 5 From Green River City to Flaming Gorge. In the summer of 1867 with a small party of naturalist students and amateurs like myself I visited the mountain region of Colorado Territory. While in Middle Park I explored a little canyon through which the Grand River runs immediately below the now well-known watering place, Middle Park Hot Springs. Later in the fall I passed through Cedar Canyon, the gorge by which the Grand leaves the park. A result of the summer study was to kindle a desire to explore the canyons of the Grand, Green, and Colorado rivers, and the next summer I organized an expedition with the intention of penetrating still farther into that canyon country. As soon as the snows were melted so that the main range could be crossed I went over into Middle Park and proceeded thence down the Grand to the head of Cedar Canyon, then across the park range by Gore's Pass, and in October found myself and party encamped on the White River, about 120 miles above its mouth. At that point I built cabins and established winter quarters intending to occupy the cold season as far as possible in exploring the adjacent country. The winter of 1868-69 proved favorable to my purposes and several excursions were made southward to the Grand, down the White to the Green, northward to the Yampa, and around the Uinta Mountains. During these several excursions I seized every opportunity to study the canyons through which these upper streams run, and while thus engaged formed plans for the exploration of the canyons of the Colorado. Since that time I have been engaged in executing these plans, sometimes employed in the field, sometimes in the office. Begun originally as an exploration the work was finally developed into a survey embracing the geography, geology, ethnography, and natural history of the country, and a number of gentlemen have from time to time assisted me in the work. Early in the spring of 1869 a party was organized for the exploration of the canyons. Boats were built in Chicago and transported by rail to the point where the Union Pacific Railroad crosses the Green River. With these we were to descend the Green to the Colorado and the Colorado down to the foot of the Grand Canyon. May 24, 1869. The good people of Green River City turn out to see us start. We raise our little flag, push the boats from shore, and the swift current carries us down. Our boats are four in number, three are built oak, stanch and firm, double-ribbed with double-stem and stern posts, and further strengthened by bulkheads dividing each into three compartments. Two of these, the four in aft, are decked forming watertight cabins. It is expected these will buoy the boats should the waves roll over them in rough water. The fourth boat is made of pine, very light, but 16 feet in length with a sharp cut water and every way built for fast rowing and divided into compartments as the others. The little vessels are 21 feet long and taking out the cargoes can be carried by four men. We take with us rations deemed sufficient to last 10 months for we expect when winter comes on and the river is filled with ice to lie over at some point until spring arrives, and so we take with us abundant supplies of clothing likewise. We have also a large quantity of ammunition and two or three dozen traps. For the purposes of building cabins, repairing boats and meeting other exigencies, we are supplied with axes, hammers, saws, augers and other tools and a quantity of nails and screws. For scientific work, we have two sextants, four chronometers, a number of barometers, thermometers, compasses and other instruments. The flower is divided into three equal parts, the meat and all other articles of our rations in the same way, each of the larger boats has an axe, hammer, saw, auger and other tools so that all are loaded alike. We distribute the cargoes in this way that we may not be entirely destitute of some important article should any one of the boats be lost. In the small boat we pack a part of the scientific instruments, three guns and three small bundles of clothing only, and in this I proceed in advance to explore the channel. JC Sumner and William H. Dunn are my boatmen in the Emma Dean, then follows Kitty Clyde's sister, manned by W. H. Powell and G. Y. Bradley, next the no-name with O. G. Howland, Seneca Howland and Frank Goodman, and last comes the maid of the canyon with W. E. Hawkins and Andrew Hall. Sumner was a soldier during the late war and before and since that time has been a great traveler in the wilds of the Mississippi Valley and the Rocky Mountains as an amateur hunter. He is a fair-haired, delicate-looking man but a veteran in experience and has performed the feat of crossing the Rocky Mountains in midwinter on snowshoes. He spent the winter of 1886-87 in Middle Park, Colorado for the purpose of making some natural history collections for me, and succeeded in killing three grizzlies, two mountain lions, and a large number of elk, deer, sheep, wolves, beavers, and many other animals. When Bayard Taylor traveled through the parks of Colorado, Sumner was his guide and he speaks in glowing terms of Mr. Taylor's genial qualities in camp, but he was mortally offended when the great traveler requested him to act as doorkeeper at Breckenridge to receive the admission fee from those who attended his lectures. Captain was a hunter, trapper, and mule-packer in Colorado for many years. He dresses in buckskin with a dark oleaginous luster, doubtless due to the fact that he has lived on fat venison, and killed many beavers since he first donned his uniform years ago. His raven hair falls down to his back for he has a sublime contempt of shears and razors. Captain Powell was an officer of artillery during the late war and was captured on the 22nd day of July 1864 at Atlanta and served 10 months term in prison at Charleston where he was placed with other officers under fire. He is silent, moody, and sarcastic, though sometimes he enlivens the camp at night with a song. He is never surprised at anything. His coolness never deserts him, and he would choke the belching throat of a volcano if he thought the spitfire meant anything but fun. We call him Old Shady. Bradley, a lieutenant during the late war, and since orderly sergeant in the regular army, was a few weeks previous to our start discharged by order of the secretary of war that he might go on this trip. He is scrupulously careful, and a little mishap works him into a passion, but when labor is needed he has a ready hand and powerful arm, and in danger, rapid judgment and unerring skill. A great difficulty or peril changes the petulant spirit into a brave, generous soul. O.G. Howland is a printer by trade, an editor by profession, and a hunter by choice. When busily employed, he usually puts his hat in his pocket, and his thin hair and long beard stream in the wind, giving him a wild look much like that of King Lear in an illustrated copy of Shakespeare which tumbles around the camp. Seneca Howland is a quiet, pensive young man, and a great favorite with all. Goodman is a stranger to us, a stout, willing Englishman with florid face and more florid anticipations of a glorious trip. Billy Hawkins, the cook, was a soldier in the Union Army during the war, and when discharged at its close, went west, and since then has been engaged as teamster on the plains or hunter in the mountains. He is an athlete and a jovial good fellow who hardly seems to know his own strength. Paul is a Scotch boy, nineteen years old, with what seems to us a second hand head, which doubtless came down to him from some night who wore it during the border wars. It looks a very old head indeed, with deep set blue eyes and beaked nose. Young as he is, Paul has had experience in hunting, trapping, and fighting Indians, and he makes the most of it, for he can tell a good story, and is never encumbered by unnecessary scruples in giving to his narratives those embellishments which help to make a story complete. He is always ready for work or play, and is a good hand at either. Our boats are heavily loaded, and only with the utmost care is it possible to float in the rough river without shipping water. A mile or two below town we run on a sandbar. The men jump into the stream, and thus lighten the vessels, so that they drift over, and on we go. In trying to avoid a rock, an aura is broken on one of the boats, and thus crippled she strikes. The current is swift, and she is sent reeling and rocking into the eddy. In the confusion two other auras are lost overboard, and the men seem quite discomfited, much to the amusement of the other members of the party. Catching the auras and starting again, the boats are once more born down the stream, until we land at a small cottonwood grove on the bank, and camp for noon. During the afternoon we run down to a point where the river sweeps the foot of an overhanging cliff, and here we camp for the night. The sun is yet two hours high, so I climb the cliffs and walk back among the strangely carved rocks of the Green River Badlands. These are sandstones and shales, gray and buff, red and brown, blue and black strata in many alternations, lying nearly horizontal and almost without soil and vegetation. They are very friable, and the rain and streams have carved them into quaint shapes. The wind desolation is stretched before me, and yet there is a beauty in the scene. The fantastic carvings, imitating architectural forms and suggesting rude but weird statuary with the bright and varied colors of the rocks, conspire to make a scene such as the dweller in verdure clad hills can scarcely appreciate. Standing on a high point I can look off in every direction over a vast landscape with salient rocks and cliffs littering in the evening sun. Dark shadows are settling in the valleys and gulches, and the hights 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 and somber 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. Now the sun goes down and I return to camp. May 25. We start early this morning and run along at a good rate until about nine o'clock when we are brought up on a gravelly bar. All jump out and help the boats over by main strength. Then a rain comes on and river and clouds conspire to give us a thorough drenching. Wet, chilled, and tired to exhaustion we stop at a cottonwood grove on the bank, build a huge fire, make a cup of coffee, and are soon refreshed and quite merry. When the clouds get out of our sunshine we start again. A few miles farther down a flock of mountain sheep are seen on a cliff to the right. The boats are quietly tied up and three or four men go after them. In the course of two or three hours they return, the cook has been successful in bringing down a fat lamb. The unsuccessful hunters taunt him with finding it dead, but it is soon dressed, cooked, and eaten, and makes a fine four o'clock dinner. All aboard and down the river for another dozen miles, on the way we pass the mouth of Black's Fork, a dirty little stream that seems somewhat swollen, just below its mouth we land and camp. May 26. Today we pass several curiously shaped buttes standing between the west bank of the river and the high bluffs beyond. These buttes are outliers of the same beds of rocks as are exposed on the faces of the bluffs, thinly laminated shales and sandstones of many colors standing above in vertical cliffs and buttressed below with a water-carbed talus. Some of them attain an altitude of nearly a thousand feet above the level of the river. We glide quietly down the placid stream past the carved cliffs of the Mavez Terre, now and then obtaining glimpses of distant mountains. Occasionally deer are started from the glades among the willows, and several wild geese after a chase through the water are shot. After dinner we pass through a short and narrow canyon into a broad valley. From this long lateral valley stretch back on either side as far as the eye can reach. Two or three miles below Henry's Fork enters from the right, we land a short distance above the junction where a cache of instruments and rations was made several months ago in a cave at the foot of the cliff, a distance back from the river. Here they were safe from the elements and wild beasts, but not from man. Some anxiety has felt as we have learned that a party of Indians have been camped near the place for several weeks. Our fears are soon allayed, for we find the cache undisturbed. Our chronometer wheels have not been taken for hair ornaments, our barometer tubes for beads, or the sextant thrown into the river as bad medicine, as had been predicted. Taking up our cache we pass down to the foot of the Uinta mountains and in a cold storm go into camp. The river is running to the south. The mountains have an easterly and westerly trend directly a thwart its course, yet it glides on in a quiet way, as if it thought a mountain range no formidable obstruction. It enters the range by a flaring brilliant red gorge that may be seen from the north a score of miles away. The great mass of the mountain ridge through which the gorge is cut is composed of bright vermilion rocks, but they are surmounted by broad bands of mottled buff and gray and these bands come down with a gentle curve to the water's edge on the nearer slopes of the mountain. This is the head of the first of the canyons we are about to explore, an introductory one to a series made by the river through this range. We name it flaming gorge, the cliffs or walls we find on in measurement to be about 1,200 feet high. May 27, today it rains and we employ the time in repairing one of our barometers which was broken on the way from New York. A new tube has to be put in, that is a long glass tube has to be filled with mercury, four or five