A Canyon Voyage

F >> Frederick S. Dellenbaugh >> A Canyon Voyage

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About noon we caught up to the other boat and all had dinner together,
happy that nothing serious had befallen Cap. and Clem. During the whole
afternoon rain steadily fell upon the top of this rock-roofed world till
the river rose several inches while its colour turned to a dull yellow,
then to a red, showing how heavy the rainfall had been in the back
country. We had our rubber ponchos on but we were more or less damp and
we began to notice that summer had passed for the air was chilly. The
river was perfectly smooth making navigation easy and we were able to
pull steadily along with no interruption from rapids. The walls ever
increased their height while over the edges the numberless astonishing
rain cascades continued to play, varying their volume according to the
downpour from the sky. Before long the cliffs were from 800 to 1000 feet
high, often perpendicular, giving the waterfalls grand plunges. These
graceful tributaries were now occasionally perfectly clear and they
sometimes fell so far without a break that they vanished in feathery
white spray. A projecting ledge at times might gather this spray again
to form a second cascade before the river level was reached. The scene
was quite magical and considering the general aridity for a large part
of the year, it appeared almost like a phantasm.

"A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go."

The river twisted this way and that with the tongues of the bends filled
with alluvial deposit bearing dense clumps of scrub-oak, and grass. Each
new bend presented a fresh picture with the changing waterfalls leaping
over by the dozen till we might have thought ourselves in some Norwegian
fiord, and we gave far more attention to admiring the scenery than to
navigating the boats. Late in the day we landed at the left on the point
of a bend and chopped a path through the thick oak brush to a grassy
glade, where we soon had the paulins stretched across oars supported by
other oars forming comfortable shelters in front of which huge fires of
dead oak and driftwood were kept going to dry things out. Andy set his
pots to boiling and supper was soon prepared.

All night the rain fell but our shelters kept us dry and every one had a
good rest. When the morning of September 8th dawned clear and bracing we
met it with good spirits, though the spirits of our party seldom varied
no matter what the circumstances, and every man took as much personal
interest in the success of the expedition as if he were entirely
responsible for it.

In order that Beaman might take some pictures and the topographers get
notes, no move was made. Prof. climbed out obtaining a wide view in all
directions and securing valuable data. I also went up on the cliffs and
made a pencil sketch, and in the afternoon we explored a peculiar
three-mouthed side canyon across the river. Three canyons came together
at their mouths and we called the place Trin Alcove. Prof. and the Major
walked up it some distance and then sent for Beaman to come to
photograph. At nightfall rain began once more, and the shelters were
again erected over the oars. Another morning came fair and we went on
leaving Beaman to finish up views and the _Nell_ crew for other work. As
we proceeded we would occasionally halt to wait but it was noon before
they overtook us. Rain had begun before this and continued at intervals
during the dinner stop. As soon as we started we ran into a heavy
downpour and while pulling along in the midst of this our boat ran on a
sand-bar and got so far and fast aground that it required all ten men to
get her off, the other crews walking in the water to where we were, as
the shoal was very wide. While thus engaged a beautiful colour effect
developed softly before us through an opalescent, vaporous shroud. The
sun came forth with brilliant power upon the retreating mists creating a
clear, luminous, prismatic bow ahead of us arching in perfect symmetry
from foot to foot of the glistening walls, while high above it resting
each end on the first terraces a second one equally distinct bridged the
chasm; and, exactly where these gorgeous rainbows touched the rocks,
roaring rain cascades leaped down to add their charm to the enchanting
picture.

