Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico Part 4

Between the delays of rain, with stops for picture making, portaging our material, and "lining" our boats, we spent almost three days in getting past the rapids called Upper and Lower Disaster Falls, with their combined fall of 50 feet in little more than half a mile. On the evening of September the 26th we camped almost within sight of this same place, at the base of a 3000-foot sugar-loaf mountain on the right, tree-covered from top to bottom.

Things were going too easily for us, it seemed; but we were in for a few reverses. It stormed much of the night and still drizzled when we embarked on the following morning. The narrow canyon was gloomy and darkened with shreds of clouds drifting far below the rim. The first rapid was narrow, and contained some large boulders. The _Edith_ was caught on one of these and turned on her side, so that the water flowed in, filling the c.o.c.kpit. The boat was taken off without difficulty, and bailed out. We found that the bulkheads failed to keep the water out of the hatches. Some material from the _Edith_ was transferred to the _Defiance_. A bed, in a protecting sack of rubber and canvas, was shoved under the seat and we proceeded.

Less than an hour later I repeated my brother's performance, but I was not so fortunate as he. The _Defiance_ was carried against one rock as I tried to pull clear of another, and in an instant she was on her side, held by the rush of water. I caught the gunwale, and, climbing on to the rock that caused the disaster, I managed to catch the rope and held the boat. In the meantime Emery was in a whirlpool below, trying to land on the right side; but was having a difficult time of it. Jimmy stood on the sh.o.r.e unable to help. The bed was washed out of the boat and went bobbing over the waves, then before I knew what had happened, the rope was jerked from my hands and I was left stranded on my rock. Seeing this, Jimmy ran with all his might for a pool at the end of the rapid, bravely rescuing the boat and the bed as well, just as the _Edith_ was landed. A rope was soon thrown to me, after the inevitable picture was made. Then I jumped and was pulled to sh.o.r.e.

On making an inventory we found that our guns were lost from the boat.

Being too long to go under the hatches, they had been left in the c.o.c.kpit. The _Defiance_ had an ugly rap on the bottom, where she struck a rock, the wood being smashed or jammed, but not broken out.

Nearly all material in the two boats was wet, so we took everything out and piled it on a piece of canvas, spread out on the sand. We worked rapidly, for another storm had been threatening all the morning.

We were engaged in putting up our little tent when a violent wind which swept up the canyon, followed by a downpour of rain interrupted our work; and if anything missed a soaking before, it certainly received it then. The sand was beaten into our cameras and everything was scattered helter-skelter over the sh.o.r.e. We were fortunate in only one respect. The wind was away from the river instead of toward it. We finally got the tent up, then threw everything into it in an indiscriminate pile, and waited for the storm to pa.s.s. Emery proposed that we do a song and dance just to show how good we felt; but any appearance of merriment was rather forced.

Had the builders of the boats been there, we fear they would have had an uncomfortable half-hour; for nearly all this loss could have been avoided had our instructions regarding the hatch covers been followed.

And for the sake of their saving a few dollars we had to suffer!

The rain soon pa.s.sed and we went to work, first starting a fire and getting a hurried lunch, for we had not eaten our noon meal, and it was then 4 P.M. We put up our dark-room tent, then went to work to find what was saved, and what was lost. We were surprised to find that all our small films and plates had escaped a soaking. Protected in tin and cardboard boxes, wrapped with adhesive tape, and covered with a coating of paraffine melted and poured over them, they had turned the water in nearly every instance. The motion-picture film was not so fortunate. The paraffine had worn off the tin boxes in spots, the water soaked through the tape in some instances, and entered to the film. One roll, tightly wrapped, became wet on the edges; the gelatine swelled and stuck to the other film, thus sealing the inner portion or picture part of the film, so that roll was saved.

The motion-picture camera was filled with water, mud and sand; and the other cameras fared likewise. We cleaned them out as best we could, drying them over small alcohol lamp which we had included in our duffle. Our job seemed endless. Jimmy had retired early, for he could help us but little in this work. It rained again in torrents, and the wind howled about the tent. After midnight, as we still toiled, a land-slide, loosened by the soaking rains, thundered down the mountain side about a fourth of a mile below our camp. We hoped Jimmy would not hear it. We retired soon after this. Smaller slides followed at intervals, descending over the 3000-foot precipices. Thunder reverberated through the canyon, and altogether it was a night long to be remembered. These slides made one feel a little uncomfortable. "It would be most inconvenient," as we have heard some one say, "to wake in the morning and find ourselves wrapped up in a few tons of earth and rock."

