Canyons of the Colorado
by John Wesley Powell · English · Gutenberg #8082 · 518,423 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Canyons of the Colorado
Author: John Wesley Powell
Release date: May 1, 2005 [eBook #8082]
Most recently updated: May 1, 2023
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8082
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CANYONS OF THE COLORADO ***
Produced by Eric Eldred, and David Widger
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO
BY J. W. POWELL, PH.D., LL.D.,
Formerly Director of the United States Geological Survey. Member of the
National Academy of Sciences, etc., etc.
WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS.
First published 1895
PREFACE.
On my return from the first exploration of the canyons of the Colorado,
I found that our journey had been the theme of much newspaper writing. A
story of disaster had been circulated, with many particulars of hardship
and tragedy, so that it was currently believed throughout the United
States that all the members of the party were lost save one. A good
friend of mine had gathered a great number of obituary notices, and it
was interesting and rather flattering to me to discover the high esteem
in which I had been held by the people of the United States. In my
supposed death I had attained to a glory which I fear my continued life
has not fully vindicated.
The exploration was not made for adventure, but purely for scientific
purposes, geographic and geologic, and I had no intention of writing an
account of it, but only of recording the scientific results. Immediately
on my return I was interviewed a number of times, and these interviews
were published in the daily press; and here I supposed all interest in
the exploration ended. But in 1874 the editors of Scribner's Monthly
requested me to publish a popular account of the Colorado exploration in
that journal. To this I acceded and prepared four short articles, which
were elaborately illustrated from photographs in my possession.
In the same year--1874--at the instance of Professor Henry of the
Smithsonian Institution, I was called before an appropriations committee
of the House of Representatives to explain certain estimates made by
the Professor for funds to continue scientific work which had been in
progress from the date of the original exploration. Mr. Garfield was
chairman of the committee, and after listening to my
IV PREFACE.
account of the progress of the geographic and geologic work, he asked
me why no history of the original exploration of the canyons had been
published. I informed him that I had no interest in that work as an
adventure, but was interested only in the scientific results, and that
these results had in part been published and in part were in course of
publication. Thereupon Mr. Garfield, in a pleasant manner, insisted that
the history of the exploration should be published by the government,
and that I must understand that my scientific work would be continued by
additional appropriations only upon my promise that I would publish
an account of the exploration. I made the promise, and the task was
immediately undertaken.
My daily journal had been kept on long and narrow strips of brown paper,
which were gathered into little volumes that were bound in sole leather
in camp as they were completed. After some deliberation I decided to
publish this journal, with only such emendations and corrections as
its hasty writing in camp necessitated. It chanced that the journal
was written in the present tense, so that the first account of my trip
appeared in that tense. The journal thus published was not a lengthy
paper, constituting but a part of a report entitled "Exploration of the
Colorado River of the West and its Tributaries. Explored in 1869, 1870,
1871, and 1872, under the direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution." The other papers published with it relate to the
geography, geology, and natural history of the country. And here again I
supposed all account of the exploration ended. But from that time until
the present I have received many letters urging that a popular account
of the exploration and a description of that wonderful land should be
published by me. This call has been voiced occasionally in the daily
press and sometimes in the magazines, until at last I have concluded to
publish a fuller account in popular form. In doing this I have revised
and enlarged the original journal of exploration, and have added several
new chapters descriptive of the region and of the people who inhabit it.
Realizing the difficulty of painting in word colors a land so strange,
so wonderful, and so vast in its features, in the weakness of my
descriptive powers I have sought refuge in graphic illustration, and for
this purpose have gathered from the magazines and from various scien-
PREFACE. V
tific reports an abundance of material. All of this illustrative
material originated in my work, but it has already been used elsewhere.
