Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico Part 3

We first had to pa.s.s between two square rocks rising eight feet above the water so close together that we could not use the oars; then, when past these, pull ten feet to the right in order to clear the large rock at the end of the main dam, or barrier, not more than twenty feet below. To pull down bow first and try to make the turn, would mean to smash broadside against this rock. It could only be done by dropping stern first, and pulling to the right under the protection of the first rocks; though it was doubtful if even this could be accomplished, the current was so swift. The _Defiance_ was ready first, the _Edith_ was to follow as closely as safety allowed.

Almost before I knew it I was in the narrow channel, so close to the right rock that I had to s.h.i.+p that oar, and pull altogether on the left one. As soon as I was through I made a few quick strokes, but the current was too strong for me; and a corner of the stern struck a bang when I was almost clear. She paused as a wave rolled over the decks, then rose quickly; a side current caught the boat, whirling it around, and the bow struck. I was still pulling with all my might, but everything happened so quickly,--with the boat whirling first this way, then that,--that my efforts were almost useless. But after that second strike I did get in a few strokes, and pulled into the quiet pool below the line of boulders.

Emery held his boat in better position than I had done, and it looked for a while as if he would make it. But the _Edith_ struck on the stern, much as mine had done. Then he pulled clear and joined me in the shelter of the large rock, as cool and smiling as if he had been rowing on a mill-pond. We were delighted to find that our boats had suffered no damage from the blows they had received. Striking on the ends as they did, the shock was distributed throughout the whole boat.

This completed our run for that day, and we went into camp just below the "Falls." Emery painted the name _Edith_ on the bow of his boat, at this camp. The name was given in honour of his four-year-old daughter, waiting for us at the Grand Canyon. I remarked that as no one loved me, I would name my boat the _Defiance_. But I hesitated about putting this name on the bow. I would look rather foolish, I thought, if the _Defiance_ should be wrecked in the first bad rapid. So the christening of my boat was left until such time as should have earned the t.i.tle, although she was constantly referred to as the _Defiance_.

We remained until noon of the following day at Ashley Falls, exploring, repairing, and photographing this picturesque spot. The canyon walls here dropped down to beautiful, rolling foot-hills eight or nine hundred feet high tree covered as before but more open. The diversity of rocks and hills was alluring. There was work to be done and no pleasanter spot could be found in which to do it. Among other things that had to be looked after were some adjustments to the motion-picture camera--usually referred to by us as the M.P.C.--this delicate work always falling to Emery, for he alone could do it.

There was much to interest us here. Major Powell reported finding the name "Ashley" painted under an overhanging rock on the left side of the river. Underneath was a date, rather indistinct, but found to have been 1825, by Dellenbaugh, after carefully tracing the career of Colonel Ashley who was responsible for the record. Accompanied by a number of trappers, he made the pa.s.sage through this canyon at that early day. We found a trace of the record. There were three letters--A-s-h--the first two quite distinct, and underneath were black spots. It must have been pretty good paint to leave a trace after eighty-six years!

Resuming our journey we pa.s.sed into deep canyon again,--the deepest we had found up to this time,--with steeply sloping, verdure-covered walls about 2700 feet high. The rapids still continued. At one rapid the remark was made that "Two feet of water would cover two hundred rocks so that our boats would pa.s.s over them." But we did not have the two feet needed.

We had previously been informed that some of these mountains were the hiding-places of men who were "wanted" in the three states which bordered near here. Some escaping prisoners had also been traced to the mountains in this direction; then all tracks had ceased. The few peaceable ranchers who lived in these mountains were much alarmed over these reports. We found one such rancher on the plateau above the canyon, whom we will call Johnson for convenience,--living in one of the upper canyons. He sold us some provisions. In return he asked us to help him swim some of his horses across the river. He said the high water had taken out his own boat. The horses were rounded up in a mountain-hidden valley and driven into the water ahead of the boat.