Emery woke me the next morning to report that the river had risen about six feet; and that my boat--rolled out on the sand but left untied--was just on the Point of going out with the water. It had proven fortunate for us all Emery was a light sleeper! There was no travelling this day, as the boat had to be repaired. Emery, being the s.h.i.+p's carpenter, set to work at once, while Jimmy and I stretched our ropes back and forth, and hung up the wet clothes. Then we built a number of fires underneath and soon had our belongings in a steam.

Things were beginning to look cheerful again. The rain stopped, too, for a time at least.

A little later Jimmy ran into camp with a fish which he had caught with his hands. It was of the kind commonly called the bony-tail or humpback or buffalo-fish, a peculiar species found in many of the rivers of the Southwest. It is distinguished by a small flat head with a hump directly behind it; the end of the body being round, very slender, and equipped with large tail-fins. This specimen was about sixteen inches long, the usual length for a full-grown fish of this species.

Now for a fish story! On going down to the river we found a great many fish swimming in a small whirlpool, evidently trying to escape from the thick, slimy mud which was carried in the water. In a half-hour we secured fourteen fish, killing most of them with our oars. There were suckers and one catfish in the lot. You can judge for yourself how thick the water was, that such mudfishes as these should have been choked to helplessness. Our captured fish were given a bath in a bucket of rain-water, and we had a fish dinner.

In the afternoon we made a test of the water from the river, and found that it contained 20 per cent of an alkaline silt. When we had to use this water, we bruised the leaf of a p.r.i.c.kly pear cactus, and placed it in a bucket of water. This method, repeated two or three times, usually clears the muddiest water. We also dug holes in the sand at the side of the river. The water, filtering through the sand, was often clear enough to develop the tests we made with our films.

Jimmy continued to feel downhearted; and this afternoon he told us his story. Our surmise about his being homesick was correct, but it was a little more than that. He had an invalid mother, it seemed, and, aided by an older brother, he had always looked after the needs of the family. When the proposition of making the river trip came up, serious objections were raised by the family; but when the transportation arrived he had determined to go, in spite of their objections. Now he feared that his mother would not live, or that we would be wrecked, and he would not know where to turn, or what to do. No wonder he felt blue!

All we could do was to promise to help him leave the river at the very first opportunity. This would quite likely be at Jensen, Utah, still fifty miles farther downstream.

It continued to rain by spells that night and the next morning. About 11 A.M. we resumed our work on the river. A short distance below our camp we saw the land-slide which we heard the night before--tons of earth and shattered rock wrapped about the split and stripped trunks of a half-dozen pines. The slide was started by the dislodged section of a sheer wall close to the top of the 2700-foot cliff. We also saw a boat of crude construction, pulled above the high-water mark; evidently abandoned a great while before. Any person who had to climb the walls at that place had a hard job to tackle, although we could pick out breaks where it looked feasible; there were a few places behind us where it would be next to impossible. We had only gone over a few rapids when we found a long pool, with driftwood eddying upstream, and knew that our run for the day was over--the Triplet Rapids were ahead of us. We found this rapid to be about a fourth of a mile long, divided into three sections as its name indicated, and filled with great boulders at the base of a sheer cliff on the right--another unrunnable rapid.

Taking the camp material from the boats, we carried it down and pitched our tent first of all, then, while Emery prepared supper, Jimmy and I carried the remaining duffle down to camp. One of the boats was lined down also. Then after supper we enjoyed the first rest we had taken for some time.

Camp Ideal we called it, and it well deserved the name. At the bottom of a tree-covered precipice reaching a height of 2700 feet, was a strip of firm, level sand, tapering off with a slope down to the water, making a perfect landing and dooryard. A great ma.s.s of driftwood, piled up at the end of the rapid, furnished us with all fuel we needed with small effort on our part. Our tent was backed against a large rock, while other flat rocks near at hand made convenient shelves on which to lay our camp dishes and kettles. It started to drizzle again that night, but what cared we? With a roaring fire in front of the tent we all cleaned up for a change, sewed patches on our tattered garments, and, sitting on our beds, wrote the day's happenings in our journals. Then we crawled into our comfortable beds, and I was soon dreaming of my boyhood days when I "played hookey" from school and went fis.h.i.+ng in a creek that emptied into the Allegheny River, or climbed its rocky banks; to be awakened by Jimmy crying out in his sleep, "There she goes over the rapids."