inches at a time, and each installment boiled over a spirit lamp. It is a delicate task to do this without breaking the glass, but we have success and are ready to measure mountains once more. May 28, today we go to the summit of the cliff on the left and take observations for altitude and are variously employed in topographic and geologic work. May 29, this morning Bradley and I cross the river and climb more than 1,000 feet to a point where we can see the stream sweeping in a long beautiful curve through the gorge below. Turning and looking to the west we can see the valley of Henry's Fork through which for many miles the little river flows in a tortuous channel. Cottonwood groves are planted here and there along its course and between them are stretches of grassland. The narrow mountain valley is enclosed on either side by sloping walls of naked rock of many bright colors. To the south of the valley are the ointas and the peaks of the Wasatch Mountains can be faintly seen in the far west. To the north desert plains dotted here and there with curiously carved hills and buttes extend to the limit of vision. For many years this valley has been the home of a number of mountaineers who were originally hunters and trappers living with the Indians. Most of them have one or more Indian wives. They no longer roam with the nomadic tribes in pursuit of buckskin or beaver but have accumulated herds of cattle and horses and consider themselves quite well to do. Some of them have built cabins, others still live in lodges. John Baker is one of the most famous of these men and from our point of view we can see his lodge three or four miles up the river. The distance from Green River City to Flaming Gorge is 62 miles. The river runs between bluffs in some places standing so close to each other that no flood plain is seen. At such a point the river might properly be said to run through a canyon. The badlands on either side are interrupted here and there by patches of Artemisia or sage brush where there is a flood plain along either side of the river a few cotton woods may be seen. End of Chapter 5, recorded by Brian Ness. CHAPTER 6 From Flaming Gorge to the Gate of Lodour One must not think of a mountain range as a line of peaks standing on a plain, but as a broad platform many miles wide from which mountains have been carved by the waters. One must conceive too that this plateau is cut by gulches and canyons in many directions and that beautiful valleys are scattered about at different altitudes. The first series of canyons we are about to explore constitutes a river channel through such a range of mountains. The canyon is cut nearly halfway through the range then turns to the east and is cut along the central line or axis gradually crossing it to the south. Keeping this direction for more than 50 miles it then turns abruptly to a southwest course and goes diagonally through the southern slope of the range. This much we know before entering as we made a partial exploration of the region last fall climbing many of its peaks and in a few places reaching the brink of the canyon walls and looking over precipices many hundreds of feet high to the water below. Here and there the walls are broken by lateral canyons the channels of little streams entering the river. Through two or three of these we found our way down to the green in early winter and walked along the low water beach at the foot of the cliffs for several miles. Where the river has this general easterly direction the western part only has cut for itself a canyon while the eastern has formed a broad valley called in honor of an old-time trapper Brown's Park and long known as a favorite winter resort for mountain men and Indians. May 30th. This morning we are ready to enter the mysterious canyon and start with some anxiety. The old mountaineers tell us that it cannot be run the Indians say water heaped catch them but all are eager for the trial and off we go. Entering Flaming Gorge we quickly run through it on a swift current and emerge into a little park. Half a mile below the river wheels sharply to the left and enters another canyon cut into the mountain. We enter the narrow passage. On either side the walls rapidly increase in altitude. On the left are overhanging ledges and cliffs. 500, 1000, 1500 feet high. On the right the rocks are broken and ragged and the water fills the channel from cliff to cliff. Now the river turns abruptly around and we point to the right and the waters plunge swiftly down among great rocks and here we have our first experience with canyon rapids. I stand up on the deck of my boat to seek away among the wave beaten rocks. All untried as we are with such waters the moments are filled with intense anxiety. Soon our boats reach the swift current. A stroke or two, now on this side, now on that and we thread the narrow passage with exhilarating velocity. Mounting the high waves whose foaming crests dash over us and plunging into the troughs until we reach the quiet water below. Then comes a feeling of great relief. Our first rapid is run. Another mile and we come into the valley again. Let me explain this canyon. Where the river turns to the left above it takes a course directly into the mountain penetrating to its very heart then wheels back upon itself and runs out into the valley from which it started only half a mile below the point at which it entered. So the canyon is in the form of an elongated letter U with the apex in the center of the mountain. We name it Horseshoe Canyon. Soon we leave the valley and enter another short canyon very narrow at first but widening below as the canyon walls increase in height. Here we discover the mouth of a beautiful little creek coming down through its narrow water-worn cleft. Just at its entrance there is a park of two or 300 acres walled on every side by almost vertical cliffs hundreds of feet in altitude with three gateways through the walls one up the river, another down and a third through which the creek comes in. The river is broad, deep and quiet and its waters mirror towering rocks. Kingfishers are playing about the streams and so we adopt as names Kingfisher Creek, Kingfisher Park and Kingfisher Canyon. At night we camp at the foot of this canyon. Our general course this day has been south but here the river turns to the east around a point which is rounded to the shape of a dome. On its sides little cells have been carved by the action of the water and in these pits which cover the face of the dome hundreds of swallows have built their nests. As they flit about the cliffs they look like swarms of bees giving to the whole the appearance of a colossal beehive of the old time form and so we name it beehive point. The opposite wall is a vast amphitheater rising in a succession of terraces to a height of 1,200 or 1,500 feet. Each step is built of red sandstone with a face of naked red rock and a glacious cloth with verdure. So the amphitheater seems banded red and green and the evening sun is playing with rosy eight flashes on the rocks with shimmering green on the cedar spray and with iridescent gleams on the dancing waves. The landscape revels in the sunshine. May 31st. We start down another canyon and reach rapids made dangerous by high rocks lying in the channel so we run ashore and let our boats down with lines. In the afternoon we come to more dangerous rapids and stop to examine them. I find we must do the same work again but being on the wrong side of the river to obtain a foothold must first cross over no easy matter in such a current with rapids and rocks below. We take the pioneer boat, Emma Dean, over and unload her on the bank. Then she returns and takes another load. Running back and forth she soon has half our cargo over. Then one of the larger boats is manned and taken across but is carried down almost to the rocks in spite of hard rowing. The other boats follow and make the landing and we go into camp for the night. At the foot of the cliff on this side there is a long slope covered with pines. Under these we make our beds and soon after sunset are seeking rest and sleep. The cliffs on either side are of red sandstone and stretch toward the heavens 2,500 feet. On this side the long pine clad slope is surmounted by perpendicular cliffs with pines on their summits. The wall on the other side is bare rock from the water's edge up 2,000 feet then slopes back giving footing to pines and cedars. As the twilight deepens the rocks grow dark and somber. The threatening roar of the water is loud and constant and I lie awake with thoughts of the morrow and the canyons to come interrupted now and then by characteristics of the scenery that attract my attention. And here I make a discovery. On looking at the mountain directly in front the steepness of the slope is greatly exaggerated while the distance to its summit and its true altitude are correspondingly diminished. I have here to forefound that to judge properly of the slope of a mountainside one must see it in profile. In coming down the river this afternoon I observed the slope of a particular part of the wall and made an estimate of its altitude. While at supper I noticed the same cliff from a position facing it and it seems steeper but not half so high. Now lying on my side and looking at it the true proportions appear. This seems a wonder and I rise to take a view of its standing. It is the same cliff as at supper time. Lying down again it is the cliff as seen in profile with a long slope and distance summit. Musing on this I forget the morrow and the canyons to come. I have found a way to estimate the altitude and slope of an inclination in like manner as I can judge of distance along the horizon. The reason is simple. A reference to the stereoscope will suggest it. The distance between the eyes forms a baseline for optical triangulation. June 1st. Today we have had an exciting ride. The river rolls down the canyon at a wonderful rate and with no rocks in the way we make almost railroad speed. Here and there the water rushes into a narrow gorge. The rocks to the side roll it into the center in great waves and the boats go leaping and bounding over these like things of life. Reminding me of scenes witnessed in Middle Park. Herds of startled deer bounding through forests beset with fallen timber. I mention the resemblance to some of the hunters and so striking is it that the expression see the black tails jumping the logs comes to be a common one. At times the waves break and roll over the boats which necessitates much bailing and obliges us to stop occasionally for that purpose. At one time we run 12 miles in an hour, stoppages included. Last spring I had a conversation with an old Indian named Pariat who told me about one of his tribe attempting to run this canyon. The rocks, he said, holding his hands above his head, his arms vertical and looking between them to the heavens. The rocks heap, heap high. The water go whoo-woog, whoo-woog. Waterpony laya buck, water catch'em. No see'em engine no more. No see'em squaw any more. No see'em papoose any more. Those who have seen these wild Indian ponies rearing alternately before and behind or bucking as it is called in the vernacular will appreciate his description. At last we come to calm water and a threatening roar is heard in the distance. Slowly approaching the point whence the sound issues we come near to falls and tie up just above them on the left. Here we shall be compelled to make a portage so we unload the boats and fasten a long line to the bow of the smaller one and another to the stern and moor her close to the brink of the fall. Then the bow line is taken below and made fast. The stern line is held by five or six men and the boat let down as long as they can hold her against the rushing waters. Then letting go one end of the line it runs through the ring. The boat leaps over the fall and is caught by the lower rope. Now we rest for the night. June 2nd. This morning we make a trail among the rocks transport the cargoes to a point below the fall let the remaining boats over and are ready to start before noon. On a high rock by which the trail passes we find the inscription Ashley 18 five. The third figure is obscure. Some of the party reading it 1835 some 1855. James Baker an old time mountaineer once told me about a party of men starting down the river and Ashley was named as one. The story runs that the boat was swamped and some of the party drowned in one of the canyons below. The word Ashley is a warning to us and we resolve on great caution. Ashley Falls is the name we give to the cataract. The river is very narrow the right wall vertical for two or 300 feet the left towering to a great height with a vast pile of broken rocks lying between the foot of the cliff and the water. Some of the rocks broken down from the ledge above have tumbled into the channel and caused this fall. One great cubicle block 30 or 40 feet high stands in the middle of the stream and the waters parting to either side plunge down about 12 feet and are broken again by the smaller rocks into a rapid below. Immediately below the falls the water occupies the entire channel there being no talus at the foot of the cliffs. We embark and run down a short distance where we find a landing place for dinner. On the waves again all the afternoon near the lower end of this canyon to which we have given the name of red canyon is a little park where streams come down from distant mountain summits and enter the river on either side and here we camp for the night under two stately pines. June 3rd. This morning we spread our rations, clothes, et cetera on the ground to dry and several of the party go out for a hunt. I take a walk of five or six miles up to a pine grove