Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico Part 1

Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico.

by E. L. Kolb.

FOREWORD

It is a dogged courage of which the author of this book is the serene possessor--shared equally by his daring brother; and evidence of this bravery is made plain throughout the following pages. Every youth who has in him a spark of adventure will kindle with desire to battle his way also from Green River to the foot of Bright Angel Trail; while every man whose bones have been stiffened and his breath made short by the years, will remember wistfully such wild tastes of risk and conquest that he, too, rejoiced in when he was young.

Whether it deal with the climbing of dangerous peaks, or the descent (as here) of some fourteen hundred miles of water both mysterious and ferocious, the well-told tale of a perilous journey, planned with head and carried through with dauntless persistence, always holds the attention of its readers and gives them many a thrill. This tale is very well told. Though it is the third of its kind, it differs from its predecessors more than enough to hold its own: no previous explorers have attempted to take moving pictures of the Colorado River with themselves weltering in its foam. More than this: while the human race lasts it will be true, that any man who is lucky enough to fix upon a hard goal and win it, and can in direct and simple words tell us how he won it, will write a good book.

Perhaps this planet does somewhere else contain a thing like the Colorado River--but that is no matter; we at any rate in our continent possess one of nature's very vastest works. After The River and its tributaries have done with all sight of the upper world, have left behind the bordering plains and streamed through the various gashes which their floods have sliced in the mountains that once stopped their way, then the culminating wonder begins. The River has been flowing through the loneliest part which remains to us of that large s.p.a.ce once denominated "The Great American Desert" by the vague maps in our old geographies. It has pa.s.sed through regions of emptiness still as wild as they were before Columbus came; where not only no man lives now nor any mark is found of those forgotten men of the cliffs, but the very surface of the earth itself looks monstrous and extinct.

Upon one such region in particular the author of these pages dwells, when he climbs up out of the gulf in whose bottom he has left his boat by the River, to look out upon a world of round gray humps and hollows which seem as if it were made of the backs of huge elephants. Through such a country as this, scarcely belonging to our era any more than the mammoth or the pterodactyl, scarcely belonging to time at all, does the Colorado approach and enter its culminating marvel. Then, for 283 miles it inhabits a nether world of its own. The few that have ventured through these places and lived are a handful to those who went in and were never seen again. The white bones of some have been found on the sh.o.r.es; but most were drowned; and in this water no bodies ever rise, because the thick sand that its torrent churns along clogs and sinks them.

This place exerts a magnetic spell. The sky is there above it, but not of it. Its being is apart; its climate; its light; its own. The beams of the sun come into it like visitors. Its own winds blow through it, not those of outside, where we live. The River streams down its mysterious reaches, hurrying ceaselessly; sometimes a smooth sliding lap, sometimes a falling, broken wilderness of billows and whirlpools.

Above stand its walls, rising through s.p.a.ce upon s.p.a.ce of silence.

They glow, they gloom, they s.h.i.+ne. Bend after bend they reveal themselves, endlessly new in endlessly changing veils of colour. A swimming and jewelled blue predominates, as of sapphires being melted and spun into skeins of s.h.i.+fting cobweb. Bend after bend this trance of beauty and awe goes on, terrible as the Day of Judgment, sublime as the Psalms of David. Five thousand feet below the opens and barrens of Arizona, this canyon seems like an avenue conducting to the secret of the universe and the presence of the G.o.ds.

Is much wonder to be felt that its beckoning enchantment should have drawn two young men to dwell beside it for many years; to give themselves wholly to it; to descend and ascend among its b.u.t.tressed pinnacles; to discover caves and waterfalls hidden in its labyrinths; to climb, to creep, to hang in mid-air, in order to learn more and more of it, and at last to gratify wholly their pa.s.sion in the great adventure of this journey through it from end to end? No siren song could have lured travellers more than the siren silence of the Grand Canyon: but these young men did not leave their bones to whiten upon its sh.o.r.es. The courage that brought them out whole is plain throughout this narrative, in spite of its modesty.--OWEN WISTER.

PREFACE

This is a simple narrative of our recent photographic trip down the Green and Colorado rivers in rowboats--our observations and impressions. It is not intended to replace in any way the books published by others covering a similar journey. Major J.W. Powell's report of the original exploration, for instance, is a cla.s.sic, literary and geological; and searchers after excellence may well be recommended to his admirable work.