Jimmy was soon informed that he and the boats were perfectly safe, and I was brought back to a realization of the fact that I was not going to get a "whaling" for going swimming in dog-days; but instead was holed up in Lodore Canyon, in the extreme northwestern corner of Colorado.

CHAPTER VI

h.e.l.l'S HALF MILE

We began our work the next morning where we left off the night before by bringing the remaining boat down along the edge of the "Triplets."

Then, while Emery cooked the breakfast, Jimmy and I "broke camp." The beds came first. The air had been released from the mattresses before we got up,--one way of saving time. A change of dry clothing was placed with each bed, and they were rolled as tightly as the two of us could do it, after which they were strapped, placed in a rubber sack, with a canvas sack over that, both these sacks being laced at the top.

The tent--one of those so-called balloon silk compositions--made a very small roll; the dark-room tent, with its three plies of cloth, made the largest bundle of the lot. Everything had been taken from the boats, and made quite a pile of dunnage, when it was all collected in a pile ready for loading. After the dishes were washed they were packed in a box, the smoke-covered pots and pans being placed in a sack. Everything was sorted and piled before the loading commenced. An equal division of nearly everything was made, so that the loss of one boat and its cargo would only partially cripple the expedition. The photographic plates and films, in protecting canvas sacks, were first disposed of, being stored in the tin-lined hatches in the bow of the boats. Two of the smaller rolls containing bedding, or clothing; a sack of flour, and half of the cameras completed the loads for the forward compartments. Five or six tin and wooden boxes, filled with provisions, went into the large compartments under the stern. A box containing tools and hardware for the inevitable repairs, and the weightier provisions--such as canned milk and canned meats--went in first. This served as ballast for the boats. Then the other provisions followed, the remaining rolls of bedding and tents being squeezed in on top. This compartment, with careful packing, would hold as much as two ordinary-sized trunks, but squeezing it all in through the small hatchway, or opening on top, was not an easy job. One thing we guarded very carefully from this time on was a waterproofed sack containing sugar. The muddy water had entered the top of this sack in our upset, and a liquefied sugar, or brown-coloured syrup, was used in our coffee and on our breakfast foods after that. It gradually dried out, and our emptied cups would contain a sediment of mud in the bottom.

Such was our morning routine, although it was not often that everything was taken from the boats, and it only happened in this case because we made a portage the night before.

Our work was all undone an hour later, when we came to the sharp descent known as h.e.l.l's Half Mile, A section of a cliff had fallen from above, and was shattered into a hundred fragments, large and small; gigantic rocks were scattered on both sh.o.r.es and through the river bed, not an orderly array of rocks such as that found at Ashley Falls, but a riotous ma.s.s, looking as though they had been hurled from the sky above. The stripped trunk of an eight-foot tree, with roots extending over the river, had been deposited by a recent flood on top of the princ.i.p.al barrier. All this was found about fifty yards below the beginning of the most violent descent in Lodore Canyon. It would have been difficult enough without this last complication; the barrier seemed next to insurmountable, tired and handicapped with heavy boats as we were.

With a weary sigh we dropped our boats to the head of the rapid and prepared to make the portage. Our previous work was as nothing to this. Rounded limestone boulders, hard as flint and covered with a thin slime of mud from the recent rise, caused us to slip and fall many times. Then we dragged ourselves and loads up the sloping walls.

They were cut with gullies from the recent rains; low scraggy cedars caught at our loads, or tore our clothes, as we staggered along; the muddy earth stuck to our shoes, or caused our feet to slip from under us as we climbed, first two or three hundred feet above the water, then close to the river's edge. Three-fourths of a mile of such work brought us a level place below the rapid. It took nine loads to empty one boat.

Darkness came on before our boats were emptied, so they were securely tied in quiet water at the head of the rapid, and left for the morning.