After securing the horses, Johnson's welcome seemed to turn to suspicion and he questioned our reasons for being there, wanting to know what we could find in that wild country to interest us. Johnson's sons, of whom there were several, seemed to put in most of their time at hunting and trapping, never leaving the house without a gun. The cabin home looked like an a.r.s.enal, revolvers and guns hanging on all the walls--even his daughters being familiar with their use. Although we had been very well treated after all, Mrs. Johnson especially having been very kind to us, we felt just a little relieved when the Johnson ranch was left behind. We use, in fact, a fictious name, not caring to visit on them the suspicions we ourselves felt in return.

Another morning pa.s.sed in repairing the M.P. camera, and another afternoon's work was necessary to get us out of the walls and the rapids of Red Canyon. But on the evening of the 20th, we did get out, and pulled into an open country known as Brown's Park, one week after entering Flaming Gorge. It had not been very fast travelling; but we were through, and with no mishap more serious than a split board on the side of my boat. Under favourable conditions, and in experienced hands, this distance might have been covered in three days. But meanwhile, we were gaining a lot of experience.

About the lower end of Red Canyon the river turned directly east, paralleling the northern boundary of Utah, and continued to flow in this general direction until it crossed into Colorado.

On emerging from Red Canyon we spied a ranch house or log cabin close to the river. The doors were open and there were many tracks in the sand, so we thought some one must be about. On approaching the house, however, we found the place was deserted, but with furniture, books, and pictures piled on the floor in the utmost confusion, as if the occupants had left in a great hurry. This surmise afterward proved to be correct; for we learned that the rancher had been murdered for his money, his body having been found in a boat farther down the river.

Suspicion pointed to an old employee who had been seen lurking near the place. He was traced to the railroad, over a hundred miles to the north; but made his escape and was never caught.

We found Brown's Park, once known as Brown's Hole, to be a beautiful valley several miles in width, and thirty-five or forty miles in length. The upper end of the valley was rugged in places, with rocky hills two or three hundred feet high. To the south, a few miles away, were the mountains, a continuation of those we had come through. We saw many cattle scattered over some of these rocky hills, grazing on the bunch-gra.s.s. At one place our course led us through a little canyon about two miles long, and scarcely more than two hundred feet deep. This was Swallow Canyon--a name suggested by the many birds of that species which had covered the canyon's walls with their little clay nests. The openings of some of these nests were so small that it scarcely seemed possible for a bird to enter.

The water was deep and quiet in this short canyon, and a hard wind blowing up the stream made it difficult for us to gain any headway. In this case, too, the forms of the boat were against us. With the keel removed and with their high sides catching the wind, they were carried back and forth like small balloons. Well, we could put up with it for a while, for those very features would prove most valuable in the rough-water canyons which were to follow!

Emerging from the canyon at last, we saw a ferry loaded with sheep crossing the stream. On the left sh.o.r.e was a large corral, also filled with sheep which a half dozen men were driving back and forth into different compartments. Later these men told us there were 2400 sheep in the flock. We took their word for it, making no attempt to count them. The foreman of the ranch agreed to sell us some sugar and honey,--these two articles being a welcome addition to our list of supplies, which were beginning to show the effects of our voracious appet.i.tes.

We found many other log cabins and ranches as we proceeded. Some of them were deserted; at others men were busily engaged in cutting hay or the wild gra.s.s that grew in the bottoms. The fragrance of new-mown hay was in the air. Young boys and women were among these busy workers, some of the women being seated on large harvesters, handling the horses with as much dexterity as any of the men.

The entire trip through this pretty valley was full of interest. We were hailed from the sh.o.r.e by some of the hay ranchers, it being a novel sight to them to see a river expedition. At one or two of these places we asked the reason for the deserted ranches above, and were given evasive answers. Finally we were told that cattle rustlers from the mountains made it so hard for the ranchers in the valleys that there was nothing for them to do but get out. They told us, also, that we were fortunate to get away from Johnson's ranch with our valuables!

Our former host, we were told, had committed many depredations and had served one term for cattle stealing. Officers, disguised as prospectors, had taken employment with him and helped him kill and skin some cattle; the skins, with their telltale brands, having been partially burned and buried. On this evidence he was afterwards convicted.

