shattering this mystery had apparently arrived and the mortal who was
to achieve this wonderful feat enters upon the scene with the quiet
nerve and perfect confidence of a master. He realised the gravity of
the proposition and therein rested his strength. He knew no ordinary
boat could hope to live in the turmoil of waters that lashed themselves
to fury among the rocks and against the towering and continuous cliffs;
and he knew the party must be self-supporting in every sense of the
term, depending on nothing but their own powers and what they could
carry along.
Character of Green River Valley in the Vicinity of the Crossing of the
U.P. Railway. Character of Green River Valley in the Vicinity of the
Crossing of the U.P. Railway.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
Part of a Rapid. Part of a Rapid.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
The universal dread of the Colorado and its gorges had by this time
considerably augmented. The public imagination pictured the roaring
flood ploughing its dismal channel through dark subterranean galleries
where human life would not be worth a single drop of tossing spray; or
leaping at a bound over precipices beside which the seething plunge of
Niagara was but a toy. No one could deny these weird tales. No one
knew. But Powell was fortified by Science, and he surmised that nowhere
would he encounter any obstruction which his ingenuity could not
surmount.
I remember one morning, on the second voyage, when we had made an early
start and the night-gloom still lingered in the depths of Marble Canyon
as we bore down on a particularly narrow place where the river turned a
sharp bend to disappear between walls vertical at the water, into a
deep-blue haze, it seemed to me that _anything_ might be found there,
and looking up from my seat in the bow of our boat into the gallant
explorer’s face, I said: “Major, what would you have done on the first
trip if just beyond that bend you had come upon a fall like Niagara?”
He regarded me a moment with his penetrating gaze, and then answered:
“I don’t know.” Perhaps he thought that what we now would find there
was enough for the moment.
Captain Mansfield, reporting to the Secretary of War, wrote in his
letter of December 10, 1867: “Above Callville for several hundred miles
the river is entirely unknown.” He recommended Callville as the
starting-place for exploration, and a small steamer for the work, with
skiffs and canvass boats for continuing beyond the steam-navigation
limit; but Captain Rodgers, who had gone with the steamboat _Esmeralda_
up through Black Canyon, thought the great canyon should be entered
above Callville after the fall of water in the spring, and his was more
nearly a correct idea. The War Department continued, however, to butt
against the wrong end, even after the success of the other way had been
demonstrated. Some Mormons, who did not know, reported the two hundred
miles above Callville to be better than the one hundred below. The two
hundred miles above contain some of the most dangerous portions of the
river. Colonel Williamson stated in March, 1868, that he could obtain
no information of importance with regard to the “Big” canyon except
that contained in Dr. Parry’s account of White’s alleged journey, which
journey, as I have pointed out, was a myth.
“If that report be reliable,” he says, “it is evident that in the high
or middle stage of the river a strongly built boat can come down the
canon with safety. Before reading that report I had an idea that it
would be a very dangerous experiment to attempt to go down this canon
in a boat of any kind, because I feared there were falls, in going
down, in which a boat might be upset or even dashed to pieces. As it
is, now I believe there are no falls, and I am inclined to think the
best way is to start above and descend.”
During these efforts of the regular army officers to secure information
as to the possibility of exploring the great canyons, Powell approached
the problem from an entirely different direction, and his quick and
accurate perception told him that to go down with the tide was the one
and only way. He was not a rich man; and expeditions require funds, but
this was no more of a bar to his purpose than the lack of an arm. His
father was a Methodist clergyman of good old stock, vigorous of mind
and body, clear-sighted, and never daunted. My immediate impression in
meeting the father, even in his old age, was of immense mental and
moral strength, resolution, and fortitude. These qualities he
bequeathed to his children, and it was a fine inheritance. Major
Powell, therefore, had his ancestry largely to thank for the intellect
and the courage with which he approached this difficult problem.
Funds for the proposed expedition were furnished by the State
Institutions of Illinois and the Chicago Academy of Science; none by
the general Government, so that this was in no way a Government matter,
except that Congress passed a joint-resolution authorising him to draw
rations for twelve men from western army posts. Early in the spring of
1869, after returning from the rambles along Green River of the
previous winter, Powell went to Chicago and engaged a competent builder
to construct four strong boats after his suggestions. Three of these
were of oak, twenty-one feet long, and one of light pine, sixteen feet
long, the latter intended as an advance boat, to be quickly handled in
the face of sudden danger. At the bow and stern of each was a
water-tight compartment, in which supplies and instruments could be
packed, and they would yet give buoyancy to the boats when they would
be filled with water by the breaking waves of the rapids. Amidships the
boats were open, and here also goods, guns, etc., were stowed away.