park. It's grassy carpet bedecked with crimson velvet flowers set in groups on the stems of pear-shaped cactus plants. Patches of painted cups are seen here and there with yellow blossoms protruding through scarlet bracks. Little blue-eyed flowers are peeping through the grass and the air is filled with a fragrance from the white blossoms of the spirea. A mountain brook runs through the mits ponded below by beaver dams. It is a quiet place for retirement from the raging waters of the canyon. It will be remembered that the course of the river from Flaming Gorge to Beehive Point is in a southerly direction and at right angles to the Ewington Mountains and cuts into the range until it reaches a point within five miles of the crest where it turns to the east and pursues a course not quite parallel to the trend of the range but crosses the axis slowly in a direction a little south of east. Thus there is a triangular track between the river and the axis of the mountain with its acute angle extending eastward. I climbed the mountain overlooking this country. To the east the peaks are not very high and already most of the snow has melted but little patches lie here and there under the lee of ledges of rock. To the west the peaks grow higher and the snow fields larger. Between the brink of the canyon and the foot of these peaks there is a high bench. A number of creeks have their sources in the snow banks to the south and run north into the canyon tumbling down from 3,000 to 5,000 feet in a distance of five or six miles. Along their upper courses they run through grassy valleys but as they approach red canyon they rapidly disappear under the general surface of the country and emerge into the canyon below in deep dark gorges of their own. Each of these short lateral canyons is marked by a succession of cascades and a wild confusion of rocks and trees and fallen timber and thick undergrowth. The little valleys above are beautiful parks. Between the parks are stately pine forests, half hiding ledges of red sandstone. Mule deer and elk abound, grizzly bears too are abundant and here wild cats, wolverines and mountain lions are at home. The forest aisles are filled with the music of birds and the parks are decked with flowers, noisy brooks meander through them, ledges of moss covered rocks are seen and gleaming in the distance are the snow fields and the mountaintops are away in the clouds. June 4th, we start early and run through to Browns Park. Halfway down the valley a spur of red mountains stretches across the river which cuts a canyon through it. Here the walls are comparatively low but vertical. A vast number of swallows have built their adobe houses on the face of the cliffs on either side of the river. The waters are deep and quiet but the swallows are swift and noisy enough sweeping by in their curved paths through the air or chattering from the rocks. While the young ones stretch their little heads on naked necks through the doorways of their mud houses and clamor for food. They are a noisy people. We call this Swallow Canyon. Still down the river we glide until an early hour in the afternoon when we go into camp under a giant cottonwood standing on the right bank a little way back from the stream. The party has succeeded in killing a fine lot of wild ducks and during the afternoon a mess of fish is taken. June 5th, with one of the men I climb a mountain off on the right. A long spur with broken ledges of rock puts down to the river and along its course or up the hogback as it is called I make the ascent. Dunn who is climbing to the same point is coming up the gulch. Two hours hard work has brought us to the summit. These mountains are all verdure clad. Pine and cedar forest are set on green terraces. Snow clad mountains are seen in the distance to the west. The plains of the upper green stretch out before us to the north until they are lost in the blue heavens but half of the river cleft range intervenes and the river itself is at our feet. This half range beyond the river is composed of long ridges nearly parallel with the valley. On the farther ridge to the north four creeks have their sources. These cut through the intervening ridges one of which is much higher than that on which they head by canyon gorges. Then they run with gentle curves across the valley their banks set with willows, box elders and cottonwood groves. To the east we look up the valley of the Vermillion through which Fremont found his path on his way to the great parks of Colorado. The reading of the barometer taken we start down in company and reach camp tired and hungry which does not abate one bit our enthusiasm as we tell of the day's work with its glory of landscape. June 6th. At daybreak I am awakened by a chorus of birds. It seems as if all the feathered songsters of the region have come to the old tree. Several species of warblers, woodpeckers and flickers above, metal arcs in the grass and wild geese in the river. I recline on my elbow and watch a lark nearby and then awaken my bedfellow to listen to my Jenny Lind, a real morning concert for me, none of your matinees. Our cook has been an ox driver or bullwacker on the plains in one of those long trains now no longer seen and he hasn't forgotten his old ways. In the midst of the concert his voice breaks in. Roll out, roll out, bulls in the corral, chain up the gaps, roll out, roll out, roll out. This is our breakfast bell. Today we pass through the park and camp at the head of another canyon. June 7th. Today two or three of us climb to the summit of the cliff on the left and find its altitude above camp to be 2086 feet. The rocks are split with fishers, deep and narrow, sometimes a hundred feet or more to the bottom and these fishers are filled with loose earth and decayed vegetation in which lofty pines find root. On a rock we find a pool of clear cold water caught from yesterday evening's shower. After a good drink we walk out to the brink of the canyon and look down to the water below. I can do this now but it has taken several years of mountain climbing to cool my nerves so that I can sit with my feet over the edge and calmly look down a precipice 2000 feet. And yet I cannot look on and see another do the same. I must either bit him come away or turn my head. The canyon walls are buttressed on a grand scale with deep alcoves intervening, columned crags crown the cliffs and the river is rolling below. When we return to camp at noon the sun shines in splendor on vermilion walls shaded into green and gray where the rocks are likened over. The river fills the channel from wall to wall and the canyon opens like a beautiful portal to a region of glory. This evening as I write the sun is going down and the shadows are settling in the canyon. The vermilion gleams and rosy eight hues blending with the green and gray tins are slowly changing to somber brown above and black shadows are creeping over them below and now it is a dark portal to a region of gloom the gateway through which we are to enter on our voyage of exploration tomorrow. What shall we find? The distance from Flaming Gorge to Beehive Point is nine and two-thirds miles. Besides passing through the gorge the river runs through Horseshoe and Kingfisher Canyons separated by short valleys. The highest point on the walls at Flaming Gorge is 1,300 feet above the river. The east wall at the apex of Horseshoe Canyon is about 1,600 feet above the water's edge and from this point the walls slope both to the head and foot of the canyon. Kingfisher Canyon starting at the water's edge above steadily increases in altitude to 1,200 feet at the foot. Red Canyon is 25 and two-thirds miles long and its highest walls are about 2,500 feet. Brown's Park is a valley bounded on either side by a mountain range really an expansion of the canyon. The river through the park is 35 and one-half miles long but passes through two short canyons on its way where spurs from the mountains on the south are thrust across its course. End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of Canyons of the Colorado This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recorded by Brian Ness. Canyons of the Colorado by John Wesley Powell Chapter 7 The Canyon of Lodor June 8. We enter the canyon and until noon find a succession of rapids over which our boats have to be taken. Here I must explain our method of proceeding at such places. The embadine goes in advance. The other boats follow in obedience to signals. When we approach a rapid or what on other rivers would often be called a fall, I stand on deck to examine it while the oarsman backwater and we drift on as slowly as possible. If I can see a clear shoot between the rocks away we go. But if the channel is beset entirely across we signal the other boats pull to land and I walk along the shore for closer examination. If this reveals no clear channel hard work begins. We drop the boats to the very head of the dangerous place and let them over by lines or make a portage frequently carrying both boats and cargos over the rocks. The waves caused by such falls in a river differ much from the waves of the sea. The water of an ocean wave merely rises and falls. The form only passes on and form chases form unceasingly. A body floating on such waves merely rises and sinks. Does not progress unless impelled by wind or some other power. But here the water of the wave passes on while the form remains. The waters plunge down 10 or 20 feet to the foot of a fall spring up again in a great wave then down and up in a series of billows that gradually disappear in the more quiet waters below. But these waves are always there and one can stand above and count them. A boat riding such billows leaps and plunges along with great velocity. Now the difficulty in riding over these falls when no rocks are in the way is with the first wave at the foot. This will sometimes gather for a moment, heap up higher and higher and then break back. If the boat strikes at the instant after it breaks she cuts through and the mad breaker dashes its spray over the boat and washes overboard all who do not cling tightly. If the boat in going over the falls chances to get caught in some side current and is turned from its course so as to strike the wave broadside on and the wave breaks at the same instant the boat is capsized. Then we must cling to her for the watertight compartments act as boys and she cannot sink and so we go dragged through the waves until still waters are reached when we write the boat and climb aboard. We have several such experiences today. At night we camp on the right bank on a little shelving rock between the river and the foot of the cliff and with night comes gloom into these great depths. After supper we sit by our campfire made of driftwood caught by the rocks and tell stories of wildlife. For the men have seen such in the mountains or on the plains and on the battlefields of the south. It is late before we spread our blankets on the beach. Flying down we look up through the canyon and see that only a little of the blue heaven appears overhead, a crescent of blue sky with two or three constellations peering down upon us. I do not sleep for some time as the excitement of the day has not worn off. Soon I see a bright star that appears to rest on the very verge of the cliff overhead to the east. Slowly it seems to float from its resting place on the rock over the canyon. At first it appears like a jewel set on the brink of the cliff but as it moves out from the rock I almost wonder that it does not fall. In fact it does seem to descend in a gentle curve as though the bright sky in which the stars are set were spread across the canyon resting on either wall and swayed down by its own weight. The stars appear to be in the canyon. I soon discover that it is the bright star Vega so it occurs to me to designate this part of the wall as the cliff of the harp. June 9. One of the parties suggests that we call this the Canyon of Lodor and the name is adopted. Very slowly we make our way often climbing on the rocks at the edge of the water for a few hundred yards to examine the channel before running it. During the afternoon we come to a place where it is necessary to make a portage. The little boat is landed and the others are signaled to come up. When these rapids or broken falls occur usually the channel is suddenly narrowed by rocks which have been tumbled from the cliffs or have been washed in by lateral streams. Immediately above the narrow rocky channel on one or both sides there is often a bay of quiet water in which a landing can be made with ease. Sometimes the water descends into a smooth unruffled surface from the broad quiet spread above into the narrow angry channel below by a semicircular sag. Great care must be taken not to pass over the brink into this deceptive pit but above it we can row with safety. I walk along the bank to examine the ground leaving one of my men with a flag to guide the other boats to the landing place. I soon see one of the boats make shore all right and feel no more concerned but a minute after I hear a shout and looking around see one of the boats shooting down the center of the sag. It is the no name with Captain Howland his brother and Goodman. I feel that it's going over as inevitable and run to save the third boat. A minute more and she turns the point and heads for the shore. Then I turn downstream again and scramble along to look for the boat that has gone over. The first fall is not great only 10 or 12 feet and we often run such but below the river tumbles down again for 40 or 50 feet in a channel filled with dangerous rocks that break the waves into whirlpools and beat them into foam. I pass around a great crag just in time to see the boat strike a rock and rebounding from the shock careen and fill its open compartment with water. Two of the men lose their oars she swings around and is carried down at a rapid rate broadside on for a few yards when striking amid ships on another rock with great force she is broken quite in two and the men are thrown into the river but the larger part of the boat floats buoyantly and they soon seize it and down the river they drift past the rocks for a few hundred yards to a second rapid filled with huge boulders where the boat strikes again and is dashed to pieces and the men and fragments are soon carried beyond my sight. Running along I turn a bend and see a man's head above the water washed about in a whirlpool below a great rock. It is Frank Goodman clinging to the rock with a grip upon which life depends. Coming opposite I see Howlin trying to go to his aid from an island on which he has been washed. Soon he comes near enough to reach prank with a pole which he extends toward him. The latter lets go the rock grasps the pole and his pole to shore. Seneca Howlin does washed farther down the island and is caught by some rocks and those somewhat bruised manages to get ashore in safety. This seems a long time as I tell it but it is quickly done. And now the three men are on an island with a swift dangerous river on either side and a fall below. The Emma Dean is soon brought down and Sumner starting above as far as possible pushes out. Right skillfully he plies the oars and a few strokes set him on the island at the proper point. Then they all pull the boat upstream as far as they are able until they stand in water up to their necks. One sits on a rock and holds the boat until the others are ready to pull, then gives the boat a push, clings to it with his hands and climbs in as they pull for mainland which they reach in safety. 