Many years have passed since the exploration, and those who were boys
with me in the enterprise are--ah, most of them are dead, and the living
are gray with age. Their bronzed, hardy, brave faces come before me as
they appeared in the vigor of life; their lithe but powerful forms seem
to move around me; and the memory of the men and their heroic deeds, the
men and their generous acts, overwhelms me with a joy that seems almost
a grief, for it starts a fountain of tears. I was a maimed man; my right
arm was gone; and these brave men, these good men, never forgot it. In
every danger my safety was their first care, and in every waking hour
some kind service was rendered me, and they transfigured my misfortune
into a boon.
To you--J. C. Sumner, William H. Dunn, W. H. Powell, G. Y. Bradley, O.
G. Howland, Seneca Howland, Frank Goodman, W. E. Hawkins, and Andrew
Hall--my noble and generous companions, dead and alive, I dedicate this
book.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Valley of the Colorado ..17
II. Mesas and, Buttes . . . . 39
III. Mountains and Plateaus ...67
IV. Cliffs and Terraces ....89
V. From Green River City to Flaming Gorge . 117
VI. From Flaming Gorge to the Gate of Lodore . . 133
VII. The Canyon of Lodore ...151
VIII. From Echo Park to the Mouth of the Uinta River .167
IX. From the Mouth of the Uinta River to the Junction of the
Grand and Green . ...189
X. From the Junction of the Grand and Green to the Mouth
of the Little Colorado ......211
XI. From the Little Colorado to the Foot of the Grand Canyon247
XII. The Rio Virgen and the Uinkaret Mountains . .289
XIII. Over the River ....327
XIV. To Zuñi ......351
XV. The Grand Canyon ....379
Index .......399
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Portrait of the Author ....... Frontispiece [missing]
PAGE
The Colorado River ......16
Parunuweap Canyon .....18
Bird's-eye View of the Cliffs ....19
San Francisco Peak .....21
Cliff near Fort Wingate .....22
Scenery on the High Plateaus ...23
The Mogollon Escarpment ....25
Snow-clad Mountains on the River ..26
Our Messenger ......28
Apache Basket ......29
Our Messenger's Wife .....30
Ruins of Toyalone .....31
A Zuñí Court .......33
Adobe Church, Zuñi .....34
The Site of Moenkopi . . . . . . . . 36
Mountain of the Holy Cross ...38
Wingate Cliff .......40
Pyramid Butte near Fort Wingate ..41
Zuñi Cliffs .......42
Great Neck Nine Miles South of Salazar .43
Cinder Cone and Neck, Northeast of Grant Station 44
Two Large Necks, the More Distant One being the Cabazon45
Neck Six Miles Northeast of Juantafoya ..46
A Group of Necks near Mount Taylor .47
Panorama from the Edge of Mount Taylor Mesa 48
Panorama in the Valley of the Puerco .50
Ruins at the Head of McElmo Canyon . . . 52
A Navajo Hogan ......53
An Ancient Coiled Vase from Tusayan ..54
A Typical Cliff Dwelling ....56
A Room in a Pueblo .....57
A Navajo Ready for a Journey ...58
A Navajo Boy .......59
Gardens of Zuñi ......60
A Tusayan Ladder ......61
A Zuñi Stool ......61
X CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
PAGE
A Tusayan Field Shelter .....62
Another Tusayan Field Shelter ...63
View of Hano, One of the Seven Pueblos of Tusayan . 64
Mesa Verde . . . . ... . . between 64 and 65
Mount Moran, Teton Range, Wyoming ..66
Marble Basins, Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone Park 69
Terraced Basins, Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone Park 70
Tabernacle Crater and Lava Beds of the Basin Province 73
View on Great Salt Lake Desert, showing Mountains half buried by Lake
Sediments .....74
An Indian Hunter ......76
Reservoir Butte, showing Terraces of the Ancient Lake Bonneville
Shorelines . . . . . . . 77
Pavant Butte, over a Submarine Volcano of the Great Basin 78
An Indian Camp ......79
Indians Gambling ......80
Ruin near Moenkopi .....81