We were now at the beginning of a very long loop of the river, which we
named Bow-knot Bend. Just at the start of this great turn we camped with
a record for the whole day of 15-1/8 miles. Steward found some fragments
of pottery. The next morning we remained here till ten for views, and
then we left Beaman on the summit of the low dividing ridge, where one
could look into the river on either side and see a point which we rowed
more than five miles to reach.[15] On the right bank we stopped for
dinner, and when it was about ready several of us crossed, and, helping
Beaman down with his heavy boxes, ferried him to our side. The opposite
bank was no more than one thousand feet in a straight line from our
starting-place of the morning. Instead of now going on, a halt was
made, because Steward, prowling around after his custom, had found some
fossils that were important and he wanted more. The Major, with Jack,
crossed the river for further geological investigations, while Prof. and
Jones started to climb out, though the prospect was not encouraging.
They ascended over rock, strangely eroded by water into caverns and
holes, then along a ledge till Jones, being a taller man than Prof., got
up and pulled Prof. after him with his revolver belt. They obtained a
remarkable view. Buttes, ridges, mountains stood all round, with the
river so completely lost in the abruptness of its chasm that a mile from
the brink the whole region was apparently solid, and the existence of
the gorge with a river at bottom would not even be suspected. They could
trace the line of Grand River by tower-like buttes and long ridges, and
just at the gap formed by the junction with the Green a blue mountain
arose. The Sierra La Sal, too, could be seen lying on the horizon like
blue clouds. "Weird and wild, barren and ghost-like, it seemed like an
unknown world," said Prof. The country was a vast plateau similar to the
one through which the Canyon of Desolation is carved, that is tilting
northward and increasing in altitude towards the south, so that as the
river runs on its canyon becomes deeper from this cause as well as its
cutting. These great terraces sloping to the north were not before
understood. They terminate on the south in vertical cliffs through which
the river emerges abruptly. From such features as these the Major named
this the Plateau Province. The cliffs terminating each plateau form
intricate escarpments, meandering for many miles, and they might be
likened to a series of irregular and complicated steps. Occasional high
buttes and mountain masses break the surface, but in general the whole
area forming the major part of the basin of the Colorado may be
described as a plateau country--a land of mesas, cliffs, and canyons.

[Illustration: Labyrinth Canyon--Bowknot Bend.

The Great Loop Is behind the Spectator.

Photograph by E. O. Beaman, 1871.]

The next day, September 11th, we were on the river at 7.30, and ran
about seven miles on smooth water before we stopped for a mid-day rest
and dinner on the right bank, as well as to enable Beaman to take some
views he desired. Another three miles and we halted again for
geologising and for photographs, while Prof., taking Andy in his boat,
went ahead to establish a camp somewhere below for the night, in order
that we would not be so late getting supper. The days were now growing
short, and supper by firelight was a common thing. Rain soon began again
and put a stop to the work, driving us forward between the scores of
cascades which soon began to leap anew from every height to the river.
At one place a waterfall shot out from behind an arch set against the
wall, making a singular but beautiful effect, and revealing to us one
method by which some of the arches are formed. The place Prof. had
selected for camp was reached almost the same time that he got there. It
was on the left among the greasewood bushes, and there we put up our
paulins for shelter on oars as before. We had made about fifteen miles.
The walls receded from the river, forming what the Major named the
Orange Cliffs, and were much broken, while the back country could be
seen in places from our boats. Scores, hundreds, multitudes of buttes of
bare rock of all shapes and sizes were in sight, and one was called the
Butte of the Cross, because it suggested a cross lying down from one
position, though from another it was seen to be in reality two distinct
masses. Here ended Labyrinth Canyon according to the Major's decision.
We credited it with a length of 62-1/2 miles. Although winding through
an extremely arid country, it had for us been a place of rain and
waterfalls, and even though rapids were absent we had been nevertheless
kept rather wet.

There was not much change in structure between Labyrinth Canyon and the
following one of the series, Stillwater. The interval was one of
lowered, much broken walls, well back from the river, leaving wide
bottom lands on the sides. We went ahead in the morning on quiet water
for seven or eight miles, and stopped on a high bank for dinner and for
examinations. Prof., Cap., Steward, and the Major climbed out. Steward
got separated from the others by trying to reach a rather distant butte,
and when he tried to rejoin us he had considerable difficulty in doing
so. For half an hour he searched for a place to get down, and we looked
for one also from the bottom, and finally he was compelled to go down
half a mile farther, where he made the descent only to find himself in a
dense jungle of rose-bushes, willows, and other plants. We had to cut a
way in to relieve him. The luxuriant growth of these plants seemed to
indicate that the barrenness of the plateau was due not so much to
aridity as to the peculiar rock formation, which, disintegrating easily
under the frosts and rains, prevented the accumulation of soil. The soil
was washed away by every rain and carried by thousands of cataracts into
the river. Only when the country reaches the "base level of erosion," as
the Major called it, would vegetation succeed in holding its place; that
is when the declivity of the surrounding region became reduced till the
rain torrents should lack the velocity necessary to transport any great
load of detritus, and the disintegrated material would accumulate, give
a footing to plants, and thus further protect itself and the rocks.