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. Down the river half a mile we find that the after cabin of the wrecked boat with a part of the bottom, ragged and splintered has floated against a rock and stranded. There are valuable articles in the cabin but on examination we determine that life should not be risked to save them. Of course the cargo of rations, instruments and clothing is gone. We return to the boats and make camp for the night. No sleep comes to me in all those dark hours. The rations, instruments and clothing have been divided among the boats anticipating such an accident as this. And we started with duplicates of everything that we deemed necessary to success. But in the distribution there was one exception to this precaution. The barometers were all placed in one boat and they are lost. There is a possibility that they are in the cabin lodged against the rock for that is where they were kept but then how to reach them. The river is rising, will they be there tomorrow? Can I go out to Salt Lake City and obtain barometers from New York? June 10th, I have determined to get the barometers from the wreck if they are there. After breakfast while the men make the portage I go down again for another examination. There the cabin lies, only carried 50 or 60 feet farther on. Carefully looking over the ground I am satisfied it can be reached with safety and return to tell them in my conclusion. Some are and done volunteer to take the little boat and make the attempt. They start, reach it and outcome the barometers. The boys set up a shout and I join them pleased that they should be as glad as myself to save the instruments. When the boat lands on our side I find that the only thing saved from the wreck were the barometers, a package of thermometers and a three gallon keg of whiskey. The last is what the men were shouting about. They had taken it aboard unknown to me and now I am glad they did take it for it will do them good as they are drenched every day by the melting snow which runs down from the summits of the Rocky Mountains. We come back to our work at the portage and find that it is necessary to carry our rations over the rocks for nearly a mile and to let our boats down with lines except at a few points where they also must be carried. Between the river and the eastern wall of the canyon there is an immense talus of broken rocks. These have tumbled down from the cliffs above and constitute a vast pile of huge angular fragments. On these we build a path for a quarter of a mile to a small sand beach covered with driftwood through which we clear away for several hundred yards then continue the trail over another pile of rocks nearly half a mile farther down to a little bay. The greater part of the day is spent in this work then we carry our cargos down to the beach and camp for the night. While the minute are building the campfire we discover an iron bake oven, several tin plates, a part of a boat and many other fragments which denote that this is the place where Ashley's party was wrecked. June 11th, this day is spent in carrying our rations down to the bay no small task climbing over the rocks with sacks of flour and bacon. We carry them by stages of about 500 yards each and when night comes and the last sack is on the beach we are tired, bruised and glad to sleep. June 12th, today we take the boats down to the bay while at this work we discover three sacks of flour from the wrecked boat that have lodged in the rocks. We carry them above high watermark and leave them as our cargos are already too heavy for the three remaining boats. We also find two or three oars which we place with them. As Ashley and his party were wrecked here and as we have lost one of our boats at the same place we adopt the name Disaster Falls for the scene of so much peril and loss. Though some of his companions were drowned Ashley and one other survived the wreck, climbed the canyon wall and found their way across the Wasatch Mountains to Salt Lake City living chiefly on berries as they wandered through an unknown and difficult country. When they arrived at Salt Lake they were almost destitute of clothing and nearly starved. The Mormon people gave them food and clothing and employed them to work on the foundation of the temple until they had earned sufficient to enable them to leave the country. Of their subsequent history I have no knowledge it is possible they returned to the scene of the disaster as a little creek entering the river below is known as Ashley's Creek and it is reported that he built a cabin and trapped on this river for one or two winters but this may have been before the disaster. June 13th, rocks, rapids and portages still. We camped tonight at the foot of the left fall on a little patch of flood plain covered with a dense growth of box elders stopping early in order to spread the clothing and rations to dry. Everything is wet and spoiling. June 14th, Howland and I climbed the wall on the west side of the canyon to an altitude of 2,000 feet. Standing above and looking to the west we discover a large park five or six miles wide and 20 or 30 long. The cliff we have climbed forms a wall between the canyon and the park for it is 800 feet down the western side to the valley. A creek comes winding down 1,200 feet above the river and entering the intervening wall by a canyon plunges down more than 1,000 feet by a broken cascade into the river below. June 15th, today while we make another portage a peak standing on the east wall is climbed by two of the men and found to be 2,700 feet above the river. On the east side of the canyon a vast amphitheater has been cut with massive buttresses and deep dark alcoves in which grow beautiful mosses and delicate ferns while springs burst out from the farther recesses and wind and silver threads over the floors of sand rock. Here we have three falls in close succession. At first the water is compressed into a very narrow channel against the right hand cliff and falls 15 feet in 10 yards. At the second we have a broad sheet of water tumbling down 20 feet over a group of rocks that thrust their dark heads through the foam. The third is a broken fall or short abrupt rapid where the water makes a descent of more than 20 feet among huge fallen fragments of the cliff. We name the group triplet falls. We make a portage around the first, past the second and the third we let down with lines. During the afternoon, Dunn and Howland have returned from their climb. We run down three quarters of a mile on quiet waters and land at the head of another fall. On examination we find that there is an abrupt plunge of a few feet and then the river tumbles for half a mile with a descent of 100 feet in a channel beset with great numbers of huge boulders. This stretch of the river is named Hell's Half Mile. The remaining portion of the day is occupied in making a trail among the rocks at the foot of the rapid. June 16, our first work this morning is to carry our cargos to the foot of the falls. Then we commence letting down the boats. We take two of them down in safety but not without great difficulty for where such a vast body of water rolling down an inclined plane is broken into eddies and cross currents by rocks projecting from the cliffs and piles of boulders in the channel. It requires excessive labor and much care to prevent the boats from being dashed against the rocks or breaking away. Sometimes we are compelled to hold the boat against a rock above a chute until a second line attached to the stem is carried to some point below. And when all is ready the first line is detached and the boat given to the current when she shoots down and the men below swing her into some eddy. At such a place we are letting down the last boat and as she is set free a wave turns her broadside down the stream with the stem to which the line is attached from shore and a little up. They haul on the line to bring the boat in but the power of the current striking obliquely against her shoots her out into the middle of the river. The men have their hands burned with the friction of the passing line the boat breaks away and speeds with great velocity down the stream. The mate of the canyon is lost so it seems but she drifts some distance and swings into an eddy in which she spins about until we arrive with the small boat and rescue her. Soon we are on her way again and stop at the mouth of a little brook on the right for a late dinner. This brook comes down from the distant mountains in a deep side canyon. We set out to explore it but are soon cut off from farther progress up the gorge by a high rock over which the brook glides in a smooth sheet. The rock is not quite vertical and the water does not plunge over it in the fall. Then we climb up to the left for an hour and are a thousand feet above the river and 600 above the brook. Just before us the canyon divides a little stream coming down on the right and another on the left and we can look away up either of these canyons through an ascending vista to cliffs and crags and towers a mile back and 2,000 feet overhead. To the right a dozen gleaming cascades are seen. Pines and furs stand on the rocks and aspens overhang the brooks. The rocks below are red and brown set in deep shadows but above they are buff and vermilion and stand in the sunshine. The light above made more brilliant by the bright tinted rocks and the shadows below more gloomy by reason of the sombre hues of the brown walls increased the apparent depths of the canyons and it seems a long way up to the world of sunshine and open sky and a long way down to the bottom of the canyon glooms. Never before have I received such an impression of the vast heights of these canyon walls not even at the cliff of the harp where the very heavens seem to rest on their summits. We sit on some overhanging rocks and enjoy the scene for a time listening to the music of the falling waters way up the canyon. We name this rippling brook. Late in the afternoon we make a short run to the mouth of another little creek coming down from the left into an alcove filled with luxuriant vegetation. Here camp is made with a group of cedars on one side and a dense mass of box elders and dead willows on the other. I go up to explore the alcove while away a whirlwind comes and scatters the fire among the dead willows and cedar spray and soon there is a conflagration. The men rush for the boats leaving all they cannot readily seize at the moment and even then they have their clothing burned and their hair singed and Bradley has his ears scorched. The cook fills his arms with the mess kit and jumping into a boat stumbles and falls and away go our cooking utensils into the river. Our plates are gone, our spoons are gone, our knives and forks are gone. Water catch them, heap catch them. When on the boats the men are compelled to cut loose as the flames running out on the overhanging willows are scorching them. Loose on the stream they must go down for the water is too swift to make headway against it. Just below is a rapid filled with rocks. On the shoot no channel explored, no signal to guide them. Just at this juncture I chance to see them but have not yet discovered the fire and the strange movements of the men filling with astonishment. Down the rocks I clamber and run to the bank. When I arrive they have landed. Then we all go back to the late camp to see if anything left behind can be saved. Some of the clothing and bedding taken out of the boats is found. Also a few tin cups, basins and a camp kettle. And this is all the mess kit we now have yet we do just as well as ever. June 17, we run down to the mouth of Yampa River. This has been a chapter of disasters and toils not withstanding which the canyon of Lador was not devoid of scenic interest even beyond the power of pen to tell. The roar of its waters was heard unceasingly from the hour we entered it