Our cool welcome by the Johnsons, their suspicions of us, the sinister a.r.s.enal of guns and pistols, all was explained! Quite likely some of these weapons had been trained against us by the trappers on the chance that we were either officers of the law, or compet.i.tors in the horse-stealing industry. For that matter we were actually guilty of the latter count, for come to think of it, we ourselves had helped them steal eight horses and a colt!

The entire trip through this pretty valley was full of interest. It was all so different from anything seen above. There were great bottoms that gave evidence of having recently been overflooded, though now covered with cottonwood trees, gorgeous in their autumn foliage.

We had often wondered where all the driftwood that floated down the Colorado came from; but after seeing those unnumbered acres of cottonwoods we ceased to wonder.

There were many beaver slides on the banks; and in places, numberless trees had been felled by these industrious animals. On one or two occasions we narrowly escaped splitting the sides of our boats on snags of trees which the beavers had buried in the bottom of the stream. We saw no beaver dams on the river; they were not necessary, for deep, quiet pools existed everywhere in Brown's Park. We saw two beavers in this section. One of these rose, porpoise-like, to the top of the water, stared at us a moment, then brought his tail down with a resounding smack on the top of the water, and disappeared, to enter his home by the subterranean route, no doubt. The river was gradually losing its clear colour, for the sand-bars were beginning to "work out," or break, making the water quite roily. In some sections of Brown's Park we grounded on these sand-bars, making it necessary for us to get out into the water, pus.h.i.+ng and pulling on the boats until deeper water was reached. Sometimes the deep water came when least expected, the sand-bars having a disconcerting way of dropping off abruptly on the downstream side. Jimmy stepped off the edge of one of these hidden ledges while working with a boat and was for some time in no condition to appreciate our ill-concealed mirth.

Often we would be pa.s.sing along on perfectly smooth water, when suddenly a turmoil would rise all about us as though a geyser had broken out below the surface. If we happened to be directly over it, the boat would be rocked back and forth for a while; then all would be peaceful again. This was most often caused by the ledges of sand, anywhere from three to ten feet high breaking down or falling forward as their bases were undermined. In a single night a bar of this kind will work upstream for a distance of several feet; then the sand will be carried down with the current to lodge again in some quiet pool, and again be carried on as before. This action gives rise to long lines of regular waves or swells extending for some distance down the stream. These are usually referred to as sand-waves. These waves increase in size in high water; and the monotonous thump, thump of the boat's bottom upon them is anything but pleasant, especially if one is trying to make fast time.

So, with something new at every turn, we pulled lazily through Brown's Park, shooting at ducks and geese when we came near them, snapping our cameras when a picture presented itself, and observing the animal life along the stream.

We stopped at one hay-ranch close to the Utah-Colorado line and chatted awhile with the workers. A pleasant-faced woman named Mrs.

Chew asked us to deliver a message at a ranch a mile or two below.

Here also was the post-office of Lodore, Colorado, located a short distance above the canyon of the same name. Mrs. Chew informed us that they had another ranch at the lower end of Lodore Canyon and asked us to look them up when we got through, remarking: "You may have trouble, you know. Two of my sons once tried it. They lost their boat, had to climb out, and nearly starved before they reached home."

The post-office at the ranch, found as described, without another home in sight, was a welcome sight to us for several reasons. One reason was that it afforded shelter from a heavy downpour of rain that greeted us as we neared it, and a better reason still was, that it gave us a chance to write and mail some letters to those who would be most anxious to hear from us.

Among the messages we mailed was a picture post-card of Coney Island at night. In some way this card had slipped between the leaves of a book that I had brought from the East. I sent it out, addressed to a friend who would understand the joke; writing underneath the picture, "We have an abundance of such scenery here." The young woman who had charge of the office looked at the card in amazement. It was evidently something new to her. She told us she had never been to the railroad, and that her brother took the mail out on horse-back to Steamboat, Colorado, 140 miles distant.