Each had a long rope, to use in lowering past the most dangerous
places. Unlike all the explorations on the lower course of the river,
this expedition would require no lines for towing. These four little
craft, which were to be the main reliance of the daring men composing
the party, were transported free of charge, together with the men who
were from the country east of the mountains, to Green River Station,
Wyoming, by the courtesy of the officials of the Chicago, Burlington,
and Quincy, and the Union Pacific railways, who took a deep interest in
the proposed descent. The names given to the boats were, for the small
one, _Emma Dean_, the pilot boat (after Mrs. Powell), _Kitty Clyde’s
Sister_, _Maid of the Canyon_, and _No-Name_. The members of the party,
together with their disposition in the boats at starting, were as
follows: John Wesley Powell, John C. Sumner, William H. Dunn—the _Emma
Dean;_ Walter H. Powell, G. Y. Bradley—_Kitty Clyde’s Sister;_ O. G.
Howland, Seneca Howland, Frank Goodman—the _No-Name;_ William R.
Hawkins, Andrew Hall—_Maid of the Canyon_.
Canyon of Lodore—The Wheatstack. Canyon of Lodore—The Wheatstack.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
Powell, as noted, had been a volunteer officer in the Civil War. After
that he was connected with the Wesleyan University at Bloomington,
Illinois, and with the Normal University at Normal, in the same state.
Sumner, generally known as Jack Sumner, had also been a soldier in the
late war. He was fair-haired and delicate-looking, but with a strong
constitution. Dunn had been a hunter and trapper. Walter Powell was
Major Powell’s youngest brother. He had been in the late war and had
there suffered cruelly by capture and imprisonment. Bradley was an
orderly sergeant of regulars, had served in the late war, and resigned
from the army to join this party. O. G. Howland had been a printer.
Seneca Howland was his younger brother. Goodman was a young Englishman.
Hawkins had been a soldier in the late war, and Andrew Hall was a
Scotch boy nineteen years old.
The spring was chosen for the beginning of the voyage because the Green
then is at flood and there would be less trouble about floating the
boats through the shoal places and amongst the rocks. The river in some
respects is safer at a lower stage of water, but the work is harder.
This, however, was not known then, and Powell had to take his chances
at the flood. On May 24, 1869, the boats were manned and soon were
carried out of sight of the haphazard group of houses which at that
time constituted this frontier settlement of Green River. They were
heavily laden, for ten months’ rations were carried, as Powell expected
when winter came to be obliged to halt and make a permanent camp till
spring. He calculated the river might be filled with ice. It has since
been ascertained, however, that the Colorado proper rarely has any ice
in it. I remember once hearing that a great many years ago it was
frozen over in the neighbourhood of Lee’s Ferry, where for a little
distance the current is not rapid. Powell was providing for every
contingency he could think of, and trouble with ice was a possible one.
But even without ice the water in winter is so cold that, as men who
make the descent must continually be saturated by the breaking waves
and by the necessity of frequently jumping overboard in avoiding rocks,
the danger of pneumonia is really greater than that from wreck. They
had an abundance of warm clothing for winter, plenty of ammunition, two
or three dozen traps, tools of various kinds, nails, screws; etc. In
the line of scientific instruments there were two sextants, four
chronometers, a number of barometers, thermometers, compasses, etc.
With the exception of the _Emma Dean_, which had on board only
instruments and clothing, the boats were loaded in such a way that if
one should be lost the expedition would still possess a variety of
articles and food.
Green River above Flaming Gorge. Green River above Flaming Gorge.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
The first day they met with the usual number of minor accidents, such
as a starting expedition of this kind is seldom free from, like
breaking an oar, running on a shoal, and so on, but all went very well,
and when the evening came an early camp was made, and Powell climbed up
and away from the river to survey the situation.
