THE LAST PORTAGE AND THE LAST RAPIDS
The first section of Separation Rapid was run the first thing in the
morning, a manœuvre that was accomplished by starting on the left
shore and crossing the swift centre clear to the other shore. This
allowed us to reach some quiet water near a small deposit of rock and
earth at the base of the sheer wall. Two feet of water would have
covered this deposit; likewise two feet of water would have given
us a clear channel over this second section. As it was, the rapid
was rough, with many rocks very near the surface. Directly across
from us, close to the left shore, was what looked like a ten-foot
geyser, or fountain of water. This was caused by a rock in the path
of a strong current rebounding from the shore. The water ran up on
the side near the wall, then fell on all sides. It was seldom the
water had force enough to carry to the top of a rock as large as
that. This portage of the second section was one of the easiest we
had made. By rolling a few large rocks around we could get a stream
of water across our small shore large enough to float an empty boat
with a little help, so we lightened them of the cargo and floated
them through our canal. While running the third section the _Edith_
was carried up on the sloping rock in the middle of the stream; she
paused a moment, then came down like a shot and whirled around to the
side without mishap. This made the thirteenth rapid in which both
boats were lined or portaged. In three other rapids one boat was run
through and one was portaged. Half of all these rapids were located
in the Grand Canyon.
All this time we were anxiously looking forward to a rapid which Mr.
Stone had described as being the worst in the entire series, also the
last rapid we would be likely to portage and had informed us that
below this particular rapid everything could be run with little or no
inspection. Naturally we were anxious to get that rapid behind us. It
was described as being located below a small stream flowing from the
south. The same rapid was described by Major Powell as having a bold,
lava-capped escarpment at the head of the rapid, on the right. We had
not seen any lava since leaving Diamond Creek, and an entry in my
notes reads, “we have gone over Stone’s ‘big rapid’ three times and
it is still ahead of us.” The knowledge that there was a big rapid in
the indefinite somewhere that was likely to cause us trouble seemed
to give us more anxious moments than the many unmentioned rapids we
were finding all this time. We wondered how high the escarpment was,
and if we could take our boats over its top. We tried to convince
ourselves that it was behind us, although sure that it could not be.
But the absence of lava puzzled us. After one “bad” rapid and several
“good” rapids we came to a sharp turn in the canyon. Emery was ahead
and called back, “I see a little stream”; Bert joined with “I see the
lava”; and the “Bold Escarpment Rapid,” as we had been calling it for
some time, was before us. It was more than a nasty rapid, it was a
cataract!
What a din that water sent up! We had to yell to make ourselves
heard. The air vibrated with the impact of water against rock. The
rapid was nearly half a mile long. There were two sections near
its head staggered with great rocks, forty of them, just above or
slightly submerged under the surface of the water. Our low stage
of water helped us, so that we did not have to line the boats
from the ledge, eighty feet above the water, as others had done.
The rapid broke just below the lower end of the sheer rock, which
extended twenty feet beyond the irregular shore. The _Edith_ went
first, headed upstream, at a slight angle nearly touching the wall,
dropping a few inches between each restraining stroke of the oars.
Bert crouched on the bow, ready to spring with the rope, as soon as
Emery passed the wall and headed her in below the wall. Jumping to
the shore, he took a snub around a boulder and kept her from being
dragged into the rapid. Then they both caught the _Defiance_ as
she swung in below the rock, and half the battle was won before we
tackled the rapid.
Our days were short, and we did not take the boats down until the
next day; but we did carry much of the camp material and cargo
halfway down over ledges a hundred feet above the river. For a bad
rapid we were very fortunate in getting past it as easily as we did.
Logs were laid over rocks, the boats were skidded over them about
their own length and dropped in again. Logs and boats were lined down
in the swift, but less riotous water, to the next barrier, which
was more difficult. A ten-foot rounded boulder lay close to the
shore, with smaller rocks, smooth and ice-filmed, scattered between.
Powerful currents swirled between these rocks and disappeared under
two others, wedged closely together on top. Three times the logs
were snatched from our grasp as we tried to bridge them across this
current, and they vanished in the foam, to shoot out end first,
twenty feet below and race away on the leaping water. A boat would be
smashed to kindling-wood if once carried under there. At last we got
our logs wedged, and an hour of tugging, in which only two men could
take part at the same time, landed both boats in safety below this
barrier. We shot the remainder of the rapid on water so swift that
the oars were snatched from our hands if we tried to do more than
keep the boats straight with the current. That rapid was no longer
the “Bold Escarpment,” but the “Last Portage” instead, and it was
behind us.
[Illustration:
H. LAUZON. E. L. KOLB. _Copyright by Kolb Bros._
THE LAST PORTAGE. THE ROCKS WERE ICE-FILMED. NOTE POTHOLES.]