Neither is this chronicle intended as a handbook of the territory traversed--such as Mr. F.S. Dellenbaugh's two volumes: "The Romance of the Grand Canyon," and "A Canyon Voyage." We could hardly hope to add anything of value to his wealth of detail. In fact, much of the data given here--such as distances, elevations, and records of other expeditions--is borrowed from the latter volume. And I take this opportunity of expressing our appreciation to Mr. Dellenbaugh for his most excellent and entertaining books.

We are indebted to Mr. Julius F. Stone, of Columbus, Ohio, for much valuable information and a.s.sistance. Mr. Stone organized a party and made the complete trip down the Green and Colorado rivers in the fall and winter of 1909, arriving at Needles, California, on November 27, 1909. He freely gave us the benefit of his experience and presented us with the complete plans of the boats he used.

One member of this party was Nathan Galloway, of Richfield, Utah. To him we owe much of the success of our journey. Mr. Galloway hunts and traps through the wilds of Utah, Colorado, and Arizona, and has a fame for skill and nerve throughout this entire region. He makes a yearly trip through the upper canyons, usually in a boat of his own construction; and in addition has the record of being the only person who has made two complete trips through the entire series of canyons, clear to Needles. He it is who has worked out the type of boats we used, and their management in the dangerous waters of the Colorado.

We have tried to make this narrative not only simple, as we say, but truthful. However, no two people can see things in exactly the same light. To some, nothing looks big; to others, every little danger is unconsciously magnified out of all proportion. For instance, we can recall rapids which appeared rather insignificant at first, but which seemed decidedly otherwise after we had been overturned in them and had felt their power--especially at the moment when we were sure we had swallowed a large part of the water that composed them.

The reader will kindly excuse the use of the first person, both singular and plural. It is our own story, after all, and there seems to be no other way than to tell it as you find it here.

THROUGH THE GRAND CANYON FROM WYOMING TO MEXICO

CHAPTER I

PREPARATIONS AT GREEN RIVER CITY, WYOMING

Early in September of 1911 my brother Emery and I landed in Green River City, Wyoming, ready for the launching of our boats on our long-planned trip down the Green and Colorado rivers.

For ten years previous to this time we had lived at the Grand Canyon of Arizona, following the work of scenic photography. In a general way we had covered much of the country adjacent to our home, following our pack animals over ancient and little-used trails, climbing the walls of tributary canyons, dropping over the ledges with ropes when necessary, always in search of the interesting and unusual.

After ten years of such work many of our plans in connection with a pictorial exploration of the Grand Canyon were crowned with success.

Yet all the while our real ambition remained unsatisfied.

We wanted to make the "Big Trip"--as we called it; in other words, we wanted a pictorial record of the entire series of canyons on the Green and Colorado rivers.

The time had come at last, after years of hoping, after long months of active preparation.

We stood at the freight window of the station at Green River City asking for news of our boats. They had arrived and could be seen in their crates shoved away in a corner. It was too late to do anything with them that day; so we let them remain where they were, and went out to look over the town.

Green River City proved to be a busy little place noisy with switch engines, crowded with cattle-men and cowboys, and with hunting parties outfitting for the Jackson Hole country. A thoroughly Western town of the better sort, with all the picturesqueness of people and surroundings that the name implies.

It was busier than usual, even, that evening; for a noisy but good-natured crowd had gathered around the telegraph office, eager for news of a wrestling match then taking place in an Eastern city. As we came up they broke into a cheer at the news that the American wrestler had defeated his foreign opponent. There was a discussion as to what const.i.tuted the "toe-hold," three boys ran an impromptu foot-race, there was some talk on the poor condition of the range, and the party began to break up.

The little excitement over, we returned to the hotel; feeling, in spite of our enthusiasm, somewhat lonesome and very much out of place.

Our sleep that night was fitful and broken by dreams wherein the places we had known were strangely interwoven with these new scenes and events. Through it all we seemed to hear the roar of the Rio Colorado.

We looked out of the window the next morning, on a landscape that was novel, yet somehow familiar. The river, a quarter of a mile away, very clear and unruffled under its groves of cottonwood, wound through low barren hills, as unlike as could be to the cliffs and chasms we knew so well. But the colours--gray, red, and umber, just as Moran has painted them--rea.s.sured us. We seemed not so far from home, after all.

It was Wyoming weather, though; clear and cold, after a windy night.