Ruins of Payupki, Six Miles Northwest of Mashongnavi, Tusayan .. 82
Shupaulovi .......85
General View of Zuñi, looking West ..86
The Gray Cliffs ......88
Section and Bird's-eye View of the Plateaus North of the Grand Canyon
......90
A Group of Stone Corrals ....91
Ruins ........92
Lagoon on the Kaibab .....95
Pink Cliffs, Paunsagunt Plateau ...96
A Permian Butte ......99
Vermilion Cliffs at Kanab .....100
A Midsummerday's Dream on the Colob .103
An Indian Village ......104
Antinaints, Putusiv, and Wichuts in Festal Dress . 105
Perspective View of Typical Solitary House .106
Perspective View of Round-House Structure of Lava . 107
An Ancient Cliff House .....108
A Zuñi Eagle Cage .....109
A View of Zuñi ......110
Walpi Dance Rock .....112
A Passageway in Walpi .....114
A Passageway in Mashongnavi ...115
The Hurricane Fault ..... between 114 and 115
Temples and Towers of the Rio Virgen . between 114 and 115
Towers of the Vermilion Cliffs .... between 114 and 115
Panorama ....... between 114 and 115
Terraced Houses in Zuñi .....116
The Start from Green River Station ..118
View in Sichumovi ......121
Trail up Walpi Mesa .....122
Ridges on Bitter Creek .....123
Mesas ........124
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XI
PAGE
A Valley West of Green River ...125
Alcove Lands ......126
Bad Lands . . . . . . . . . . 127
Our Indian Guide .....128
Our Guide's Boy ......129
Green River Plains .....130
The Chief Kiva of Shupaulovi . . . . . . 131
Walpi .........132
Camp at Flaming Gorge . . . . . . . 134
Mashongnavi, with Shupaulovi in the Distance . . 135
Horseshoe Canyon ......136
Scene in Hano ......139
Pescado Pueblo, Outside Steps ....140
Oven near Pescado Pueblo ....141
Primitive Andiron in Shumopavi ...142
Tusayan Mealing-Stones ....143
Kiva and Stone Corrals of Mashongnavi ..144
"Hogbacks" with Intervening Valleys .146
An Ancient Pueblo Metate ....148
The Home of the Chief ....150
Gate of Lodore .......153
Wreck at Disaster Falls . . . . . . 155
Metalliferous Veins exposed to View ..156
Winnie's Grotto, a Side Canyon ...159
Eroded Towers capped with Large Blocks of Sandstone . 161
Fire in Camp ......162
An Isolated House at Zuñi ....164
An Oraibi Court ......166
The Rescue . . . . . . . . . ...169
Echo Park .......170
Fragment of Wall, Zuñi .....171
Kivas of Shumopavi .....172
General View of Awatubi . . . . . . . 173
Swallow Cave . . . . . . . . 175
View of Shumopavi . . . . . . . . 177
Ruins .......178, 179
Indian Lodge in the Uinta Valley ...181
Warrior and Bride .....183
Our Interpreter and His Family ...185
House Building at Oraibi ....186
General View of Ojo Caliente ....188
Sumner's Amphitheater ....190
Chimneys and Roofs, Zuñi ....193
A Tusayan Interior .....194
Lighthouse Rock, Canyon of Desolation ..197
Gunnison Butte, Gray Canyon ...199
Ruins of Ketchipauau .....201
Bird's-eye View of the Land of the Standing Rocks . 202
The Butte of the Cross .....204
Land of the Standing Rocks . . . . 205
XII
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
PAGE
Moenkopi .......207
Oraibi Houses .......208
The Heart of Marble Canyon ...210
A Lateral Canyon. ......213
A Tusayan Mealing Trough. ...215
The Heart of Cataract Canyon . . . . . 217
Water Basin in Gypsum Canyon ...219
The Water Pocket Canyon ....221
Plan of the Ruin of Kiu-Tiel, near Tusayau . . 222
Pescado Houses .......225
Repairing Boats at the Mouth of Dirty Devil River . 226
Ruins on the Brink of Glen Canyon ..228
Island Monument iu Glen Canyon ...231
Glen Canyon .......232
An Enclosing Wall of Upright Stones at Ojo Caliente 235
Marble Canyon .......236
Noonday Rest in Marble Canyon ..239
View of Marble Canyon from Vermilion Cliffs . . 240
Adobe Walls, Zuñi .....243
At the Mouth of the Little Colorado ..246
Walls of Gneiss ......249
Running a Rapid ......250
Head of the Grand Canyon ....252
The Inner Gorge ......254