[Illustration: Stillwater Canyon.

Photograph by E. O. Beaman, 1871.]

The Major and Prof. now decided to use up all the photographic material
between this point and the Dirty Devil, and leave one boat at the latter
place till the next season, when a party would come in for it and take
it down to the Paria. We would be obliged to examine the Dirty Devil
region then in any event. Three miles below our dinner camp we arrived
at a remarkably picturesque bend, and on the outer circumference we made
our sixtieth camp, but so late that supper was eaten by firelight. The
bend was named by Beaman "Bonito," and in the morning he made a number
of views. The bottom lands along the river had evidently been utilised
by the aboriginal inhabitants for farming, as fragments of pottery
occasionally found indicated their presence here in former days. It was
afternoon when we pushed off and left Bonito Bend behind. After a few
miles the Major and Prof. tried to climb out, but they failed. A buff
sandstone, resting on red shale, was vertical for about 140 feet
everywhere and could not be surmounted. Above this stood another
vertical wall of five hundred feet, an orange coloured sandstone, in
which no break was apparent. These walls closed in on the river,
leaving barely a margin in many places. There were few landings, the
current, rather swift and smooth, swirling along the foot of the rocks,
which rose vertically for 250 feet and were about four hundred feet
apart. As the evening came on we could find no place to stop that
offered room enough for a camp, and we drifted on and on till almost
dark, when we discovered a patch of soil on the right that would give us
sufficient space. The 13th of September happened to be my birthday, and
Andy had promised to stew a mess of dried apples in celebration. This
does not sound like a tremendous treat, but circumstances give the test.
Our supply of rations being limited and now running low, Andy for some
time had been curbing our appetites. Stewed dried apples were granted
about once a week, and boiled beans were an equal luxury. It was
consequently a disappointment not to get the promised extra allowance of
apples on this occasion. Not only was the hour late, but there was
little wood to be had, though diligent raking around produced enough
driftwood to cook our supper of bacon, coffee, and bread. Our camp was
beneath an overhanging cliff about six hundred feet high, and the walls
near us were so heavily coated with salt that it could be broken off in
chunks anywhere. The quarters were not roomy, but we got a good sleep.
In the morning before he was fairly awake Steward discovered fossils in
the rocks over his head, and we remained till one o'clock in order that
an investigation could be made. He collected about a peck of fine
specimens. When we started again the canyon was so interesting,
particularly to the geologists, that we stopped several times in a run
of five miles between vertical walls not over six hundred feet apart.
Camp was finally made on the right in a sort of alcove, with a level
fertile bottom of several acres, where the ancients had grown corn.
Evidences of their former life here were numerous. Steward, climbing on
the cliffs, suddenly gave a loud shout, announcing a discovery. He had
found two small huts built into the rocks. Several of us went up to look
at them. They were of great age and so small that they could have been
only storage places. Withered and hardened corncobs were found within
them.

On returning to camp we learned that the Major had found some larger
house ruins on a terrace some distance up the river. Around the
camp-fire that evening he told us something about the Shinumos, as he
called them, who long ago had inhabited this region, and in imagination
we now beheld them again climbing the cliffs or toiling at their
agriculture in the small bottom land.

At daylight Steward, Clem, and I went up to the ruins, which stood on a
terrace projecting in such a way that a clear view could be had up and
down the river. There were two houses built of stone slabs, each about
13 x 15 feet, and about six feet of wall were still standing. Thirty
feet or more below ran the river, and there were remains of an old
stairway leading down through a crevice to the river, but too much
disintegrated for us to descend. These were the first ruins of the kind
I had ever seen, and I was as much interested in them as I afterwards
was in the Colosseum.

