








An hour or so after making our camp, we began to doubt the wisdom of our choice of a location, for a downpour of rain threatened to send a stream of water under the tent. The stream was easily turned aside, while a door and numerous boards found in the drift pile, made a very good floor for the tent and lifted our sleeping bags off the wet sand. We had little trouble in this section to find sufficient driftwood for fires. The pile at this camp was enormous, and had evidently been gathering for years. Some of it, we could be sure, was recent, for a large pumpkin was found deposited in the drift pile twenty-five feet above the low-water stage on which we were travelling. This pumpkin, of course, could only have come down on the flood that had preceded us.
What a mixture of curios some of those drift piles were, and what a great stretch of country they represented! The rivers, unsatisfied with washing away the fertile soil of the upper country, had levied a greedy toll on the homes along their banks, as well. Almost everything that would float, belonging to a home, could be found in some of them. There were pieces of furniture and toilet articles, children's toys and harness, several smashed boats had been seen, and bloated cattle as well. A short distance above this camp we had found two cans of white paint, carefully placed on top of a big rock above the high-water mark, by some previous voyager.[5] The boats were beginning to show the effect of hard usage, so we concluded to take the paint along. At another point, this same day, we found a corked bottle containing a faded note, undated, requesting the finder to write to a certain lady in Delta, Colorado. A note in my journal, beneath a record of this find, reads: "Aha! A romance at last!" Judging by the appearance of the note it might have been thrown in many years before. Delta, we knew, was on the Gunnison River, a tributary of the Grand River. The bottle must have travelled over two hundred miles to reach this spot.
A letter which I sent out later brought a prompt answer, with the information that this bottle and four others with similar notes were set adrift by the writer and four of her schoolmates, nearly two years before. An agreement was made that the one first receiving an answer was to treat the others to a dinner. Our find was the second, so this young lady was a guest instead of the host.
Emery took but little interest in our camp arrangements this evening, and went to bed as soon as it was possible for him to do so. He said little, but he was very weak, and I could tell from his drawn face that he was suffering, and knew that it was nothing but nervous energy that kept him at his work - that, and a promise which he had made to build a fire, within a stated time now less than two weeks away, in Bright Angel Creek Canyon, nearly three hundred miles below this camp, a signal to his wife and baby that he would be home the next day. I was worried about his condition and I feared a fever or pneumonia. For two or three days he had not been himself. It was one thing to battle with the river when well and strong; it would be decidedly different if one of us became seriously ill.
For the first time in all our experiences together, where determination and skill seemed necessary to success, I had taken the lead during the past two days, feeling that my greater weight and strength, perhaps, would help me pull out of danger where he might fail. In two or three rapids I felt sure he did not have the strength to pull away from certain places that would smash the boats. After running the Defiancethrough these rapids I suggested to him that; he would take a picture while I brought the Edith down. He would stay near the Defiance, ready to aid in case of emergency. After being once through a rapid I found it quite a simple matter to run the second boat, and the knowledge that he would save me in case of an upset greatly lessened any danger that might have existed. He was too nervous to sleep, and asked me to take a last look at the boats before going to bed. They were pulled well up on the shore and securely tied, I found, so that it would take a flood to tear them loose. The rain, which had stopped for a while, began again as I rolled into the blankets; the fire, fed with great cottonwood logs, threw ghostly shadows on the cliffs which towered above us, and sputtered in the rain but refused to be drowned; while the roar of rapids, Nos. 22 and 23 combined, thundered and reverberated from wall to wall, and finally lulled us to sleep.
The rain continued all night, but the weather cleared in the morning. Emery felt much the same as he had the day before, so we kept the same camp that day. We took some pictures, and made a few test developments, hanging the dark-room, or tent, inside the other tent for want of a better place to tie to.
Sunday, October the 29th, we remained at the same place, and by evening were both greatly benefited by the rest. On Monday morning we packed up again, leaving only the moving-picture camera out, and pictured each other, alternately, as the boats made the Plunge over the steep descent in rapid No. 23. Both boats disappeared from sight on two or three occasions in this rapid and emerged nearly filled with water.
The section just passed is credited with the greatest descent on the rivers, a fall of 75 feet in 3/4 of a mile. This includes the three rapids: Nos. 21, 22, and 23.
Proceeding on our way the canyon narrowed, going up almost sheer to a height of 2500 feet or over. Segregated spires, with castle-like tops, stood out from the upper walls. The rapids, or cataracts, compared well with those passed above, connected in some instances by swift-rushing water instead of the quiet pools which were usually found between the rapids. We ran ten rapids this day, but several of these which were counted as one were a series of two or three rapids, which might be one in high water. All had a shore on one side or the other, but caution was imperative when crossing in the swift water between the rapids. A mishap here meant destruction. We figured that we had travelled about ten miles for this day's run.