“Standing on a high point,” he says, “I can look off in every direction
over a vast landscape with salient rocks and cliffs glittering in the
evening sun. Dark shadows are settling in the valleys and gulches, and
the heights are made higher, and the depths deeper by the glamour and
witchery of light and shade. Away to the south, the Uinta mountains
stretch in a long line; high peaks thrust into the sky, and snow-fields
glittering like lakes of molten silver; and pine forests in sombre
green; and rosy clouds playing around the borders of huge black masses;
and heights and clouds and mountains and snow-fields and forests and
rock-lands are blended into one grand view.”
This was the country before him. The Uinta Mountains, stretching their
picturesque and mighty barrier across the determined course of the
river, produce the first series of superb canyons on the threshold of
which Powell and his daring band were now setting foot. On the third
day they were at Henry’s Fork, in the neighbourhood of that first camp
in this locality made by Ashley in 1825, and of his start in the
experiment in canyon running which so nearly terminated his brilliant
career. The “Suck,” noted for its danger among the early trappers, was
easily passed and Powell makes no mention of it. So far as I can
ascertain there were two records kept on this expedition, one by Powell
on strips of brown paper, and the other by Jack Sumner on foolscap. The
latter, comprised in some six or eight pages, was the more complete, I
believe, and is now in Washington. I have not seen it since 1871, when
we were in the habit of daily reading its thrilling pages to find out
what we might next expect in our descent. If any other diary or journal
was kept by the men of this expedition I have not heard of it.
The first rapid is in Horseshoe Canyon, and it was no obstacle, being
small and docile, but when they had gone through the next canyon, named
Kingfisher, they found themselves at the beginning of a new and closer,
deeper gorge, Red Canyon, where the waters first begin to exhibit their
grim intention. Here they encountered real rapids, the boats often
dashing along at railroad speed, the waves fiercely breaking over them,
and bailing becoming an imperative accomplishment. The attempt of a Ute
to run through this canyon was described in picturesque terms by one of
the tribe. “Rocks, heap, heap, high,” he said; “water go hoowoogh,
hoowoogh; water-pony heap buck; water catch um; no see um Injun any
more! no see um squaw any more! no see um papoose any more!” and thus
begins and ends the only history of native navigation on this upper
river I ever heard of.
Red Canyon—Green River. Upper Portion. Looking up Stream. Red
Canyon—Green River. Upper Portion. Looking up Stream.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
After considerable hard work the party reached a particularly sharp,
though not very high, fall, announced before arrival by a loud and
angry roar. Here a portage was deemed wise, and the goods were carried
up over the huge broken rocks and so on down to a point well below the
foot of the drop, where the cargoes were again restored to the boats,
which meanwhile had been lowered by lines. It was here that the name of
Ashley and a year date were found inscribed on a rock. Of this I made a
careful copy in 1871, which is given on page 112. The second figure
could, of course, be only an 8, and the fourth was plainly a 5. The
third, however, was obscure, and Powell was uncertain whether it was a
3 or a 5. It could have been nothing but a 2, because, as we have seen,
it was in the twenties of the last century that Ashley operated in this
region; and it was in 1825 that he made the Red Canyon journey. At the
date which a 3 would make he was a Congressman, and he was never in the
Far West again. Running on through Red Canyon with exhilarating
velocity, but without any serious drawback, the party came out into the
tranquil Brown’s Hole, henceforth called Brown’s Park. At the foot of
this, without any preliminaries, they were literally swept into the
heart of the mountains, for it is here that the river so suddenly rends
the massive formations in twain and speeds away toward the sea between
wonderful precipices of red sandstone, churning itself to ivory in the
headlong rush. This was named the Canyon of Lodore at the suggestion of
one of the men. The work of safely proceeding down the torrent now grew
far more difficult. Rapids were numerous and the descent in most of
them very great. The boats had to be handled with extra caution. The
method of travelling was for Powell to go ahead in the _Emma Dean_ to
examine the nature of each rapid before the other boats should come
down to it. If he saw a clear chute he ran through and signalled “come
on,” but if he thought it too risky he signalled “land,” and the place
was examined as well as he was able from the shore. If this
investigation showed a great many dangerous rocks, or any other
dangerous element, a portage was made, or the boats were let down along
the edge by lines without taking out the cargoes. In this careful way
they were getting along very well, when one day they came to a
particularly threatening place. Powell immediately perceived the
danger, and, landing, signalled the other boats to do likewise.