Prof., being desirous of arriving as speedily as possible at the
junction of the Grand with the Green, which was now not far off, for the
purpose of getting an observation for time, left us at seven o'clock and
proceeded in advance, while the remainder of the party turned their
attention to the locality where we were. We could see traces of an old
trail up the cliffs, and the Major, Jack, Andy, and Jones started to
follow this out. With the aid of ropes taken along and stones piled up,
as well as a cottonwood pole that had been placed as a ladder by the
ancients, they succeeded in reaching the summit. Clem and I went back to
the large house ruins for a re-examination, and looked over the
quantities of broken arrowheads of jasper and the potsherds strewing the
place in search of specimens of value. On the return trip of the
climbers Andy discovered an earthen jar, fifteen inches high and about
twelve inches in diameter, of the "pinched-coil" type, under a
sheltering rock, covered by a piece of flat stone, where it had rested
for many a decade if not for a century. It contained a small coil of
split-willow, such as is used in basketry, tied with cord of aboriginal
make. Some one had placed it there for a few moments.

After dinner we continued down the canyon, taking the pot with us. The
walls were nearly vertical on both sides, or at any rate appeared so to
us from the boats, and they often came straight into the water, with
here and there a few willows. They were not more than 450 feet apart.
No rapids troubled us, and the current was less than three miles an
hour, but we seemed to be going swiftly even without rowing. After about
seven miles the trend of the chasm became easterly, and we saw the mouth
of the Grand, the Junction, that hidden mystery which, unless we count
D. Julien, only nine white men, the Major's first party, had ever seen
before us. The Grand entered through a canyon similar to that of the
Green, all the immediate walls being at least 800 feet and the summit of
the plateau about 1500 feet above the river. On the right was a small
bench, perhaps one-third of a mile long and several rods wide, fringed
by a sand-bank, on which we found the crew of the _Nell_ established in
Camp 62. Between the two rivers was another footing of about two acres,
bearing several hackberry trees, and it was on this bank up the Grand
River side that the first party camped. Across on the east shore we
could see still another strip with some bushes, but there was no more
horizontal land to be found here. The two rivers blended gracefully on
nearly equal terms, and the doubled volume started down with reckless
impetuosity. This was the end of Stillwater Canyon, with a length of
42-3/4 miles. At last we had finished the canyons of the Green, with
every boat in good condition and not a man injured in any way, and now
we stood before the grim jaws of the Colorado. Our descent from Gunnison
Crossing was 215 feet, with not a rapid that was worth recording, and
from the Union Pacific crossing in feet, 2215, and in miles, 539. The
altitude of the Junction is 3860 feet above sea-level.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 13: In fact there was only one practicable place, El Vado de
los Padres, and that was difficult. The alternative would have been to
cross Arizona south of the Colorado. By this Gunnison Crossing route
there were better wood, water, and grass to compensate for distance.]

[Footnote 14: It is here that the Denver and Rio Grande railway crossed,
bridging the river in 1883. From here also the Brown Expedition started
in May, 1889, and the Best Expedition in 1891.]

[Footnote 15: Many years afterward on a rock face half-way round this
bend the inscription, D. Julien 1836 3 Mai, was found. The same
inscription was also found in two other places just below the mouth of
Grand River and near the end of Cataract Canyon.]

CHAPTER IX

A Wonderland of Crags and Pinnacles--Poverty Rations--Fast and
Furious Plunging Waters--Boulders Boom along the
Bottom--Chilly Days and Shivering--A Wild Tumultuous Chasm--A
Bad Passage by Twilight and a Tornado with a Picture
Moonrise--Out of one Canyon into Another--At the Mouth of the
Dirty Devil at Last.

We were on the threshold of what the Major had previously named Cataract
Canyon, because the declivity within it is so great and the water
descends with such tremendous velocity and continuity that he thought
the term rapid failed to interpret the conditions. The addition of the
almost equal volume of the Grand--indeed it was now a little greater
owing to extra heavy rains along its course--doubled the depth and
velocity of the river till it swirled on into the new canyon before us
with a fierce, threatening intensity, sapping the flat sand-bank on
which our camp was laid and rapidly eating it away. Large masses with a
sudden splash would drop out of sight and dissolve like sugar in a cup
of tea. We were obliged to be on the watch lest the moorings of the
boats should be loosened, allowing them to sweep pell-mell before us
down the gorge. The long ropes were carried back to their limit and made
fast to stakes driven deep into the hard sand. Jack and I became
dissatisfied with the position of our boat and dropped it down two or
three hundred yards to a place where the conditions were better, and
camped by it. There were a few small cottonwoods against the cliff
behind the sand-bank, but they were too far off to be reached by our
lines, and the ground beneath them was too irregular and rocky for a
camp. These trees, with the hackberry trees across the river and
numerous stramonium bushes in full blossom, composed the chief
vegetation of this extraordinary locality. No more remote place existed
at that time within the United States--no place more difficult of
access. Macomb in his reconnaissance in 1859 had tried hard to arrive
here, but he got no nearer than the edge of the plateau about thirty
miles up Grand River.