The menacing walls continued to go higher with the next day's travel, until they reached a height of 2700 feet. The left wall was so sheer that it almost seemed to overhang. The little vegetation which we had found on the lower slope gradually disappeared as the walls grew steeper, but a few scattered shrubs, sage-brush, and an occasional juniper grew on the rocky sides, or in one or two side canyons which entered from the south. These side canyons had the appearance of running back for considerable distances, but we did not explore any of them and could tell very little about them from the river.
After our noon lunch this day, in order to keep our minds from dwelling too much on the rather depressing surroundings, we proposed having a little sport. On two or three occasions we had made motion pictures from the deck of the boats as we rowed in the quiet water; here we proposed taking a picture from the boats as we went over the rapids. The two boats were fastened stern to stern, so that the rowing would be done from the first boat. My brother sat on the bow behind with the motion-picture camera in front of him, holding it down with his chin, his legs clinging to the sides of the boat, with his left hand clutching at the hatch cover, and with his right hand free to turn the crank. In this way we passed over two small rapids. After that one experience we never tried it in a large rapid. As Smith had said a few days before the boat bucked like a broncho, and Emery had a great deal of difficulty to stay with the boat, to say nothing of taking a picture. Once or twice he was nearly unseated but pluckily hung on and kept turning away at the crank when it looked as if he and the camera would be dumped into the river.
At one point in the lower end of Cataract Canyon we saw the name and date A.G. Turner, '07. Below this, close to the end of the canyon, were some ruins of cliff dwellings, and a ladder made by white men, placed against the walls below the ruins.
On reaching a very deep, narrow canyon entering from the south, locally known as Dark Canyon, we knew that we were nearing the end of the rapids in Cataract Canyon. Dark Canyon extends a great distance back into the country, heading in the mountains we had seen to the south, when we climbed out at the junction of the Green and the Grand. Pine cones and other growths entirely foreign to the growth of the desert region were found near its mouth. A flood had recently filled the bottom of this narrow canyon to a depth of several feet, but the water had settled down again and left a little stream of clear water running through the boulders. The rapid at the end of this canyon was one of the worst of the entire series, and had been the scene of more than one fatality, we had been told. It had a very difficult approach and swung against the right wall, then the water was turned abruptly to the left by a great pile of fallen boulders. The cresting waves looked more like breakers of the ocean than anything we had seen on the river.
We each had a good scare as we ran this rapid. Emery was completely hidden from my view, he was nearly strangled and blinded by the waves for a few seconds while struggling in the maelstrom; the Edithwas dropped directly on top of a rock in the middle of this rapid, then lifted on the next wave. I also had a thrilling experience but avoided the rock. In the lower part of the rapid a rowlock pulled apart; and to prevent the boat from turning sideways in the rapid, I threw up my knee, holding the oar against it for a lever until I was in quieter water, and could get the other rowlock in position.
Separated from my brother in this instance, I had an opportunity to see the man and water conflict, with a perspective much as it would have appeared to a spectator happening on the scene. I was out of the heat of the battle. The excitement and indifference to danger that comes with a hand-to-hand grapple was gone. I heard the roar of the rapid; a roar so often heard that we forgot it was there. I saw the gloom of the great gorge, and the towering, sinister shafts of rock, weakened with cracks, waiting for the moment that would send them crashing to the bottom. I saw the mad, wild water hurled at the curving wall. Jagged rocks, like the bared fangs of some dream-monster, appeared now and then in the leaping, tumbling waves. Then down toward the turmoil - dwarfed to nothingness by the magnitude of the walls - sped the tiny shell-like boat, running smoothly like a racing machine! There was no rowing. The oar-blades were tipped high to avoid loss in the first comber; then the boat was buried in foam, and staggered through on the other side. It was buffeted here and there, now covered with a ton of water, now topping a ten-foot wave. Like a skilled boxer - quick of eye, and ready to seize any temporary advantage - the oarsman shot in his oars for two quick strokes, to straighten the boat with the current or dodge a threatening boulder; then covered by lifting his oars and ducking his head as a brown flood rolled over him. Time and again the manoeuvre was repeated: now here now there. One would think the chances were about one to a hundred that he would get through. But by some sort of a system, undoubtedly aided, many times, by good luck, the man and his boat won to land.
After running a small rapid, we came to another, in the centre of which was an island, - the last rapid in Cataract Canyon. While not as bad as the one at Dark Canyon it was rather difficult, and at this point we found no shore on either side. The south side was rendered impassable by great boulders, much higher than the river level, which were scattered through the channel. The opposite channel began much like the rapid at Dark Canyon, sweeping under the wall until turned by a bend and many fallen rocks below the end of the island, then crossed with a line of cresting waves to the opposite side, where it was joined by the other stream, and the left wall was swept clean in like manner. We ran it by letting our boats drop into the stream, but pulled away from the wall and kept close to the island, then when its end was reached crossed the ridge of waves and pulled for the right-hand shore. In such rapids as this we often found the line of waves in the swift-rushing centre to be several feet higher than the water along the shore.