The next day found Emery and me at work on the boats, while Jimmy was stationed on the sh.o.r.e with the motion-picture camera. This wild scene, with its score of shooting currents, was too good a view to miss. With life-preservers inflated and adjusted, Emery sat in the boat at the oars, pulling against the current, lessening the velocity with which the boat was carried down toward the main barrier, while I followed on the sh.o.r.e, holding a rope, and dropped him down, a little at a time, until the water became too rough and the rocks too numerous. All directions were given with signals; the human voice was of little avail in the turmoil. We kept the boats in the water as long as it was safe to do so, for it greatly lessened the hard work of a portage. With one end of the boat floating on the water, an ordinary lift would take the other end over a rock with insufficient water above it to float the boat. Then the boat was balanced on the rock, the opposite end was lifted, she was shoved forward and dropped in the water again and another threatening rock was pa.s.sed. Foot by foot we fought our way, now on the sh.o.r.e, now waist deep in the water below some protecting boulder, threatened every moment by the whirling water that struggled to drag us into the torrent. The sand and water collecting in our clothes weighted us down; the chill of standing in the cold water numbed our limbs. Finally the barrier was reached and the boats were run out close to the end, and tied in a quiet pool, while we devised some method of getting them past or over this obstruction.

Directly underneath and beyond the roots of the tree were large rounded boulders, covered with slippery mud. Past this barrier the full force of the water raced, to hurl itself and divide its current against another rock. It was useless to try to take a boat around the end of the rock. The boat's sides, three-eighths of an inch thick, would be crushed like a cardboard box. If lifted into the V-shaped groove, the weight of the boats would wedge them and crush their sides. Fortunately an upright log was found tightly wedged between these boulders. A strong limb, with one end resting on a rock opposite, was nailed to this log; a triangle of stout sticks, with the point down, was placed opposite this first limb, on the same level, and was fastened to the upright log with still another piece; and another difficulty was overcome.

With a short rope fastened to the iron bar or hand-hold on the stern, this end was lifted on to the cross-piece, the bow sticking into the water at a sharp angle. The short rope was tied to the stump, so we would not lose that we had gained. The longer rope from the bow was thrown over the roots of the tree above, then we both pulled on the rope, until finally the bow was on a level with the stern. She was pulled forward, the ropes were loosened and the boat rested on the cross-pieces. The motion-picture camera was transferred so as to command a view of the lower side of the barrier, then the boat was carefully tilted, and slid forward, a little at a time, until she finally gained headway, nearly jerking the rope from our hands, and shot into the pool below.

We enjoyed the wildest ride we had experienced up to this time in running the lower end of this rapid. The balance of the day was spent in the same camp below the rapid. Our tent was put up in a group of box elder trees,--the first trees of this species we had seen. Red cedar trees dotted the rocky slopes, while the larger pines became scarce at the river's edge, and gathered near the top of the canyon's walls. The dark red rocks near the bottom were covered with a light blue-tinted stratum of limestone, similar to the fallen rocks found in the rapid above. In one land-slide, evidently struck with some rolling rock, lay the body of a small deer. We saw many mountain sheep tracks, but failed to see the sheep. Many dead fish, their gills filled with the slimy mud from the recent rise, floated past us, or lay half buried in the mud. These things were noticed as we went about our duties, for we were too weary to do any exploring.

The next morning, Monday, October the 2d saw us making arrangements for the final run that would take us out of Lodore Canyon. No doubt it was a beautiful and a wonderful place, but none of us seemed sorry to leave it behind. For ten days we had not had a single day entirely free from rain, and instead of having a chance to run rapids, it seemed as if we had spent an entire week in carrying our loads, or in lining our boats through the canyon. The canyon walls lost much of their precipitous character as we neared the end of the canyon.

A short run took us over the few rapids that remained, and at a turn ahead we saw a 300-foot ridge, brilliantly tinted in many colours,--light and golden yellows, orange and red, purple and lavender,--and composed of numberless wafer-like layers of rock, uptilted, so that the broken ends looked like the spines of a gigantic fish's back. A sharp turn to the left soon brought us to the end of this ridge, close to the bottom of a smooth, sheer wall. Across a wide, level point of sand we could see a large stream, the Yampa River, flowing from the East to join its waters with those of the Green. This was the end of Lodore Canyon.

CHAPTER VII

JIMMY GOES OVER THE MOUNTAIN

The Yampa, or Bear River, was a welcome sight to us in spite of its disagreeable whitish yellow, clay colour; quite different from the red water of the Green River. The new stream meant more water in the channel, something we needed badly, as our past tribulations showed.

The recent rise on the Green had subsided a little, but we now had a much higher stage than when we entered Lodore. Quite likely the new conditions gave us six feet of water above the low water on which we had been travelling. Would it increase or diminish our dangers? We were willing, Emery and I, even anxious, to risk our chances on the higher water.