It was necessary that we should secure topographic notes and
observations from the summit, and we scanned the surroundings for the
most promising place for exit. The Major was sure we could make a
successful ascent to the upper regions by way of a narrow cleft on the
right or west some distance back up the Green, which he had noted as we
came along; so in the morning of Saturday, September 16th, he and Jack,
Beaman, Clem, Jones, and I rowed up in the _Canonita_, the current being
slow along the west bank, and started up the crevice, dragging the
cumbrous photographic outfit along. Prof. remained below for
observations for time. The cleft was filled with fallen rocks, and we
had no trouble mounting, except that the photographic boxes were like
lead and the straps across one's chest made breathing difficult. The
climb was tiring, but there was no obstacle, and we presently emerged on
the surface of the country 1300 feet above the river and 5160 above the
sea. Here was revealed a wide cyclorama that was astounding. Nothing was
in sight but barren sandstone, red, yellow, brown, grey, carved into an
amazing multitude of towers, buttes, spires, pinnacles, some of them
several hundred feet high, and all shimmering under a dazzling sun. It
was a marvellous mighty desert of bare rock, chiselled by the ages out
of the foundations of the globe; fantastic, extraordinary, antediluvian,
labyrinthian, and slashed in all directions by crevices; crevices wide,
crevices narrow, crevices medium, some shallow, some dropping till a
falling stone clanked resounding into the far hollow depths. Scarcely
could we travel a hundred yards but we were compelled to leap some deep,
dark crack. Often they were so wide a running jump was necessary, and at
times the smooth rock sloped on both sides toward the crevice rather
steeply. Once the Major came sliding down a bare slope till at a point
where he caught sight of the edge of a sombre fissure just where he
must land. He could not see its width; he could not return, and there he
hung. Luckily I was where by another path I could quickly reach the
rock below, and I saw that the crevice was not six inches wide, and I
shouted the joyful news. Steward had not come up with us, but had
succeeded in ascending through a narrow crevice below camp. He soon
arrived within speaking distance, but there he was foiled by a crack too
wide to jump, and he had to remain a stranger to us the rest of the day.
At a little distance back from the brink these crevices were not so
numerous nor so wide, and there we discovered a series of extremely
pretty "parks" lost amidst the million turreted rocks. I made a pencil
sketch looking out into this Sinav-to-weap, as the Major called it from
information obtained from the Utes.[16] Beaman secured a number of
photographs, but not all that were desired, and, as we did not have
rations for stopping on the summit, we went back to camp and made the
climb again the next day. Fortunately the recent rains had filled many
hollows in the bare rock, forming pockets of delicious, pure water,
where we could drink, but on a hot and dry summer's day travelling here
would be intolerable, if not impossible. Fragments of arrow-heads, chips
of chalcedony, and quantities of potsherds scattered around proved that
our ancient Shinumos had known the region well. Doubtless some of their
old trails would lead to large and deep water-pockets. There are
pot-holes in this bare sandstone of enormous size, often several feet in
depth and of similar diameter, which become filled with rain-water that
lasts a long time. The Shinumos had numerous dwellings all through this
country, with trails leading from place to place, highways and byways.

The following day the Major and Jones climbed out on the side opposite
camp, that is on the east side, where they found an old trail and
evidences of camping during the summer just closed, probably by the
Utes. That night, Jones, in attempting to enter our boat in the
moonlight, stepped on the corner of the hatch of the middle cabin, which
was not on securely; it tipped, and he was thrown in such a way as to
severely injure his leg below the knee. This was the first mishap thus
far to any one of the party.

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