until we landed here. No quiet in all that time. But its walls and cliffs, its peaks and crags, its amphitheaters and alcoves tell a story of beauty and grandeur that I hear yet and shall hear. The canyon of Lador is 20 and three quarters miles in length. It starts abruptly at what we have called the Gate of Lador with walls nearly 2000 feet high and they are never lower than this until we reach Alcove Brook about three miles above the foot. They are very irregular standing in vertical or overhanging cliffs and places. Terrace and others are receding in steep slopes and are broken by many side gulches and canyons. The highest point on the wall is at Dunn's Cliff near Triplet Falls where the rocks reach an altitude of 2,700 feet. But the peaks a little way back rise nearly 1,000 feet higher. Yellow pines, nut pines, furs and cedars stand in extensive forests on the Uinta Mountains. And clinging to the rocks and growing in the crevices come down the walls to the water's edge from the flaming gorge to Echo Park. The red sandstones are likened over. Delicate mosses grow in the moist places and ferns festoon the walls. CHAPTER VIII From Echo Park to the Mouth of the Uinta River. The yampa enters the green from the east. At a point opposite its mouth, the green runs to the south at the foot of a rock about 700 feet high and a mile long and then turns sharply around the rock to the right and runs back in a northerly course parallel to its former direction for nearly another mile, thus having the opposite sides of a long, narrow rock for its bank. The tongue of rock so formed is a peninsular precipice with a mural and scarpment along its whole course on the east but broken down at places on the west. On the east side of the river opposite the rock and below the yampa there is a little park just large enough for a farm already fenced with high walls of gray homogeneous sandstone. There are three river entrances to this park, one down the yampa, one below by coming up the green and another down the green. There is also a land entrance down a lateral canyon. Elsewhere the park is inaccessible. Through this land entrance by the side canyon there is a trail made by Indian hunters who come down here in certain seasons to kill mountain sheep. Great hollow domes are seen in the eastern side of the rock against which the green sweeps. Willows border the river, clumps of box elder are seen and a few cottonwoods stand at the lower end. Standing opposite the rock our words are repeated with startling clearness but in a soft mellow tone that transforms them into magical music. Scarcely can one believe it is the echo of his own voice in some places two or three echoes come back. In other places they repeat themselves passing back and forth across the river between this rock and the eastern wall. To hear these repeated echoes well we must shout some of the party aver that 10 or 12 repetitions can be heard. To me they seem rapidly to diminish and merge by multiplicity like telegraph poles on an outstretched plane. I have observed the same phenomenon once before in the cliffs near Longs Peak and am pleased to meet with it again. During the afternoon Bradley and I climb some cliffs to the north mountain sheep are seen above us and they stand out on the rocks and eye us intently not seeming to move. Their color is much like that of the gray sandstone beneath them and immovable as they are they appear like carved forms. Now a fine ram beats the rock with his forefoot and wheeling around they all bound away together leaping over rocks and chasms and climbing walls where no man can follow and this with an ease and grace most wonderful. At night we return to our camp under the box elders by the riverside. Here we are to spend two or three days making a series of astronomical observations for latitude and longitude. June 18, we have named the Long Peninsula Rock on the other side Echo Rock. Desiring to climb it Bradley and I take the little boat and pull up stream as far as possible for it cannot be climbed directly opposite. We land on a talus of rocks at the upper end in order to reach a place where it seems practicable to make the ascent. But we find we must go still farther up the river. So we scramble along until we reach a place where the river sweeps against the wall. Here we find a shelf along which we can pass and now are ready for the climb. We start up a Gulch then pass to the left on a bench along the wall then up again over broken rocks. Then we reach more benches along which we walk until we find more broken rocks and crevices by which we climb. Still up until we have ascended 600 or 800 feet when we are met by a sheer precipice. Looking about we find a place where it seems possible to climb. I go ahead Bradley hands the barometer to me and follows. So we proceed stage by stage until we are nearly to the summit. Here by making a spring I gain a foothold in a little crevice and grasp an angle of the rock overhead. I find I can get up no farther and cannot step back for I dare not let go with my hand and cannot reach foothold below without. I call to Bradley for help. He finds a way by which he can get to the top of the rock over my head but cannot reach me. Then he looks around for some stick or limb of a tree but finds none. Then he suggests that he would better help me with the barometer case but I fear I cannot hold onto it. The moment is critical. Standing on my toes my muscles begin to tremble. It is 60 or 80 feet to the foot of the precipice. If I lose my hold I shall fall to the bottom and then perhaps roll over the bench and tumble still farther down the cliff. At this instant it occurs to Bradley to take off his drawers which he does and swings them down to me. I hug close the rock, let go with my hand, seize the dangling legs and with his assistance I'm unable to gain the top. Then we walk out on the peninsular rock, make the necessary observations for determining its altitude above camp and return finding an easy way down. June 19. Today Howland, Bradley and I take the Medine and start up the Yampa River. The stream is much swollen, the current swift and we are able to make but slow progress against it. The canyon in this part of the course of the Yampa is cut through light gray sandstone. The river is very winding and the swifter water is usually found on the outside of the curve sweeping against vertical cliffs often a thousand feet high. In the center of these curves in many places the rock above overhangs the river. On the opposite side the walls are broken, craggy and sloping and occasionally side canyons enter. When we have rode until we are quite tired we stop and take advantage of one of these broken places to climb out of the canyon. When above we can look up the Yampa for a distance of several miles. From the summit of the immediate walls of the canyon the rocks rise gently back for a distance of a mile or two having the appearance of a valley with an irregular and rounded sandstone floor and in the center a deep gorge which is the canyon. The rim of this valley on the north is from 2,500 to 3,000 feet above the river. On the south it is not so high. A number of peaks stand on this northern rim the highest of which has received the name Mount Dawes. Late in the afternoon we descend to our boat and return to camp in Echo Park gliding down in 20 minutes on the Rapid River a distance of four or five miles which was made upstream only by several hours hard rowing in the morning. June 20, this morning two of the men take me up the Yampa for a short distance and I go out to climb. Having reached the top of the canyon I walk over long stretches of naked sandstone crossing gulches now and then and by noon reach the summit of Mount Dawes. From this point I can look away to the north and see in the dim distance the sweetwater and wind river mountains more than 100 miles away. To the northwest the Wasatch Mountains are in view and peaks of the Uinta. To the east I can see the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains more than 150 miles distant. The air is singularly clear today. Mountains and buttes stand in sharp outline valleys stretch out in perspective and I can look down into the deep canyon gorges and see gleaming waters. Descending I cross to a ridge near the brink of the canyon of Lodore the highest point of which is nearly as high as the last mentioned mountain. Late in the afternoon I stand on this elevated point and discover a monument that has evidently been built by human hands. A few plants are growing in the joints between the rocks and all are likened over to a greater or lesser extent giving evidence that the pile was built a long time ago. This line of peaks the eastern extension of the Uinta Mountains has received the name of Sierra Escalante in honor of a Spanish priest who traveled in this region of country nearly a century ago. Perchance the Reverend Father built this monument. Now I return to the river and discharge my gun as a signal for the boat to come and take me down to camp. While we have been in the park the men have succeeded in catching a number of fish and we have an abundant supply. This is a delightful addition to our menu. June 21. We float around the long rock and enter another canyon. The walls are high and vertical. The canyon is narrow and the river fills the whole space below so that there is no landing place at the foot of the cliff. The green is greatly increased by the yampa and we now have a much larger river. All this volume of water confined as it is in a narrow channel and rushing with great velocity is set eddying and spinning in whirlpools by projecting rocks and short curves and the waters waltz their way through the canyon making their own rippling, rushing, roaring music. The canyon is much narrower than any we have seen. We manage our boats with difficulty. They spin about from side to side and we know not where we are going and find it impossible to keep them headed down the stream. At first this causes us great alarm but we soon find there is little danger and that there is a general movement or progression down the river to which this whirling is but an adjunct that it is the merry mood of the river to dance through this deep dark gorge and right gaily do we join in the sport. But soon our revel is interrupted by a cataract. It's roaring command is heated by all our power at the oars and we pull against the whirling current. The Emma Dean is brought up against a cliff about 50 feet above the brink of the fall by vigorously plying the oars on the side opposite the wall as if to pull upstream we can hold her against the rock. The boats behind are signaled to land where they can. The mate of the canyon is pulled to the left wall and by constant rowing they can hold her also the sister is run into an alcove on the right where an eddy is in a dance and in this she joins. Now my little boat is held against the wall only by the utmost exertion and it is impossible to make headway against the current. On examination I find a horizontal crevice in the rock about 10 feet above the water and a boat's length below us so we let her down to that point. One of the men clambers into the crevice into which he can just crawl we toss him the line which he makes fast in the rocks and now our boat is tied up. Then I follow into the crevice and we crawl along upstream a distance of 50 feet or more and find a broken place where we can climb about 50 feet higher. Here we stand on a shelf that passes along downstream to a point above the falls where it is broken down and a pile of rocks over which we can descend to the river is lying against the foot of the cliff. It has been mentioned that one of the boats is on the other side. I signal for the men to pull her up alongside of the wall but it cannot be done. Then to cross. This they do, gaining the wall on our side just above where the amadine is tied. The third boat is out of sight whirling in the eddy of a recess. Looking about I find another horizontal crevice along which I crawl to a point just over the water where this boat is lying and calling loud and long I finally succeed in making the crew understand that I want them to bring the boat down, hugging the wall. This they accomplish by taking advantage of every crevice and knob on the face of the cliff so that we have the three boats together at a point a few yards above the falls. Now by passing a line up on the shelf the boats can be let down to the broken rocks below. This we do and making a short portage where our troubles here are over. Below the falls the canyon is wider and there is more or less space between the river and the walls but the stream though wide is rapid and rolls at a fearful rate among the rocks. We proceed with great caution and run the large boats wholly by signal. At night we camp at the mouth of a small creek which affords us a good supper of trout. In camp tonight we discuss the propriety of several different names for this canyon. At the falls encountered at noon its characteristics change suddenly. Above it is very narrow and the walls are almost vertical. Below the canyon is much wider and more flaring and high up on the sides crags, pinnacles and towers are seen. A number of wild and narrow side canyons enter and the walls are much broken. After many suggestions our choice rests between two names, Whirlpool Canyon and Cragy Canyon neither of which is strictly appropriate for both parts of it. So we leave the discussion at this point with the understanding that it is best before finally deciding on a name to wait until we see what the character of the canyon is below. June 22, still making short portages and letting down with lines while we are waiting for dinner today I climb a point that