Directly opposite the Yampa, the right sh.o.r.e of the Green went up sheer about 700 feet high, indeed it seemed to overhang a trifle. This had been named Echo Cliffs by Powell's party. The cliffs gave a remarkable echo, repeating seven words plainly when shouted from the edge of the Yampa a hundred yards away, and would doubtless repeat more if shouted from the farther sh.o.r.e of the Yampa. Echo Cliffs, we found, were in the form of a peninsula and terminated just below this point where we stood, the river doubling back on the other side of the cliff. On the left side of the river, the walls fell back, leaving a flat, level s.p.a.ce of about twenty-five acres. Here was a little ranch of which Mrs. Chew had told us. The Chew ranch lay back from the river on top of the cliffs. We found no one at home here at this first ranch, but there was evidence of recent habitation. There were a few peach trees, and a small garden, while beyond this were two buildings,--little shacks in a dilapidated condition. The doors were off their hinges and leaned against the building, a few logs being placed against the doors. Past the dooryard, coming out of a small canyon above the ranch, ran a little brook; up this canyon was a trail, the outlet to the ranch above. We camped near the mouth of the stream.

It had been agreed upon the night before, that we should endeavour to make arrangements to have Jimmy taken out on horseback over the mountains. Before looking for the ranch, however, we asked him if he did not wish to reconsider his decision to leave here. We pointed out that Jensen, Utah, was only fifty miles away, half that distance being in quiet water, and that the worst canyon was behind us. But he said he had enough of the river and preferred to see what could be done.

While I busied myself about camp, he and Emery left for the ranch.

About seven o'clock that evening they returned in great spirits. They had found the ranch without any trouble nearly three miles from our camp. Mrs. Chew was there and gave them a hearty welcome. She had often wondered what had become of us. She invited the boys to remain for supper, which they did. They talked over the matter of transportation for Jimmy. As luck would have it, Mrs. Chew was going to drive over to Jensen, and Vernal, Utah, in two days' time, and agreed to take Jimmy along.

Early the next morning two boys, one about fourteen years old the other a little older, rode down from the ranch. Some of their horses were pastured across the river and they had come after these. After a short visit they got into the _Edith_ with Emery and prepared to cross over to the pasture, which was a mile or more downstream. They were soon out of our sight. Jimmy and I remained at the camp, taking pictures, packing his belongings, and finding many odd jobs to be done. In about three hours the boys returned with their horses. The horses were quite gentle, and they had no difficulty in swimming them across. A young colt, too feeble to swim, placed its fore feet on its mother's flanks and was ferried across in that way. Then they were driven over a narrow trail skirting the cliff, 300 feet above the river. No one, looking from the river, would have imagined that any trail, over which horses could be driven, existed.

The boys informed us that we were expected at the ranch for dinner, and would listen to no refusal so up we went, although we would have to make a second trip that day. The view of the ranch was another of those wonderful scenic changes which we were to meet with everywhere in this region. The flat on which we stood was simply a pocket, shut in by the round-domed mountains, with a pa.s.s, or an opening, to the east side. A small stream ran down a mountain side, spreading over the rocks, and glistening in the sunlight. This same stream pa.s.sed the ranch, and ran on down through the narrow canyon up which we had come.

The ranch itself was refres.h.i.+ng. The buildings were new, some were under construction; but there was considerable ground under cultivation. Cattle were scattered up the valley, or dotted the rocky slopes below the mountains. A wild spot this, on the borderland of the three states. None but people of fort.i.tude, or even of daring, would think of taking up a homestead in this secluded spot. The same rumours of the escaped prisoners had drifted in here. It was Mr. Chew who gave us the information we have previously quoted concerning the murdered man. He had found the body in the boat, in front of the post-office.

He further stated that others in the mountains would not hesitate at anything to drive out those who were trying to improve a homestead as he was doing, and that it was a common event to find the carca.s.ses of his own horses or cattle which had been ruthlessly slaughtered. This was the reason for putting the horses across the river. There they were safe, for none could approach them save by going past the ranch, or coming through Lodore Canyon.

Mr. Chew also told us of the Snyders, who had lost their boat in upper Lodore Canyon, and of how he had given them a horse and provisions to aid them in reaching the settlements. This did not prevent the elder Snyder from coming back to trap the next year, much to Mr. Chew's disgust. He thought one experience should be enough for any man.