When, after breakfast, we went down to the river, we found that a little ice had formed along the margin.

The days of final preparation pa.s.sed quickly--with unpacking of innumerable boxes and bundles, checking off each article against our lists; and with a long and careful overhauling of our photographic outfit.

This last was a most important task, for the success of our expedition depended on our success as photographers. We could not hope to add anything of importance to the scientific and topographic knowledge of the canyons already existing: and merely to come out alive at the other end did not make a strong appeal to our vanity. We were there as scenic photographers in love with their work, and determined to reproduce the marvels of the Colorado's canyons, as far as we could do it.

In addition to three film cameras we had 8 10 and 5 7 plate cameras; a plentiful supply of plates and films; a large cloth dark-room; and whatever chemicals we should need for tests. Most important of all, we had brought a motion-picture camera. We had no real a.s.surance that so delicate an apparatus, always difficult to use and regulate, could even survive the journey--much less, in such inexperienced hands as ours, reproduce its wonders. But this, nevertheless, was our secret hope, hardly admitted to our most intimate friends--that we could bring out a record of the Colorado as it is, a live thing, armed as it were with teeth, ready to crush and devour.

There was shopping to do; for the purchases of provisions, with a few exceptions, had been left to the last. There were callers, too--an embarra.s.sing number of them. We had camped on a small island near the town, not knowing when we did so that it had recently been put aside for a public park. The whole of Green River City, it seemed, had learned of our project, and came to inspect, or advise, or jeer at us.

The kindest of them wished us well; the other sort told us "it would serve us right"; but not one of our callers had any encouragement to offer. Many were the stories of disaster and death with which they entertained us. One story in particular, as it seems never to have reached print--though unquestionably true--ought to be set down here.

Three years before two young men from St. Louis had embarked here, intending to follow the river throughout its whole course. They were expert canoeists, powerful swimmers, and equipped with a steel boat, we were told, built somewhat after the style of a canoe. They chose the time of high water--not knowing, probably, that while high water decreases the labour of the pa.s.sage, it greatly increases the danger of it. They came to the first difficult rapid in Red Canyon, seventy odd miles below Green River City. It looked bad to them. They landed above it and stripped to their underclothing and socks. Then they pushed out into the stream.

Almost at once they lost control of the boat. It overturned; it rolled over and over; it flung them off and left them swimming for their lives. In some way, possibly the currents favouring, they reached the sh.o.r.e. The boat, with all its contents, was gone. There they were, almost naked, without food, without weapons, without the means of building a fire; and in an uninhabited and utterly inhospitable country.

For four days they wandered, blistered by the sun by day; nearly frozen at night, bruised by the rocks, and torn by the brambles.

Finally they reached the ranch at the head of the canyons and were found by a half-breed Indian, who cared for them. Their underwear had been made into bindings for their lacerated feet; they were nearly starved, and on the verge of mental collapse. After two weeks'

treatment in the hospital at Green River City they were partially restored to health. Quite likely they spent many of the long hours of their convalescence on the river bank, or on the little island, watching the unruffled stream glide underneath the cottonwoods.

Such tales as this added nothing to our fears, of course--for the whole history of the Colorado is one long story of hards.h.i.+p and disaster, and we knew, even better than our advisors, what risks lay before us. We told our newfound friends, in fact, that we had lived for years on the brink of the Grand Canyon itself, a gorge deeper and more awful, even, than Lodore; with a volume of water ten times greater. We knew, of course, of the river's vast length, of the terrible gorges that confined it, of the hundreds of rapids through which a boat would have to pa.s.s.

We knew, too, how Major Powell, undismayed by legends of underground channels, impa.s.sable cataracts, and whirlpools; of bloodthirsty tribes haunting its recesses,--had pa.s.sed through the canyons in safety, measuring and surveying as he went. We also knew of the many other attempts that had been made--most of them ending in disaster or death, a very few being successful.

Well, it had been done;[1] it could be done again--this was our answer to their premonitions.

We had present worries enough to keep us from dwelling too much on the future. It had been our intention to start two weeks earlier, but there had been numerous unavoidable delays. The river was low; "the lowest they had seen it in years" they told us, and falling lower every day. There were the usual difficulties of arranging a lot of new material, and putting it in working order.

At last we were ready for the boats, and you may be sure we lost no time in having them hauled to the river, and launching them.