Signal of Discovery or Alarm . . . . . 257
Signal, "Who are you?" Answer, "Pani" . . . ...258
Signal of Successful War Party ...261
A Signal of Peace ......262
Moki Method of Dressing the Hair ..265
Moki Method of Spinning ....266
An Alcove in the Red Wall ...269
Kanab Canyon, near the Junction ...270
Kanab Canyon in the Red Wall Limestone . . 273
The Brink of the Inner Gorge ....275
The Grand Canyon of the Colorado, showing Amphitheater and Sculptured
Buttes .....276
Climbing the Grand Canyon Wall ..279
Triangulation Station .....281
Cavate Houses ......283
Standing Rocks .......285
Mount Trumbull, from Mount Logan ..288
Mary's Veil, the Upper Fall on Pine Creek . . . 290
Filling's Cascade, the Lower Palls on Pine Creek . 291
Aboriginal Ladder . ... . . . . . 292
Another Style of Ladder ....293
Entrance to Parunuweap .....295
Towers on the Rio Virgen ....296
Mukuntuweap Canyon . . . . . . . 298
The Witches' Water Pocket ....301
Wunavai Gathering Seeds .....302
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Xlll
PAGE
Terrace Fireplace and Chimney of Shumopavi . . 305
A Sweat House .......306
An Interior Lodge ......309
Halved and Pinned Trapdoor Frame of Zuñí Kiva . . 310
Wooden Pivot Hinges of a Zuñi Door .310
A Poultry House of Sichumovi resembling an Oven . 312
The Human Pickle .....314
Recent Lava Flow on the Uinkaret . . . . . 317
A Zuñi Window glazed with Selenite ..318
A Zuñi Chair .......319
An Ancient Circular Doorway or "Stone Close" in Kin-Tiel 320
A Gaming Ring ......320
Interior View of a Tusayan Kiva ..322
Cave Lake in Kanab Canyon ....324
Ancient Pottery from Tusayan ...326
Tusayan Fetiches and Implements ...329
Dance Paraphernalia from Tusayan ..332
The Thousand Wells .....334
Terraced Houses in Oraibi showing Entrance to Kiva in Foreground
........335
The House of Talti, Chief of the Council in the Town of Oraibi 337
Praying for Rain ......339
Mashongnavi .......340
Tusayan Trays .......341
Tusayan Maskettes .....343
Sichumovi and Hano .....344
Walpi, a Village of Tusayan ...346
Tusayan Basketry ....330, 348, 349
Zuñi from Housetops, looking East ..350
Navajo Indian with Silver Ornaments ..352
Bringing down the Batten . . . . 353
Navajo Church, near Fort Wingate ...354
Round Tower on a Rock ....355
Toyalone, from the Top of a House in Zuñi .356
Typical Terraced Communal Pueblo ..357
Dancer holding up the Great Plumed Arrow .358
Dancer "swallowing" the Great Plumed Arrow . 359
Navajo Woman weaving a Belt ...360
Navajo Woman spinning ....361
A Room in a Zuñi House ....362
Ashtishkee, a Navajo Chief ....365
Navajo Medicine Lodge, viewed from the South . . 366
Navajo Medicine Lodge, viewed from the East . . 367
Navajo Fire Dance ......368
Workshop of Navajo Silversmith ...369
Zuñi Woman weaving a Belt ....370
Weaving of Diamond-shaped Diagonals .371
Zuñi Fetiches .......372
Effigy Pottery from Zuñi ....373
Zuñi Pottery .......374
XIV CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
PAGE
Zuñi Grails .......375
Culinary Pottery from Zuñí . . . . . . 376
Navajo Fabrics ......377
The Grand Canyon ......378
A Gable with Pinnacles ....381
Niches or Panels in the Red Wall Limestone .382
Bounded Inward Curves and Projecting Cusps of the Walls ...384
The Eastern Temple ......387
The Western Temple .....388
Granite Falls, Kaibab Division, Grand Canyon . . 391
Dikes in the Canyon Wall ....392
Pinnacles of the Kaibab .....395
Vishnu's Temple ......396
Key to the Panorama from Point Sublime, looking East, between 396 and
...397
Key to the Panorama from Point Sublime, looking West, between ...396 and
...397
Key to the Panorama from Point Sublime, looking South, between ...396
and ...397
Grand Canyon at the Foot of the Toroweap, looking East, between ...396
and ...397
The Great Unconformity at the Head of the Grand Canyon, between ...396
and ...397
16 powell-canyons-1.jpg
THE COLORADO RIVER.