The rain having ceased, we returned to our boats pausing to admire a rainbow that arched above the canyon in the mountains, toward which we were headed. We remarked, jokingly, to Jimmy that this was a good sign. He replied without smiling that he "hoped so." Jimmy's songs had long since ceased, and we suspected him of homesickness. With the exception of a short visit to some friends on a large ranch, Jimmy had never been away from his home in San Francisco. This present experience was quite a contrast, to be sure! We did what we could to keep him cheered up, but with little success. Jimmy had intimated that he would prefer to leave at the first opportunity to reach a railroad, and we willingly agreed to help him in every possible way. Emery and I also agreed between ourselves that we would not take any unnecessary risks with him; but would leave him out of the boats at all rapids, if there was any pa.s.sage around them.

The river had taken a sharp turn to the south soon after pa.s.sing the post-office, heading directly towards the mountains. Camp was pitched just above the mouth of Lodore. This twenty-mile canyon bears a very unsavory reputation, having a descent of 425 feet in that short distance, the greater part of the fall occurring in a s.p.a.ce of twelve miles. This would mean wild water somewhere!

We were camped on a spot recently occupied by some engineers of the United States Conservation Department, who had been trying to determine if it was feasible to dam the river at this place. The plan was to flood the hole of Brown's Park and divert the water through the mountains by a tunnel to land suitable for cultivation and in addition, allow the muddy water to settle and so prevent the vast amount of silt from being washed on down, eventually to the mouth of the Colorado. The location seemed admirably suited for this stupendous project. But holes drilled beside the river failed to find bottom, as nothing but quicksand existed even at a depth of nearly three hundred feet; and without a strong foundation, such a dam would be utterly useless.

CHAPTER V

THE BATTLE WITH LODORE

Camp routine was hurriedly disposed of the next morning, Sat.u.r.day, September the 23d. Everything was made snug beneath the hatches, except the two guns, which were too long to go under the decks, and had to be carried in the open c.o.c.kpits. "Camp No. 13, at the head of Lodore," as it is entered in my journal, was soon hidden by a bend in the river. The open, sun-lit country, with its pleasant ranches and its grazing cattle, its rolling, gray, sage-covered hills and its wild gra.s.s and cottonwood-covered bottoms, was left behind, and we were back in the realm of the rock-walled canyon, and beetle-browed, frowning cliffs with pines and cedars clutching at the scanty ledges.

We paused long enough to make a picture or two, with the hope that the photographic record would give to others some idea of the geological and scenic wonder--said to be the greatest known example of its kind--which lay before us. Here is an obstructing mountain raised directly in the river's path. Yet with no deviation whatever the stream has cut through the very centre of the peak! The walls are almost sheer, especially at the the bottom, and are quite close together at the top. A mile inside the mountain on the left or east side of the gorge is 2700 feet high. Geologists say that the river was here first and that the mountain was slowly raised in its pathway--so slowly that the river could saw away and maintain its old channel. The quicksand found below the present level would seem to indicate that the walls were once even higher than at present, and that a subsidence had taken place after the cutting.

The river at the entrance of this rock-walled canyon was nothing alarming, four small rapids being pa.s.sed without event. Then a fifth was reached that looked worse. The _Edith_ was lined down. This was hard work, and dangerous too, owing to the strength of the current and the many rocks; so I concluded that my own boat, the _Defiance_, must run the rapid. Jimmy went below, with a life-preserver on a rope.

Emery stood beside the rapid with a camera and made a picture as I shot past him. Fortunately I got through without mishap. I refused to upset even to please my brother.

We were beginning to think that Lodore was not so bad after all. Rapid followed rapid in quick succession, and all were run without trouble; then we came to a large one. It was Upper Disaster Falls; so named by Major Powell, for it was here that one of his boats was wrecked on his first voyage of exploration. This boat failed to make the landing above the rapid and was carried over. She struck a rock broadside, turned around and struck again, breaking the boat completely in two.

This boat was built of 3/4-inch oak reenforced with bulkheads. When this fact is taken into consideration, some idea may be had of the great power of these rapids. The three men who occupied the boat saved themselves by reaching an island a short distance below.