The afternoon was half gone when we made ready pull away from the
Last Portage. There were other rapids, but scarcely a pause was made
in our two-hour run, and we camped away from the roar of water. The
canyon was widening out a little at a time; the granite disappeared
in the following day’s run, at noon. Grass-covered slopes, with
seeping mineral springs, took the place of precipitous walls; they
dropped to 2500 feet in height; numerous side canyons cut the walls
in regular sections like gigantic city blocks, instead of an unbroken
avenue. Small rapids continued to appear, there were a few small
islands, and divided currents, so shallow they sometimes kept us
guessing which one to take, but we continued to run them all without
a pause. We would have run out of the canyon that day but for one
thing. Five mountain-sheep were seen from our boats in one of the
sloping grassy meadows above the river. We landed below, carried our
cameras back, and spent half an hour in trying to see them again, but
they had taken alarm.
Placer claim locations and fresh burro tracks were seen in the sand
at our last Grand Canyon camp, and a half mile below us we could
see out into open country. We found the walls, or the end of the
table-land, to be about two thousand feet high, with the canyon
emerging at a sharp angle so that a narrow ridge, or “hogs-back” lay
on the left side of the stream. Once out in the open, the walls were
seen to be quite steep, but could be climbed to the top almost any
place without trouble. Saturday, January the 13th, we were out of the
canyon at last, and the towering walls, now friendly, now menacing,
were behind us. Three hundred and sixty-five large rapids, and nearly
twice as many small rapids, were behind us and the dream of ten years
was an accomplished fact. But best of all, there were no tragedies
or fatalities to record. Perhaps we did look a little the worse for
wear, but a few days away from the river would repair all that. The
boats had a bump here and there, besides the one big patch on the
_Edith_; a little mending and a little caulking would put both the
_Edith_ and _Defiance_ in first-class condition.
There is little of interest to record of our 175-mile run to Needles,
California. It was a land of desolation--an extension of the Mojave
Desert on the south, and the alkaline flats and mineral mountains
of Nevada on the north, of Death Valley and the Funeral Mountains
of California to the northwest--a burned-out land of grim-looking
mountains extending north and south across our way; a dried-out,
washed-out, and wind-swept land of extensive flats and arroyos; a
land of rock and gravel cemented in marls and clay; ungraced with any
but the desert plants,--cactus and thorny shrubs,--with little that
was pleasing or attractive. A desert land it is true, but needing
only the magic touch of water to transform much of it into a garden
spot. Even as it was, a few months later it would be covered with
the flaming blossoms of the desert growth, which seem to try to make
amends in one or two short months for nearly a year of desolation.
A wash ran along the base of the plateau from which we had emerged.
An abandoned road and ferry showed that this had once been a
well-travelled route. The stream had a good current and we pulled
away, only stopping once to see the last of our plateau before a turn
and deepening banks hid it from view. We wondered if the water ever
dropped in a precipitous fall over the face of the wall and worked
back, a little every year, as it does at Niagara. We could hardly
doubt that there were some such falls back in the dim past when these
canyons were being carved.
In the middle of the afternoon we passed a ranch or a house with a
little garden, occupied by two miners, who hailed us from the shore.
A half-mile below was the Scanlon Ferry, a binding tie between
Arizona, on the south and what was now Nevada, on the north, for we
had reached the boundary line shortly after emerging from the canyon.
We still travelled nearly directly west. The ferry was in charge of a
Cornishman who also had as pretty a little ranch as one could expect
to find in such an unlikely place. A purling stream of water, piped
from somewhere up in the hills, had caused the transformation. The
ranch was very homey with cattle and horses, sheep and hogs, dogs and
cats, all sleek and contented-looking. The garden proved that this
country had a warm climate, although we were not suffering from heat
at that time. An effort was being made to grow some orange trees, but
with little promise of success; there were fig trees and date-palms,
with frozen dates hanging on the branches, one effect of the coldest
winter they had seen in this section.
The rancher told us he could not sell us anything that had to be
brought in, for it was seventy miles to the railroad, but we could
look over such supplies as he had. It ended by his selling us a
chicken, two dozen eggs, five pounds of honey, and ten pounds of
flour,--all for $2.50. We did not leave until the next morning, then
bought another jar of honey, for we had no sugar, and two-thirds of
the first jar was eaten before we left the ferry.
[Illustration: MOONEY FALLS: HA VA SU CANYON.]
We pulled away in such a hurry the next morning that we forgot an axe
that had been carried with us for the entire journey. A five-hour
run brought us to the mouth of the Virgin River, a sand-bar a mile
wide, and with a red-coloured stream little larger than Cataract
Creek winding through it. We had once seen this stream near its head
waters, a beautiful mountain creek, that seemed to bear no relation
to this repulsive-looking stream that entered from the north.
A large, flat-topped, adobe building, apparently deserted, stood
off at one side of the stream. This was the head of navigation for
flat-bottomed steamboats that once plied between here and the towns
on the lower end of the river. They carried supplies for small mines
scattered through the mountains and took out cargoes of ore, and of
rock salt which was mined back in Nevada.
It was here at the Virgin River that Major Powell concluded his
original voyage of exploration. Some of his men took the boats on
down to Fort Mojave, a few miles above Needles; afterwards two of
the party continued on to the Gulf. The country below the Virgin
River had been explored by several parties, but previous to this time
nothing definite was known of the gorges until this exploration by
this most remarkable man. The difficulties of this hazardous trip
were increased for him by the fact that he had lost an arm in the
Civil War.