17
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
CHAPTER I.
THE VALLEY OF THE COLORADO.
THE Colorado River is formed by the junction of the Grand and Green.
The Grand River has its source in the Rocky Mountains, five or six miles
west of Long's Peak. A group of little alpine lakes, that receive
their waters directly from perpetual snowbanks, discharge into a common
reservoir known as Grand Lake, a beautiful sheet of water. Its quiet
surface reflects towering cliffs and crags of granite on its eastern
shore, and stately pines and firs stand on its western margin.
The Green River heads near Fremont's Peak, in the Wind River Mountains.
This river, like the Grand, has its sources in alpine lakes fed by
everlasting snows. Thousands of these little lakes, with deep, cold,
emerald waters, are embosomed among the crags of the Rocky Mountains.
These streams, born in the cold, gloomy solitudes of the upper mountain
region, have a strange, eventful history as they pass down through
gorges, tumbling in cascades and cataracts, until they reach the hot,
arid plains of the Lower Colorado, where the waters that were so clear
above empty as turbid floods into the Gulf of California.
The mouth of the Colorado is in latitude 31 degrees 53 minutes and
longitude 115 degrees. The source of the Grand River is in latitude 40
degrees 17' and longitude 105 degrees 43' approximately. The source of
the Green River is in latitude 43 degrees 15' and longitude 109 degrees
54' approximately.
The Green River is larger than the Grand and is the upper continuation
of the Colorado. Including this river, the whole length of
18
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO. powell-canyons-2.jpg
PA-RÚ-NU-WEAP CANYON.
the stream is about 2,000 miles. The region of country drained by the
Colorado and its tributaries is about 800 miles in length and varies
from 300 to 500 miles in width, containing about 300,000 square miles,
an area larger than all the New England and Middle States with Maryland,
Virginia and West Virginia added, or nearly as large as Minnesota,
Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri combined.
There are two distinct portions of the basin of the Colorado, a desert
portion below and a plateau portion above. The lower third, or desert
portion of the basin, is but little above the level of the sea, though
here and there ranges of moun-
THE VALLEY OF THE COLORADO.
19
tains rise to an altitude of from 2,000 to 6,000 feet. This part of the
valley is bounded on the northeast by a line of cliffs, which present
a bold, often vertical step, hundreds or thousands of feet to the
table-lands above. On the California side a vast desert stretches
westward, past the head of the Gulf of California, nearly to the shore
of the Pacific. Between the desert and the sea a narrow belt of valley,
hill, and mountain of wonderful beauty is found. Over this coastal zone
there falls a balm distilled from the great ocean, as gentle showers and
refreshing dews bathe the land. When rains come the emerald hills laugh
with delight as bourgeoning bloom is spread in the sunlight. When the
rains have ceased all the verdure turns to gold. Then slowly the hills
are brinded powell-canyons-3.jpg
BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE CLIFFS.