Unfortunately, the warning came too late for the _No-Name_, which was
drawn into a sag, a sort of hollow lying just above the rapid, to
clutch the unwary and drive them over the fall to certain destruction.
Powell for a moment had given his attention to the last boat, and as he
turned again and hurried along to discover the fortune of the
_No-Name_, which was plunging down, without hope of escape, toward the
frightful descent, he was just in time to see her strike a rock and,
rebounding, careen so that the open compartment filled with water.
Sweeping on down now with railway speed, broadside on, she again struck
a few yards below and was broken completely in two, the three men being
tossed into the foaming flood. They were able to gain some support by
clinging to the main part of the boat, which still held together.
Drifting on swiftly over a few hundred yards more to a second rapid
full of large boulders, the doomed craft struck a third time and was
entirely demolished, the men and the fragments being carried then out
of sight. Powell climbed as rapidly as possible over the huge fallen
rocks, which here lie along the shore he was on, and presently he was
able to get a view of his men. Goodman was in a whirlpool below a great
rock; reaching this he clung to it. Howland had been washed upon a low
rocky island, which at this stage of water was some feet above the
current, and Seneca Howland also had gained this place. Howland
extended a long pole to Goodman and by means of it pulled him to the
island, where all were safe for the time being. Several hundred yards
farther down, the river took another and more violent fall, rendering
the situation exceedingly hazardous. A boat allowed to get a trifle too
far towards this descent would be treated as the _No-Name_ had been
served higher up, and the expedition could not afford to lose a second
boat with its contents. The water in these rapids beats furiously
against the foot of the opposite vertical cliff, and if a boat in
either place should by chance get too far over towards this right-hand
wall it would be dashed to pieces there, even could it escape the rocks
of the main channel. The problem was how to rescue the men from the
island and not destroy another boat in doing it. Finally, the _Emma
Dean_ was brought down, and Jack Sumner undertook to reach the island
in her. Keeping well up stream, as near the first fall as he could, a
few bold strokes enabled him to land near the lower end. Then, all
together, they pulled the boat to the very head of the island and
beyond that as far as they could stand up in the water. Here one man
sat on a rock and held the boat steady till the others were in perfect
readiness to pull with all their power, when he gave a shove and,
clinging on, climbed in while the oarsmen put their muscle to the test.
The shore was safely attained, and Powell writes: “We are as glad to
shake hands with them as though they had been on a voyage around the
world, and wrecked on a distant coast.” This disaster was most serious,
even though the men were saved, for, besides the loss of the craft
itself, all the barometers by some miscalculation were on the
_No-Name_. They were able to make camp on the shore and survey the
situation. “No sleep comes to me in all those dark hours,” writes
Powell. To meet with such a reverse at so early a stage was very
discouraging, but Powell had counted on disaster, and, as he was never
given to repining, as soon as breakfast was eaten the next morning he
cast about for a way to rescue the barometers which were in a part of
the wreck that had lodged among some rocks a half mile below. Sumner
and Dunn volunteered to try to reach the place with the small boat, and
they succeeded. When they returned, a loud cheer went up from those on
shore, and Powell was much impressed with this exhibition of deep
interest in the safety of the scientific instruments, but he soon
discovered that the cheer was in celebration of the rescue of a
three-gallon keg of whiskey that had been smuggled along without his
knowledge and happened to be on the ill-fated _No-Name_.
The Canyon of Lodore—Upper Part of Disaster Falls. The Canyon of
Lodore—Upper Part of Disaster Falls.
Where Powell lost the _No-Name_ in 1869.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
The Canyon of Brush Creek—Looking Up. The Canyon of Brush Creek—Looking
Up.