gives me a good view of the river for two or three miles below and I think we can make a long run. After dinner we start the large boats are to follow in 15 minutes and look out for the signal to land. Into the middle of the stream we row and down the rapid river we glide only making strokes enough with the oars to guide the boat. What a headlong ride it is, shooting past rocks and islands. I am soon filled with exhilaration only experienced before in riding a fleet horse over the outstretched prairie. One, two, three, four miles we go rearing and plunging with the waves until we wheel to the right into a beautiful park and land on an island where we go into camp. An hour or two before sunset I cross to the mainland and climb a point of rocks where I can overlook the park and its surroundings. On the east it is bounded by a high mountain ridge a semi-circle of naked hills bounds it on the north, west and south. The broad deep river meanders through the park interrupted by many wooded islands so I name it Island Park and decide to call the canyon above Whirlpool Canyon. June 23, we remain in camp today to repair our boats which have had hard knocks and are leaking. Two of the men go out with the barometer to climb the cliff at the foot of Whirlpool Canyon and measure the walls. Another goes on the mountain to hunt and Bradley and I spend the day among the rocks studying an interesting geologic fold and collecting fossils. Late in the afternoon the hunter returns and brings with him a fine fat deer so we give his name to the mountain, Mount Hawkins. Just before night we move camp to the lower end of the park floating down the river about four miles. June 24, Bradley and I start early to climb the mountain ridge to the east and find its summit to be nearly 3,000 feet above camp. It is required some labor to scale it but on top what a view. There is a long spur running out from the Uinta Mountains toward the south and the river runs lengthwise through it. Coming down Lador and Whirlpool canyons we cut through the southern slope of the Uinta Mountains and the lower end of this ladder canyon runs into the spur but instead of splitting it the whole length the river wheels to the right at the foot of Whirlpool Canyon in a great curve to the northwest through Island Park. At the lower end of the park the river turns again to the southeast and cuts into the mountain to its center and then makes a detour to the southwest splitting the mountain ridge for a distance of six miles nearly to its foot and then turns out of it to the left. All this we can see where we stand on the summit of Mount Hawkins and so we name the gorge below Split Mountain Canyon. We are standing 3,000 feet above the waters which are troubled with billows and are white with foam. The walls are set with crags and peaks and buttress towers and overhanging gnomes. Turning to the right the park is below us. It's island groves reflected by the deep quiet waters. Rich meadows stretch out on either hand to the verge of a sloping plain that comes down from the distant mountains. These plains are of almost naked rock in strange contrast to the meadows. Blue and lilac colored rocks, buff and pink, vermilion and brown and all these colors clear and bright. A dozen little creeks dry the greater part of the year run down through the half circle of exposed formations radiating from the island center to the rim of the basin. Each creek has its system of side streams and each side stream has its system of laterals. And again, these are divided so that this outstretched slope of rock is elaborately embossed. Beds of different colored formations run in parallel bands on either side. The perspective modified by the undulations gives the bands a waved appearance and the high colors gleam in the midday sun with the luster of satin. We are tempted to call this rainbow park. Away beyond these beds are the Uinta and Washatch Mountains with their pine forests and snow fields and naked peaks. Now we turn to the right and look up Whirlpool Canyon, a deep gorge with a river at the bottom, a gloomy chasm where mad waves roar, but at this distance and altitude the river is but a rippling brook and the chasm a narrow cleft. The top of the mountain on which we stand is a broad grassy table and a herd of deer are feeding in the distance. Walking over to the southeast, we look down into the valley of the White River and beyond that see the far distant Rocky Mountains in mellow perspective haze through which snow fields shine. June 25. This morning we enter Split Mountain Canyon sailing in through a broad, flaring, brilliant gateway. We run two or three rapids after they have been carefully examined. Then we have a series of six or eight over which we are compelled to pass by letting the boats down with lines. This occupies the entire day and we camp at night at the mouth of a great cave. The cave is at the foot of one of these rapids and the waves dash in nearly to its end. We can pass along a little shelf at the side until we reach the back part. Swallows have built their nests in the ceiling and they wheel in, chattering and scolding at our intrusion, but their clamor is almost drowned by the noise of the waters. Looking out of the cave, we can see far up the river a line of crags standing sentinel on either side and Mount Hawkins in the distance. June 26. The forenoon is spent in getting our large boats over the rapids. This afternoon we find three falls in close succession. We carry our rations over the rocks and let our boats shoot over the falls, checking and bringing them to land with lines in the eddies below. At three o'clock we are all aboard again. Down the river we are carried by the swift waters at great speed, shearing around a rock now and then with a timely stroke or two of the oars. At one point the river turns from left to right in a direction at right angles to the canyon in a long chute and strikes the right where its waters are heaped up in great billows that tumble back in breakers. We glide into the chute before we see the danger and it is too late to stop. Two or three hard strokes are given on the right and we pause for an instant, expecting to be dashed against the rock, but the bow of the boat leaps high on a great wave, the rebounding waters hurl us back and the peril is past. The next moment the other boats are hurriedly signaled to land on the left. Accomplishing this the men walk along the shore holding the boats near the bank and let them drift around. Starting again we soon debush into a beautiful valley glide down at length for 10 miles and camp under a grand old cottonwood. This is evidently a frequent resort for Indians. Tent poles are lying about and the dead embers of late campfires are seen. On the plains to the left Antelope are feeding. Now and then a wolf is seen and after dark they make the air resound with their howling. June 27. Now our way is along a gently flowing river beset with many islands. Groves are seen on either side and natural meadows where herds of Antelope are feeding. Here and there we have views of the distant mountains on the right. During the afternoon we make a long detour to the west and return again to a point not more than half a mile from where we started at noon and here we camp for the night under a high bluff. June 28. Today the scenery on either side of the river is much the same as that of yesterday except that two or three lakes are discovered lying in the valley to the west. After dinner we run but a few minutes when we discover the mouth of the Uinta a river coming in from the west. Up the valley of this stream about 40 miles the reservation of the Uinta Indians is situated. We propose to go there and see if we can replenish our mess kit and perhaps send letters to friends. We also desire to establish an astronomic station here and hence this will be our stopping place for several days. Some years ago Captain Berthoud surveyed a stage route from Salt Lake City to Denver and this is the place where he crossed the Green River. His party was encamped here for some time constructing a ferry boat and opening a road. A little above the mouth of the Uinta on the west side of the green there is a lake of several thousand acres. We carry our boat across the divide between this and the river, have a row on its quiet waters and succeed in shooting several ducks. June 29. A mile and three quarters from here is the junction of the White River with the green. The white has its source far to the east in the Rocky Mountains. This morning I crossed the green and go over into the valley of the white and extend my walk several miles along its winding way until at last I come inside of some strangely carved rocks named by General Hughes in his journal Goblin City. Our last winter's camp was situated a hundred miles above the point reached today. The course of the river, for much of the distance, is through canyons, but at some places valleys are found. Accepting these little valleys, the region is one of great desolation. Arid, almost treeless with bluffs, hills, ledges of rock and drifting sands. Along the course of the green, however, from the foot of Split Mountain Canyon to a point some distance below the mouth of the Uinta, there are many groves of cottonwood, natural meadows and rich lands. This arable belt extends some distance up the White River on the east and the Uinta on the west, and the time must soon come when settlers will penetrate this country and make homes. June 30. We have a row up the Uinta today but are not able to make much headway against the swift current and hence conclude we must walk all the way to the agency. July 1. Two days have been employed in obtaining the local time, taking observations for latitude and longitude and making excursions into the adjacent country. This morning, with two of the men, I start for the agency. It is a toilsome walk, 20 miles of the distance being across a sand desert. Occasionally we have to wade the river, crossing it back and forth. Toward evening we cross several beautiful streams, tributaries of the Uinta, and pass through pine groves and meadows, arriving at the reservation just at dusk. Captain Dodds, the agent, is away, having gone to Salt Lake City, but his assistants receive us very kindly. It is rather pleasant to see a house once more and some evidences of civilization, even if it is on an Indian reservation several days ride from the nearest home of the white man. July 2. I go this morning to visit Sawiyat. This old chief is but the wreck of a man and no longer has influence. Looking at him, one can scarcely realize that he is a man. His skin is shrunken, wrinkled and dry and seems to cover no more than a form of bones. He is said to be more than one hundred years old. I talk a little with him, but his conversation is incoherent, though he seems to take pride in showing me some medals that must have been given him many years ago. He has a pipe which he says he has used a long time. I offer to exchange with him and he seems to be glad to accept, so I add another to my collection of pipes. His wife, the bishop, as she is called, is a very garrulous old woman. She exerts a great influence and is much revered. She is the only Indian woman I have known to occupy a place in the council ring. She seems very much younger than her husband and, though wrinkled and ugly, is still vigorous. She has much to say to me concerning the condition of the people and seems very anxious that they should learn to cultivate the soil, own farms and live like white men. After talking a couple of hours with these old people, I go to see the farms. They are situated in a very beautiful district where many fine streams of water meander across alluvial plains and meadows. These creeks have a considerable fall and it is easy to take their waters out above and overflow the lands with them. It will be remembered that irrigation is necessary in this dry climate to successful farming. Quite a number of Indians have each a patch of ground of two or three acres on which they are raising wheat, potatoes, turnips, pumpkins, melons and other vegetables. Most of the crops are looking well and it is rather surprising with what pride they show us that they are able to cultivate crops like white men. They are still occupying lodges and refuse to build houses assigning as a reason that when anyone dies in a lodge it is always abandoned and very often burned with all the effects of the deceased. And when houses have been built for them, the houses have been treated in the same way. With their unclean habits a fixed residence would doubtless be no pleasant place. This beautiful valley has been the home of a people of a higher grade of civilization than the present utes. Evidences of this are quite abundant. On our way here yesterday we discovered fragments of pottery in many places along the trail and wandering about the little farms today I find the foundations of ancient houses and milling stones that were not used by nomadic people as they are too heavy to be transported by such tribes and are deeply worn. The Indians seeing that I am interested in these matters take pains to show me several other places where these evidences remain and tell me that they know nothing about the people who formerly dwelt here. They further tell me that up in the canyon the rocks are covered with pictures. July 5, the last two days have been spent in studying the language of the Indians and in making collections of articles illustrating the state of arts among them. Frank Goodman informs me this morning that he has concluded not to go on with the party saying that he has seen danger enough. It will be remembered that he was one of the crew on the no name when she was wrecked. As our boats are rather heavily loaded I am content that he should leave although he has been a faithful man. We start early on our return to the boats taking horses with us from the reservation and to Indians who are to bring the animals back. Whirlpool Canyon is 14 and a half miles in length. The walls varying from 1800 to 2400 feet in height. The course of the river through Island Park is nine miles. Split Mountain Canyon is eight miles long. The highest crags on its walls reach an altitude above the river of from 2500 to 2700 feet. In these canyons cedars only are found on the walls. The distance by river from the foot of Split Mountain Canyon to the mouth of the Owinta is sixty-seven miles. The valley through which it runs is the home of many Antelope and we have adopted for it the Indian name One Seat Siouaf, Antelope Valley. End of chapter eight, recorded by Brian Ness. Chapter nine of Canyons of the Colorado. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recorded by Kirsten Ferrari. Canyons of the Colorado by John Wesley Powell. Chapter nine. From the mouth of the Owinta River to the junction of the Grand and Green. July 6th. An early start this morning. A short distance below the mouth of the Owinta we come to the head of a long island. Last winter a man named Johnson, a hunter and Indian trader visited us at our camp in White River Valley. This man has an Indian wife and having no fixed home usually travels with one of the Ute bands. He informed me that it was his intention to plant some corn, potatoes and other vegetables on this island in the spring. And knowing that we would pass it, invited us to stop and help ourselves even if he should not be there. So we land and go out on the island. Looking about we soon discover his garden but it is in a sad condition. Having received no care since it was planted. It is yet too early in the season for corn but Hall suggests that potato tops are good greens. An anxious for some change from our salt meat fair we gather a quantity and take them on board. At noon we stop and cook our greens for dinner but soon one after another of the party is taken sick. Nausea first and then severe vomiting and we tumble around under the trees groaning with pain. I feel a little alarmed lest our poisoning be severe. Medics are administered to those who are willing to take them and about the middle of the afternoon we are all rid of the pain. Jack Sumner records in his diary that potato tops are not good greens on the sixth day of July. This evening we enter another canyon almost imperceptibly as the walls rise very gently. July 7th. We find quiet water today. The river sweeping in great and beautiful curves. The canyon walls steadily increasing in altitude. The escarpments formed by the cut edges of the rock are often vertical sometimes terraced and in some places the treads of the terraces are sloping. In these quiet curves vast amphitheaters are formed. Now in vertical rocks, now in steps. The salient point of rock within the curve is usually broken down in a steep slope and we stop occasionally to climb up at such a place where on looking down we can see the river sweeping the foot of the opposite cliff in a great easy curve with a perpendicular or terraced wall rising from the water's edge many hundreds of feet. One of these we find very symmetrical and name it Sumner's amphitheater. The cliffs are rarely broken by the entrance of side canyons and we sweep around curve after curve with almost continuous walls for several miles. Late in the afternoon we find the river very much rougher and come upon rapids, not dangerous but still demanding close attention. We camp at night on the right bank having made 26 miles. July 8th. This morning Bradley and I go out to climb and gain an altitude of more than 2000 feet above the river but still do not reach the summit of the wall. After dinner we pass through a region of the very wildest desolation. The canyon is very tortuous, the river very rapid and many lateral canyons enter on either side. These usually have their branches so that the region is cut into a wilderness of gray and brown cliffs. In several places these lateral canyons are separated from one another only by narrow walls often hundreds of feet high so narrow in places that where softer rocks are found below they have crumbled away and left holes in the wall forming passages from one canyon into another. These we often call natural bridges but they were never intended to span streams. They would better perhaps be called side doors between canyon chambers. Piles of broken rock lie against these walls. Crags and tower-shaped peaks are seen everywhere and a way above them long lines of broken cliffs and above and beyond the cliffs are pine forests of which we obtain occasional glimpses as we look through a vista of rocks. The walls are almost without vegetation. A few dwarf bushes are seen here and there clinging to the rocks and cedars grow from the crevices. Not like the cedars of a land refreshed with rains, great cones bedecked with spray but ugly clumps like war clubs beset with spines. We are minded to call this the canyon of the desolation. The wind annoys us much today. The water, rough by reason of the rapids is made more so by headgales. Wherever a great face of rocks has a southern exposure the rarefied air rises and the wind rushes in below either up or down the canyon or both causing local currents. Just at sunset we run a bad rapid and camp at its foot. July 9th. Our run today is through a canyon with ragged broken walls. Many lateral gulches or canyons entering each other on either side. The river is rough and occasionally it becomes necessary to use lines in passing rocky places. During the afternoon we come to a rather open canyon valley stretching up toward the west. It's further end lost in the mountains. From a point to which we climb we obtain a good view of its course until its angular walls are lost in the vista. July 10th. Sumner, who is a fine mechanic, is learning to take observations for time with the sextant. Today he remains in camp to practice. Howlin and I determined to climb out and start up a lateral canyon, taking a barometer with us for the purpose of measuring the thickness of the strata over which we pass. The readings of the barometer below are recorded every half hour, and our observations must be simultaneous. Where the beds which we desire to measure are very thick we must climb with the utmost speed to reach their summits in time. Where the beds are thinner we must wait for the moment to arrive, and so by hard and easy stages we make our way to the top of the canyon wall and reach the plateau above about two o'clock. Howlin, who has his gun with him, sees deer feeding a mile or two back and goes off for a hunt. I go to a peak which seems to be the highest one in this region, about half a mile distant, and climb for the purpose of tracing the topography of the adjacent country. From this point a fine view is obtained. A long plateau stretches along the river in an easterly and westerly direction, the summit covered by pine forests with intervening elevated valleys and gulches. The plateau itself is cut into by the canyon. Other side canyons head away back from the river and run down into the green. Besides these, deep and abrupt canyons are seen to head back on the plateau and run north toward the Yunta and White Rivers. Still other canyons head in the valleys and run toward the south. The elevation of the plateau being about 8,000 feet above the level of the sea, it is in a region of moisture, as is well attested by the forests and grassy valleys. The plateau seems to rise gradually to the west until it merges into the Weshatch Mountains. On these high tamelands elk and deer abound and they are favorite hunting grounds for the Uzi Indians. A little before sunset, howl and dine meet again at the head of the side canyon and down we start. It is late and we must make great haste or be caught by the darkness. So we go, running where we can, leaping over the ledges, letting each other down on the loose rocks as long as we can see. When darkness comes we are still some distance from camp and a long, slow, anxious descent is made toward the gleaming campfire. After supper observations for latitude are taken and only two or three hours for sleep remain before daylight. July 11th. A short distance below camp we run a rapid and in doing so break an oar and then lose another both belonging to the emidine. Now the pioneer boat has but two oars. We see nothing from which oars can be made so we conclude to run on to some point where it seems possible to climb out to the forests on the plateau and there we will procure suitable timber from which to make new ones. We soon approach another rapid. Standing on deck I think it can be run and on we go. Coming nearer I see that at the foot it has a short turn to the left where the waters pile up against the cliff. Here we try to land but quickly discover that being in swift water above the fall we cannot reach shore crippled as we are by the loss of two oars. So the bow of the boat is turned downstream. We shoot by a big rock. A reflex wave rolls over our little boat and fills her. I see that the place is dangerous and quickly signal to the other boats to land where they can. This is scarcely completed when another wave rolls our boat over and I am thrown some distance into the water. I soon find that swimming is very easy and I cannot sink. It is only necessary to ply strokes sufficient to keep my head out of the water though now and then when a breaker rolls over me I close my mouth and am carried through it. The boat is drifting ahead of me 20 or 30 feet and when the great waves have passed I overtake her and find Sumner and Dunn clinging to her. As soon as we reach quiet water we all swim to one side and turn her over. In doing this Dunn loses his hold and goes under when he comes up he's caught by Sumner and pulled to the boat. In the meantime we've drifted downstream some distance and see another rapid below. How bad it may be we cannot tell so we swim towards shore pulling our boat with us with all the vigor possible but are carried down much faster than distance towards shore is diminished. At last we reach a huge pile of driftwood. Our rolls of blankets, two guns and a barometer when the open compartment of the boat and when it went over these were thrown out. The guns and barometer are lost but I succeeded in catching one of the rolls of blankets as I drifted down when we were swimming to shore. The other two are lost and sometimes hereafter we may sleep cold. A huge fire is built on the bank and our clothing spread to dry and then from the drift logs we select one from which we think oars can be made and the remainder of the day is spent in sawing them out. July 12th. This morning the new oars are finished and we start once more. We pass several bad rapids making a short portage at one and before noon we come to a long bad fall where the channel is filled with rocks on the left which turn the waters to the right where they pass under an overhanging rock. On examination we determine to run it keeping as close to the left hand rocks the safety will permit in order to avoid the overhanging cliff. The little boat runs over all right and other follows but the men are not able to keep her near enough to the left bank and she is carried by a swift chute into great waves to the right where she is tossed about and Bradley is knocked over the side. His foot catching under the seat he is dragged along in the water with his head down making great exertion he seizes the gun whale with his left hand and can lift his head above water now and then. To us who are below it seems impossible to keep the boat from going under the overhanging cliff but Powell for the moment heedless of Bradley's mishap pulls with all his power for half a dozen strokes when the danger is passed then he seizes Bradley and pulls him in. The men in the boat above seeing this land and she is let down by lines. Just here we emerge from the canyon of desolation as we have named it into a more open country which extends for a distance of nearly a mile when we enter another canyon cut through gray sandstone. About three o'clock in the afternoon we meet with a new difficulty. The river fills the entire channel. The walls are vertical on either side from the water's edge and a bad rapid is beset with rocks. We come to the head of it and land on a rock in the stream. The little boat is let down to another rock below the men of the larger boat holding to the line. The second is let down in the same way and the line of the third boat is brought with them. Now the third boat pushes out from the upper rock and as we have her line below we pull in and catch her as she is sweeping by at the foot of the rock on which we stand. Again the first boat is let downstream the full length of her line and the second boat is passed down by the first to the extent of her line which is held by the men in the first boat. So she has two lines length from where she started. And then the third boat is let down past the second and still down nearly to the length of her line so that she is fast to the second boat and swinging down three lines lengths with the other two boats intervening. Held in this way the men are able to pull her into a cove in the left wall where she's made fast but this leaves a man on the rock above holding to the line of the little boat. When all is ready he springs from the rock clinging to the line with one hand and swimming with the other and we pull him in as he goes by. As the two boats thus loose and drift down the men in the cove pull us all in as we come opposite then we pass