until the rains come again, when verdure and bloom again peer through
the tawny wreck of the last year's greenery. North of the Gulf of
California the desert is known as "Coahuila Valley," the most desolate
region on the continent. At one time in the geologic history of this
country the Gulf of California extended a long distance farther to the
northwest, above the point where the Colorado River now enters it; but
this stream brought its mud from the mountains and the hills above and
poured it into the gulf and gradually erected a vast dam across it,
until the waters above were separated from the waters below; then the
Colorado cut a channel into the lower gulf. The upper waters, being cut
off from the sea, gradually evaporated, and what is known as Coahuila
Valley was the bottom of this ancient upper gulf,
20 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
and thus the land is now below the level of the sea. Between Coahuila
Valley and the river there are many low, ashen-gray mountains standing
in short ranges. The rainfall is so little that no perennial streams are
formed. When a great rain comes it washes the mountain sides and gathers
on its way a deluge of sand, which it spreads over the plain below, for
the streams do not carry the sediment to the sea. So the mountains are
washed down and the valleys are filled. On the Arizona side of the river
desert plains are interrupted by desert mountains. Far to the eastward
the country rises until the Sierra Madre are reached in New Mexico,
where these mountains divide the waters of the Colorado from the Rio
Grande del Norte. Here in New Mexico the Gila River has its source. Some
of its tributaries rise in the mountains to the south, in the territory
belonging to the republic of Mexico, but the Gila gathers the greater
part of its waters from a great plateau on the northeast. Its sources
are everywhere in pine-clad mountains and plateaus, but all of the
affluents quickly descend into the desert valley below, through which
the Gila winds its way westward to the Colorado. In times of continued
drought the bed of the Gila is dry, but the region is subject to great
and violent storms, and floods roll down from the heights with marvelous
precipitation, carrying devastation on their way. Where the Colorado
River forms the boundary between California and Arizona it cuts through
a number of volcanic rocks by black, yawning canyons. Between these
canyons the river has a low but rather narrow flood plain, with
cottonwood groves scattered here and there, and a chaparral of mesquite
bearing beans and thorns. Four hundred miles above its mouth and
more than two hundred miles above the Gila, the Colorado has a second
tributary--"Bill Williams' River" it is called by excessive courtesy. It
is but a muddy creek. Two hundred miles above this the Rio Virgen joins
the Colorado. This river heads in the Markagunt Plateau and the Pine
Valley Mountains of Utah. Its sources are 7,000 or 8,000 feet above the
sea, but from the beautiful course of the upper region it soon drops
into a great sandy valley below and becomes a river of flowing sand.
At ordinary stages it is very wide but very shallow, rippling over
the quicksands in tawny waves. On its way it cuts through the Beaver
Mountains by a weird canyon. On either side grease-wood plains stretch
far away, interrupted here and there by bad-land hills.
21 powell-canyons-4.jpg
SAN FRANCISCO PEAK.
22
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
The region of country lying on either side of the Colorado for six
hundred miles of its course above the gulf, stretching to Coahuila
Valley below on the west and to the highlands where the Gila heads on
the east, is one of singular characteristics. The plains and valleys are
low, arid, hot, and naked, and the volcanic mountains scattered here and
there are lone and desolate. During the long months the sun pours its
heat upon the rocks and sands, untempered by clouds above or forest
shades beneath. The springs are so few in number that their names
are household words in every Indian rancheria and every 23
powell-canyons-5.jpg
CLIFF NEAR FORT WINGATE.
settler's home; and there are no brooks, no creeks, and no rivers but
the trunk of the Colorado and the trunk of the Gila. The few plants are
strangers to the dwellers in the temperate zone. On the mountains a few
junipers and piñons are found, and cactuses, agave, and yuccas, low,
fleshy plants with bayonets and thorns. The landscape of vegetal life is
weird--no forests, no meadows, no green hills, no foliage, but clublike
stems of plants armed with stilettos. Many of the plants bear
gorgeous flowers. The birds are few, but often of rich plumage. Hooded
rattlesnakes, horned toads, and lizards crawl in the dust and among the
rocks. One of these lizards, the "Gila monster," is
23 powell-canyons-6.jpg
SCENERY ON THE HIGH PLATEAUS.