This stream enters the Green not far below foot of Split-Mountain
Canyon.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
It required a good deal of work to complete the portage around the
double fall so that night again compelled them to camp near its spray,
this time on a sand bank at the foot of the lower descent. Here, half
buried in the gravel of the beach, some objects were discovered which
revealed the fact that some other party had suffered a similar
disastrous experience. These were an iron bake-oven, several tin
plates, fragments of a boat, and other indications of a wreck at this
place long years before. In his report, Powell ascribes this wreck to
Ashley, but this is a mistake, for Ashley seems never to have entered
this canyon, ending his voyage, as I have previously stated, when he
reached Brown’s Park. This wreckage then was from some other and later
party. Powell also states that Ashley and one other survivor succeeded
in reaching Salt Lake, where they were fed and clothed by the Mormons
and employed on the Temple foundation until they had earned enough to
enable them to leave the country. These men could not have been Ashley
and a companion, for several reasons: one cited above; another that the
Mormons had not yet settled at Salt Lake in Ashley’s day; and a third,
that Ashley was a wealthy and distinguished man, and would not have
required pecuniary help. The disaster recorded by the bake-oven, etc.,
must then have occurred after 1847, the year the Mormons went into the
Salt Lake Valley. Possibly it may have been the party mentioned by
Farnham in 1839, though this would not be true if the men found Mormons
at Salt Lake. An old mountaineer, named Baker, once told Powell of a
party of men starting down the river and named Ashley as one, and this
story, which referred undoubtedly to the real Ashley party, became
confused with some other wherein the survivors probably did strike for
Salt Lake and were helped by the Mormons.[1] At any rate, the rapids
which had wrecked the earlier party and swallowed up the _No-Name_ were
appropriately called Disaster Falls.
[1] Should any reader have knowledge of the men who were wrecked in
Lodore between the time of Ashley and Powell, the author would be glad
to hear of it.
The Canyon of Lodore. The Canyon of Lodore.
Looking down on Triplet Falls. Depth about 2500 feet.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN U.S. Geol. Survey.
Echo Rock on Right, from which Echo Park Takes its Name. Echo Rock on
Right, from which Echo Park Takes its Name.
To one sitting in a boat near foreground a sentence of ten words is
repeated.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN.
The river descends throughout Lodore with great rapidity and every day
brought with it hard work and narrow escapes. Sometimes the danger was
of a novel and unexpected character, as on June 16th, when the dry
willows around camp caught fire. Powell had started for a climb of
investigation and looking down on the camp he perceived a sudden
tremendous activity without being able for some moments to discover the
cause. So rapidly did the fire spread that there was no escape except
by the boats. Some had their clothing burned and their hair singed,
while Bradley even had his ears scorched. The cook in his haste
stumbled with his arms full of culinary utensils, and the load
disappeared beneath the waters, ever on the alert to swallow up man,
boat, or beast. Just below the camp was a rapid and, casting off, they
were forced to run this without stopping to examine it. No harm was
done to the boats, and they landed at the first opportunity. When the
fire had burned out they went back along the rocks to pick up what had
been left behind and was unconsumed. On the same day, as the men were
in the act of lowering a boat by lines, she broke away and started on
an independent run. Fortunately, she soon became entangled in an eddy,
where she halted long enough to permit them to hurry down the small
boat and recapture her. Sometimes the channel was beset with
innumerable great rocks, amidst which the river seethed and boiled in a
manner sufficient to terrify any boatmen, but, luckily, they were able
to work their way cautiously along, and without further disaster they
came, on the 17th of June, to a place where the walls broke away and
they emerged into a beautiful park-like widening of the canyon with
bounding cliffs only about 600 feet high near the river. After the
continuous cliffs of from 2000 to 2500 feet this place seemed like open
country. Once more they camped in a quiet place at the mouth of a river
entering through a deep canyon on the left or east side. It was the
Yampa, sometimes called Bear River. After a side trip of several hours
up this canyon they started again on the descent and, skirting the
smooth perpendicular wall which forms the west side of Echo Park, they
turned a corner and found themselves in a new gorge, which, on account
of many whirlpools existing at that stage of water, was called
Whirlpool Canyon. The run through this was accomplished with great
rapidity, as there were no serious obstacles, and in two days the
expedition emerged into another expansion of the walls, where the tired
men had a brief respite before they perceived the rocks, again closing
in on the water.