It is usually taken for granted that the United States government was
back of this exploration. This was true of the second expedition, but
not of the first. Major Powell was aided to a certain extent by the
State College of Illinois, otherwise he bore all the expense himself.
We received $10,000 from the government to apply on the expenses of
the second trip.
We felt that we had some reason to feel a justifiable pride for
having duplicated, in some ways, this arduous journey. It was
impossible for us to do more than guess what must have been the
feelings and anxieties of this explorer. Added to the fact that we
had boats, tested and constructed to meet the requirements of the
river, and the benefit of others’ experiences, was a knowledge that
we were not likely to be precipitated over a waterfall, or if we
lost everything and succeeded in climbing out, that there were a few
ranches and distant settlements scattered through the country.
But we had traversed the same river and the same canyons which change
but little from year to year, and had succeeded beyond our fondest
hopes in having accomplished what we set out to do.
The Black Mountains, dark and forbidding, composed of a hard rock
which gave a metallic clink, and decorated with large spots of
white, yellow, vermilion, and purple deposits of volcanic ashes,
were entered this afternoon. The peaks were about a thousand feet
high. The passage between is known as Boulder Canyon. Here we met
two miners at work on a tunnel, or drift, who informed us that it
was about forty miles to Las Vegas, Nevada, and that it was only
twenty-five miles from the mouth of Las Vegas Wash, farther down the
river, to this same town and the railroad.
Fort Callville--an abandoned rock building, constructed by the
directions of Brigham Young, without windows or roof, and surrounded
by stone corrals--was passed the next day. At Las Vegas Wash the
river turned at right angles, going directly south, holding with very
little deviation to this general direction until it empties into the
Gulf of California nearly five hundred miles away. The river seemed
to be growing smaller as we got out in the open country. Like all
Western rivers, when unprotected by canyons, it was sinking in the
sand. Sand-bars impeded our progress at such places as the mouth of
the Wash. But we had a good current, without rapids in Black Canyon,
which came shortly below, and mile after mile was put behind us
before we camped for the night.
An old stamp-mill, closed for the time, but in charge of three men
who were making preparations to resume work, was passed the next day.
They had telephone communication with Searchlight, Nevada, twenty odd
miles away, and we sent out some telegrams in that way.
More sand-bars were encountered the next day, and ranches began to
appear on both sides of the river. We had difficulty on some of
these bars. In places the river bed was a mile wide, with stagnant
pools above the sand, and with one deep channel twisting between. At
Fort Mojave, now an Indian school and agency, we telephoned to some
friends in Needles, as we had promised to do, telling them we would
arrive about noon of the following day. We made a mistake in not
camping at the high ground by the “fort” that night, for just below
the river widened again and the channel turned out in the centre.
It was getting dark and we had entered this before noticing which
way it turned, and had a hard pull back to the shore, for we had
no desire to camp out there in the quicksand. The shore was little
more desirable. It was a marsh, covered with a growth of flags and
tules but with the ground frozen enough so that we did not sink. Our
last camp--No. 76--was made in this marsh. There we spent the night,
hidden like hunted savages in the cane-brake, while an Indian brass
band played some very good music for an officers’ ball, less than
half a mile away.
We were up and away with the sun the next morning. On nearing
Needles, a friend met us on the outskirts of the town and informed
us that they had arranged what he called an official landing and
reception. At his request we deferred going down at once, but busied
ourselves instead at packing our cargo, ready for shipping. Our
friend had secured the services of a motion-picture operator and our
own camera was sent down to make a picture of the landing, which was
made as he had arranged.
[Illustration: _Copyright by Kolb Bros._
WATCHING FOR THE SIGNAL FIRE. MRS. EMERY AND EDITH KOLB.]
We landed in Needles January 18, 1912; one month from the time of our
start from Bright Angel Trail, with a total of one hundred and one
days spent along the river. In that time our camps had been changed
seventy-six times. Our two boats, highly prized as souvenirs of
our twelve hundred mile trip, and which had carried us through three
hundred and sixty-five big rapids, over a total descent of more than
five thousand feet, were loaded on cars ready for shipment; the
_Edith_ to Los Angeles, the _Defiance_ to the Grand Canyon.
Among other mail awaiting us was the following letter, bearing the
postmark of Hite, Utah:
“KOLB BROS.,
“DEAR FRIENDS:
“Well I got here at last after seventeen days in Cataract Canyon. The
old boat will stand a little quiet water but will never go through
another rapid. I certainly played ‘ring-a-round’ some of those rocks
in Cataract Canyon; I tried every scheme I had ever heard of, and
some that were never thought of before. At the last rapid in Cataract
I carried all my stuff over the cliff, then tried to line the boat
from the narrow ledge. The boat jerked me into the river, but I did
not lose my hold on the chain and climbed on board. I had no oars,
but managed to get through without striking any rocks, and landed a
mile and a half below the supplies. I hope the ‘movies’ are good.[7]
“Sincerely yours,
“CHAS. SMITH.”
CONCLUSION. HOW I WENT TO MEXICO