This all happened on a stage of water much higher than the present one, so we did not let the occurrence influence us one way or the other, except to make us careful to land above the rapid. We found a very narrow channel between two submerged boulders, the water plunging and foaming for a short distance below, over many hidden rocks. Still, there was only one large rock near the lower end that we greatly feared, and by careful work that might be avoided.

The _Edith_ went first and grazed the boulder slightly, but no harm was done as E.C. held his boat well in hand. I followed, and struck rocks at the same instant on both sides of the narrow channel with my oars. It will be remembered that we ran all these dangerous rapids facing downstream. The effect of this was to shoot the ends of both oars up past my face. The operator said that I made a grimace just as he took a picture of the scrimmage.

We landed on the island below and talked of camping for the night, as it was getting late; but the island so rocky and inhospitable that we concluded to try the lower part of the rapid. This had no descent like the upper end; but it was very shallow, and we soon found ourselves on rocks, unable to proceed any farther. It took an hour of hard labour to work our heavy boats safely to the sh.o.r.e.

We had been hoping for a rest the next day--Sunday--but the island was such a disagreeable place to camp that it seemed necessary to cross to the mainland at least. A coil of strong, pliable wire had been included in our material. Here was a chance to use it to advantage.

The stream on the left side of the island could be waded, although it was very swift; and we managed to get the wire across and well fastened at both ends. Elevating the wire above the water with cross-sticks, our tent and camp material were run across on a pulley, and camp was pitched a hundred yards below, on the left sh.o.r.e of the river.

There were fitful showers in the afternoon, and we rested from our labour, obtaining a great deal of comfort from our tent, which was put up here for the third time since leaving Green River City. Always, when the weather was clear, we slept in the open.

Monday, the 25th, found us at the same camp. Having concluded that Disaster Falls was an ideal place for a moving picture, we sent the balance of the material across on the pulley and wire, making a picture of the operation; stopping often because it continued to shower. Between showers we resumed our work and picture making.

The picture was to have been concluded with the operation of lining the boat across. E.C. stood on the sh.o.r.e about sixty feet away, working with the camera; Jimmy was on the island, paying out the rope; while I waded in the water, holding the bow of the boat as I worked her between the rocks. Having reached the end of the rope, I coiled it up, advising Jimmy to go up to a safe crossing and join my brother while I proceeded with the boat. All was going well, and I was nearing the sh.o.r.e, when I found myself suddenly carried off my feet into water beyond my depth, and drifting for the lower end of the rapid.

Meanwhile I was holding to the bow of the boat, and calling l.u.s.tily to my brother to save me. At first he did not notice that anything was wrong, as he was looking intently through the finder. Then he suddenly awoke to the fact that something was amiss, and came running down the boulder-strewn sh.o.r.e, but he could not help me, as we had neglected to leave a rope with him. Things were beginning to look pretty serious, when the boat stopped against a rock and I found myself once more with solid footing under me. It was too good a picture to miss; and I found the operator at the machine, turning the crank as I climbed out.

We developed some films and plates that evening, securing some satisfactory results from these tests. It continued to rain all that night, with intermittent showers next morning. The rain made little difference to us, for we were in the water much of the following day as he boats were taken along the edge of another unrunnable rapid, a good companion rapid for the one just pa.s.sed.

This was Lower Disaster Falls, the first of many similar rapids we were to see, but this was one of the worst of its kind. The swift-rus.h.i.+ng river found its channel blocked by the canyon wall on the right side, the cliff running at right angles to the course of the stream. The river, attacking the limestones, had cut a channel under the wall, then turned and ran with the wall, emerging about two hundred feet below. Standing on a rock and holding one end of a twenty-five foot string we threw a stone attached to the other end across to the opposite wall. The overhanging wall was within two feet of the rus.h.i.+ng river; a higher stage of water would hide the cut completely from view. Think what would happen if a boat were carried against or under that wall! We thought of it many times as we carefully worked our boats along the sh.o.r.e.