Here a deer was brought in by one of the men, and, as they killed a
mountain sheep farther up, they had not suffered for fresh meat. The
entrance to the next canyon was very abrupt, and they were soon
whirling along on a swift current. Though there were many rapids,
landings were easy, and there was plenty of standing room everywhere,
so that in two days they had the pleasure of pulling out of this Split
Mountain Canyon into the Wonsits Valley, the longest opening in the
whole line of canyons. Thus far, no Amerinds had been seen, not even
signs of them, but here they found some tipi poles and the dead embers
of a camp-fire, showing that other human beings besides themselves had
traversed the lands now about them. Pushing ahead over the sluggish
waters of the river in this valley, they were not long in arriving at
the mouth of the Uinta River, where Powell and two others walked out to
the Ute Agency, about forty miles distant up the Uinta. One of the crew
of the wrecked _No-Name_, Frank Goodman, here decided that he had seen
all the canyons his education required and took his departure. This was
not unwelcome to Powell, for the boats were still heavily loaded and
the three men who had composed the crew of the wrecked boat were no
longer actually required. Starting again, they arrived, not far below
the mouth of the Uinta, at an island where a small crop had been
planted by a “squaw-man,”[2] who had visited Powell’s camp the previous
winter. On that occasion he had disclosed his intention of tilling this
place and invited Powell to help himself when he passed there in his
boats. The man was not at the farm, and nothing was ripe, but Hall
suggested that potato-tops make good “greens.” A quantity was therefore
secured, and, at the noon stop, cooked and eaten, with the obvious
result that all were violently sick. Luckily, the sickness was brief,
and they were able to proceed by the middle of the afternoon. Often,
the longing, by men living on bacon and beans, for something fresh in
the vegetable line, leads to foolish experiments.
[2] A white man married to a squaw, and living with the tribe.
The Canyon of Desolation—Sumner’s Amphitheatre. The Canyon of
Desolation—Sumner’s Amphitheatre.
Walls about 1200 feet.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
This Wonsits Valley soon came to an end and once more the rocks closed
in, forming a canyon lacking the vegetation that had accompanied the
cliffs along the river above. Because of this general barren appearance
the gorge was called the Canyon of Desolation. On July 11th, they
approached a rapid which seemed at first glance no more difficult to
run than many they had successfully dashed through. The leading boat by
Powell’s direction pulled, into it, but this move was no sooner made
than he perceived that at the bottom the river turned sharply to the
left and the waters were piled against the foot of the cliff in an
alarming manner. An effort was made to land, but as they had shortly
before broken one oar and lost another, the two remaining were not
sufficient to propel the boat with force enough to reach the desired
point. At the same time, a huge wave striking the boat turned it
instantly upside down and cast Powell some distance away. He succeeded
in reaching her side, and there found Sumner and Dunn clinging. When
quiet water was again entered they attempted to right the craft, and in
doing this Dunn lost his hold and went under, though at the critical
moment, as he came up, Sumner succeeded in grasping him and drawing him
to the boat. By this time, they had drifted a long way down and saw
another rapid approaching. By swimming desperately, they avoided being
carried into this in their awkward plight, and, towing the boat after
them, landed none too soon on a pile of driftwood on the bank. A gun,
some barometers, and other articles that were in the open compartment,
were lost, though one roll of blankets had been caught and saved by
Powell as it drifted by. Building a large fire on the shore, they dried
their clothing, while out of one of the logs they manufactured
much-needed oars.
The Canyon of Desolation—Low Water. The Canyon of Desolation—Low Water.
Cliffs about 2700 feet. Note boat with men on rocks, middle distance,
making a let-down.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
Fortified by these, they ran several bad rapids the following day. In
one, Bradley was knocked overboard, but, his foot catching under the
seat, he was dragged head down through the water till the worst of the
fall was passed, when one of the other men managed to haul him in. Just
below this, they emerged again into an expansion of the walls, leaving
the ninety-seven miles of Desolation behind. But another mile brought
the rocks back once more, and the thirty-six miles of Gray Canyon must
be passed before they came to Gunnison Valley. Beyond this, walls of
sandstone about one thousand feet high hemmed the river in for some
sixty miles, but the stream was not dangerous and the party moved on
quickly, though the absence of rapids and swift water made rowing
obligatory. At the foot of this gorge, called from its winding
character, Labyrinth Canyon, there was a brief expansion before the
next walls closed upon them. These were closer than any seen above, but
the river, though swift, had no dangerous element, so that progress was
safe and easy, and in a trifle over forty miles they came to the mouth
of a river almost as large as the Green, flowing in a canyon of similar
depth and character. This was Grand River. At last they had reached the
place where these two streams unite, thirteen hundred feet below the
surrounding country; the mysterious Junction which, so far as the
records go, Macomb and all white men before had failed to find.
Therefore when Powell and his band floated down till the waters of the
Green mingled with those of the Grand they were perhaps the first white
men ever to arrive at the spot. The Colorado proper was now before
them. It was the mystery of mysteries.