around to a point of rock below the cove close to the wall, land, make a short portage over the worst places in the rapid and start again. At night we camp on a sand beach. The wind blows a hurricane. The drifting sand almost blinds us and nowhere can we find shelter. The wind continues to blow all night. The sand sifting through our blankets and piling over us until we are covered as in a snow drift. We are glad when morning comes. July 13th. This morning we have an exhilarating ride. The river is swift and there are many smooth rapids. I stand on deck keeping careful watch ahead and we glide along mile after mile, plying strokes, now on the right and then on the left just sufficient to guide our boats past the rocks into smooth water. At noon we emerge from Grey Canyon as we have named it and camp for dinner under a cottonwood tree standing on the left bank. Extensive sand planes extend back from the immediate river valley as far as we can see on either side. These naked drifting sands gleam brilliantly in the midday sun of July. The reflected heat from the glaring surface produces a curious motion of the atmosphere. Little currents are generated and the hole seems to be trembling and moving about in many directions or failing to see that the movement is in the atmosphere it gives the impression of an unstable land. Planes and hills and cliffs and distant mountains seem to be floating vaguely about in a trembling wave rock to sea and patches of landscape seem to float away and be lost and then to reappear. Just opposite there are buttes, outliers of cliffs to the left. Below they are composed of shales and marbles of light blue and slate colors. Above the rocks are buff and gray and then brown. The buttes are buttressed below where the Azure rocks are seen and terraced above through the gray and brown beds. A long line of cliffs or rock escarpment separates the table lands through which Grey Canyon is cut from the lower plain. The eye can trace these Azure beds and cliffs on either side of the river in a long line extending across its course until they fade away in the perspective. These cliffs are many miles in length and hundreds of feet high and all these buttes, great mountain masses of rock are dancing and fading away and reappearing, softly moving about or so they seem to the eye as seen through the shifting atmosphere. This afternoon our way is through a valley with cottonwood groves on either side. The river is deep, broad and quiet. About two hours after noon camp we discover an Indian crossing where a number of rafts, rudely constructed of logs and bound together by widths are floating against the bank. On landing we see evidences that a party of Indians have crossed within a very few days. This is the place where the lamented Gunnison crossed in the year 1853 when making an exploration for a railroad route to the Pacific coast. An hour later we run a long ramp and stop at its foot to examine some interesting rocks deposited by mineral springs that at one time must have existed here but which are no longer flowing. July 14th. This morning we pass some curious black bluffs on the right then two or three short canyons and then we discover the mouth of the San Rafael a stream which comes down from the distant mountains in the west. Here we stop for an hour or two and take a short walk up the valley and find it as a frequent resort for Indians. Arrowheads are scattered about many of them very beautiful. Flint chips are strewn over the ground in great perfusion and the trails are well worn. Starting after dinner we pass some beautiful buttes on the left many of which are very symmetrical. They are chiefly composed of gypsum of many hues from light gray to slate color then pink, purple and brown beds. Now we enter another canyon. Gradually the walls rise higher and higher as we proceed and the summit of the canyon is formed with the same beds of orange colored sandstone. Back from the brink the hollows of the plateau are filled with sands disintegrated from these orange beds. They are of a rich cream color shading into maroon everywhere destitute of vegetation and drifted into long wave-like ridges. The course of the river is tortuous and it nearly doubles upon itself many times. The water is quiet and constant rowing is necessary to make much headway. Sometimes there is a narrow flood plain between the river and the wall on one side or the other where these long gentle curves are found the river washes the very foot of the outer wall. A long peninsula of willow-bordered meadow projects within the curve and the talus at the foot of the cliff is usually covered with dwarf oaks and the walls are usually vertical though not very high. Where the river sweeps around a curve under a cliff a fast hollow dome may be seen with many caves and deep alcoves which are greatly admired by the members of the party as we go by. We camp at night on the left bank. July 15th. Our camp is in a great bend of the canyon. The curve is to the west and we are on the east side of the river. Just opposite a little stream comes down through a narrow side canyon. We cross and go up to explore it. At its mouth another lateral canyon enters in the angle between the former and the main canyon above. Still another enters into the angle between the canyon below and the side canyon first mentioned so that three side canyons enter at the same point. These canyons are very tortuous almost closed in from view and seen from the opposite side of the river they appear like three alcoves. We name this Trinel Cove Bend. Going up the little stream in the central Cove we pass between high walls of sandstone and wind about in glens. Springs gush from the rocks at the foot of the walls narrow passages in the rocks are threaded caves are entered and many side canyons are observed. The right Cove is a narrow winding gorge with overhanging walls almost shutting out the light. The left is an amphitheater turning spirally up with the overhanging shelves. A series of basins filled with water are seen at different altitudes as we pass up. Huge rocks are piled below on the right and overhead there is an arched ceiling. After exploring these alcoves we re-cross the river and climb the rounded rocks on the point of the bend. In every direction as far as we are able to see naked rocks appear. Buttes are scattered on the landscape. Here rounded into cones there buttressed, columned and carved in quaint shapes with deep alcoves and sunken recesses. All about us are basins excavated in the soft sandstone and these have been filled by the late rains. Over the rounded rocks and water pockets we look off onto a fine stretch of river and beyond are naked rocks and beautiful buttes leading the eye to the agile cliffs and beyond these and above them the brown cliffs and still beyond mountain peaks and clouds piled over them all. When we go after dinner with quiet water still compelled to row in order to make fair progress. The canyon is yet very tortuous. About six miles below noon camp we go around a great bend to the right five miles in length and come back to a point within a quarter of a mile of where we started. Then we sweep around another great bend to the left making a circuit of nine miles and come back to a point within six hundred yards of the beginning of the bend. In the two circuits we describe almost the figure eight. The men call it a bow knot of river so we name it bow knot bend. The line of the figure is 14 miles in length. There is an exquisite charm in our ride today down this beautiful canyon. It gradually grows deeper with every mile of travel. The walls are symmetrically curved and grandly arched of a beautiful color and reflected in the quiet waters in many places so as almost to deceive the eye and suggest to the beholder the thought that he is looking into profound depths. We are all in fine spirits and feel very gay and the bad news of the men is echoed from wall to wall. Now and then we whistle or shout or discharge a pistol to listen to the reverberations among the cliffs. At night we camp on the south side of the great bow knot and as we eat supper which is spread on the beach we name this Labyrinth Canyon, July 16th. Still we go down on our winding way. Tower cliffs are past. Then the river widens out for several miles and meadows are seen on either side between the river and the walls. We name this expansion of the river Tower Park. At two o'clock we emerge from Labyrinth Canyon and go into camp, July 17th. The line which separates Labyrinth Canyon from the one below is but a line and at once this morning we enter another canyon. The water fills the entire channel so that nowhere is there room to land. The walls are low but vertical and as we proceed they gradually increase in altitude. Running a couple of miles the river changes its course many degrees toward the east. Just here a little stream comes in on the right and the wall is broken down. So we land and go out to take a view of the surrounding country. We are now down among the buttes and in a region the surface of which is naked, solid rock, a beautiful red sandstone forming a smooth undulating pavement. The Indians call this the Tumpin Tuiap or Rockland and sometimes the Tumpin Winiar Tuiap or Land of Standing Rock. Off to the south we see a butte in the form of a fallen cross. It is several miles away but it presents no inconspicuous figure on the landscape and must be many hundreds of feet high probably more than 2,000. We note its position on our map and name it the Butte of the Cross. We continue our journey. In many places the walls which rise from the water's edge are overhanging on either side. The stream is still quiet and we glide along through a strange weird grand region. The landscapes everywhere away from the river is of rock, cliffs of rock, tables of rock, plateaus of rock, terraces of rock, crags of rock, 10,000 strangely carved forms, rocks everywhere and no vegetation, no soil, no sand. In long, gentle curves the river winds about these rocks. When thinking of these rocks one must not conceive of piles of boulders or heaps of fragments but of a whole land of naked rock with giant forms carved on it, cathedral-shaped buttes, towering hundreds or thousands of feet, cliffs that cannot be scaled and canyon walls that shrink the river into insignificance with vast hollow domes and tall pinnacles and shafts set on the verge overhead and all highly colored, buff, gray, red, brown and chocolate, never likened, never moss covered but bare and often polished. We pass a place where two bends of the river come together, an intervening rock having been worn away and a new channel formed across. The old channel ran in a great circle around to the right by what was once a circular peninsula, then an island, then the water left the old channel entirely and passed through the cut and the old bed of the river is dry. So the great circular rock stands by itself with precipitous walls all about it and we find but one place where it can be scaled. Looking from its summit, a long stretch of river is seen, sweeping close to the overhanging cliffs on the right but having a little meadow between it and the wall on the left. The curve is very gentle and regular. We name this Bonita Bend and just here we climb out once more to take another bearing on the beaut of the cross. Reaching an eminence from which we can overlook the landscape, we are surprised to find that our beaut with its wonderful form is indeed two beauts. One so standing in front of the other that from our last point of view it gave the appearance of the cross. A few miles below Bonita Bend we go out again a mile or two among the rocks toward the orange cliffs, passing over terraces paved with jasper. The cliffs are not far away and we soon reach them and wander in some deep painted alcoves which attracted our attention from the river. Then we return to our boats. Late in the afternoon the water becomes swift and our boats make great speed. An hour of this rapid running brings us to the junction of the Grand and Green, the foot of Stillwater Canyon as we have named it. These streams unite in solemn depths more than 1200 feet below the general surface of the country. The walls of the lower end of Stillwater Canyon are very beautifully curved as the river sweeps in its meandering course. The lower end of the canyon through which the Grand comes down is also regular but much more direct and we look up this stream and out into the country beyond and obtain glimpses of snow-clad peaks, the summits of a group of mountains known as the Sierra LaSalle. Down the Colorado, the canyon walls are much broken. We row around into the Grand and Camp on its northwest bank and here we propose to stay for several days for the purpose of determining the latitude and longitude and the altitude of the walls. Much of the night is spent in making observations with the sextant. The distance from the mouth of the Unita to the head of the Canyon of Desolation is 20 and three-quarter miles. The Canyon of Desolation is 97 miles long. Gray Canyon, 36 miles. The course of the river through Gunnison Valley is 27 and a quarter miles. Labyrinth Canyon, 62 and a half miles. In the Canyon of Desolation, the highest rocks immediately over the river are about 2400 feet. This is at log cabin cliff. The highest part of the terrace is near the brink of the brown cliffs, climbing the immediate walls of the canyon and passing back to the canyon terrace and climbing that, we find the altitude above the river to be 3,300 feet. The lower end of Gray Canyon is about 2,000 feet. The lower end of Labyrinth Canyon, 1,300 feet. Stillwater Canyon is 42 and three-quarter miles long. The highest walls, 1,300 feet. End of chapter nine.