Then our thoughts reverted to Smith. What would he do when he came to this rapid? The only escape was a narrow sloping ledge on the right side, beginning close to the water some distance above the rapid, reaching a height of sixty or seventy feet above the water at the lower end, while a descent could be made to the river some distance below here. It would be possible for him to climb over this with his provisions, but the idea of taking his boat up there was entirely out of the question, and, poorly equipped as he was, an attempt to run it would surely end in disaster. The breaking of an oar, the loss of a rowlock, or the slightest knock of his rotten boat against a rock, and Smith's fate would be similar to those others whose bones lay buried in the sands.
In the next four miles we had no more rapids, but had some fine travelling on a very swift river. It was getting dusk, but we pulled away, for just ahead of us was the end of Cataract Canyon. We camped by a large side canyon on the left named Mille Crag Bend, with a great number of jagged pinnacles gathered in a group at the top of the walls, which had dropped down to a height of about 1300 feet. We felt just a little proud of our achievement, and believed we had established a record for Cataract Canyon, having run all rapids in four days' travelling, and come through in safety.
We had one rapid to run the next morning at the beginning of Narrow Canyon, the only rapid in this nine-mile long canyon. The walls here at the beginning were twelve or thirteen hundred feet high, and tapered to the end, where they rise about four hundred feet above the Dirty Devil River. Narrow Canyon contains the longest straight stretch of river which we remembered having seen. When five miles from its mouth we could look through and see the snow-capped peak of Mt. Ellsworth beyond. This peak is one of the five that composes the Henry Mountains, which lay to the north of the river.
Three hours' rowing brought us to the end. We paused a few minutes to make a picture or two of the Dirty Devil River, - or the Fremont River as it is now recorded on the maps. This stream, flowing from the north, was the exact opposite of the Bright Angel Creek, that beautiful stream we knew so well, two hundred and fifty miles below this point. The Dirty Devil was muddy and alkaline, while warm springs containing sulphur and other minerals added to its unpalatable taste. After tasting it we could well understand the feeling of the Jack Sumner, whose remark, after a similar trial, suggested its name to Major Powell.
A short distance below this we saw a tent, and found it occupied by an old-timer named Kimball. Among other things he told us that he had a partner, named Turner, who had made the trip through the canyons above, and arrived at this point in safety. This was the man whose name we had seen on the walls in Cataract Canyon. Less than two miles more brought us to the Hite ranch, and post-office. John Hite gave us a cordial reception. He had known of our coming from the newspapers; besides, he had some mail for us. We spent the balance of the day in writing letters, and listening to Hite's interesting experiences of his many years of residence in this secluded spot. Hite's home had been a haven for the sole survivor of two expeditions which had met with disaster in Cataract. In each case they were on the verge of starvation. Hite kept a record of all known parties who had attempted the passage through the canyons above. Less than half of these parties, excepting Galloway's several successful trips, succeeded in getting through Cataract Canyon without wrecking boats or losing lives.
After passing the Fremont River the walls on the right or north side dropped down, leaving low, barren sandstone hills rolling away from the river, with a fringe of willows and shrubs beside the water, and with the usual sage-brush, prickly pear, cactus and bunch-grass on the higher ground. We had seen one broken-down log cabin, but this ranch was the only extensive piece of ground that was cultivated. Judging by the size of his stacks of alfalfa, Hite had evidently had a good season. The banks of the south side of the river were about two hundred feet high, composed of a conglomerate mass of clay and gravel. This spot has long been a ferry crossing, known far and wide as Dandy Crossing, the only outlet across the river for the towns of southeastern Utah, along the San Juan River. The entire 150 miles of Glen Canyon had once been the scene of extensive placer operations. The boom finally died, a few claims only proving profitable.
One of these claims was held by Bert Loper, one of the three miners who had gone down the river in 1908. Loper never finished, as his boat - a steel boat, by the way - was punctured in a rapid above Dark Canyon but was soon repaired. His cameras and plates being lost, he sent from Hite out for new ones. His companions - Chas. Russell, and E.R. Monette - were to wait for him at Lee's Ferry, after having prospected through Glen Canyon. Some mistake was made about the delivery of the cameras and, as Hite post-office only had weekly communication with the railroad, a month elapsed before he finally secured them. Lee's Ferry had been discontinued as a post-office at that time, and, although he tried to get a letter in to them, it was never delivered. His disappointment can be imagined better than described, when he reached Lee's Ferry and found his companions had left just a few days previous. They naturally thought if he were coming at all he would have been there long before that, and they gave him up, not knowing the cause of the delay. They left a letter, however, saying they would only go to the Bright Angel Trail, and the trip could be completed together on the following year.
Loper spent many hard days working his boat, with his load of provisions, back against the current, and located a few miles below the Hite ranch.