24 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
poisonous. Rarely antelopes are seen, but wolves, rabbits, and sundry
ground squirrels abound.
The desert valley of the Colorado, which has been described as distinct
from the plateau region above, is the home of many Indian tribes. Away
up at the sources of the Gila, where the pines and cedars stand and
where creeks and valleys are found, is a part of the Apache land. These
tribes extend far south into the republic of Mexico. The Apaches are
intruders in this country, having at some time, perhaps many centuries
ago, migrated from British America. They speak an Athapascan language.
The Apaches and Navajos are the American Bedouins. On their way from
the far North they left several colonies in Washington, Oregon, and
California. They came to the country on foot, but since the Spanish
invasion they have become skilled horsemen. They are wily warriors
and implacable enemies, feared by all other tribes. They are hunters,
warriors, and priests, these professions not yet being differentiated.
The cliffs of the region have many caves, in which these people perform
their religious rites. The Sierra Madre formerly supported abundant
game, and the little Sonora deer was common. Bears and mountain lions
were once found in great numbers, and they put the courage and prowess
of the Apaches to a severe test. Huge rattlesnakes are common, and the
rattlesnake god is one of the deities of the tribes.
In the valley of the Gila and on its tributaries from the northeast
are the Pimas, Maricopas, and Papagos. They are skilled agriculturists,
cultivating lands by irrigation. In the same region many ruined villages
are found. The dwellings of these towns in the valley were built chiefly
of grout, and the fragments of the ancient pueblos still remaining have
stood through centuries of storm. Other pueblos near the cliffs on the
northeast were built of stone. The people who occupied them cultivated
the soil by irrigation, and their hydraulic works were on an extensive
scale. They built canals scores of miles in length and built reservoirs
to store water. They were skilled workers in pottery. From the fibers
of some of the desert plants they made fabrics with which to clothe
themselves, and they cultivated cotton. They were deft artists in
picture-writings, which they etched on the rocks. Many interesting
vestiges of their ancient art remain, testifying to their skill as
savage
25 powell-canyons-7.jpg
THE MOGOLLON ESCARPMENT.
26 powell-canyons-8.jpg
SNOW-CLAD MOUNTAINS ON THE RIVER.
THE VALLEY OF THE COLORADO. 27
artisans. It seems probable that the Pimas, Maricopas, and Papagos are
the same people who built the pueblos and constructed the irrigation
works; so their traditions state. It is also handed down that the
pueblos were destroyed in wars with the Apaches. In these groves of the
flood plain of the Colorado the Mojave and Yuma Indians once had their
homes. They caught fish from the river and snared a few rabbits in the
desert, but lived mainly on mesquite beans, the hearts of yucca plants,
and the fruits of the cactus. They also gathered a harvest from the
river reeds. To some slight extent they cultivated the soil by rude
irrigation and raised corn and squashes. They lived almost naked, for
the climate is warm and dry. Sometimes a year passes without a drop of
rain. Still farther to the north the Chemehuevas lived, partly along the
river and partly in the mountains to the west, where a few springs are
found. They belong to the great Shoshonian family. On the Rio Virgen and
in the mountains round about, a confederacy of tribes speaking the Ute
language and belonging to the Shoshonian family have their homes.
These people built their sheltering homes of boughs and the bast of
the juniper. In such shelters, they lived in winter, but in summer they
erected extensive booths of poles and willows, sometimes large enough
for the accommodation of a tribe of 100 or 200 persons. A wide gap
in culture separates the Pimas, Maricopas, and Papagos from the
Chemehuevas. The first were among the most advanced tribes found in
the United States; the last were among the very lowest; they are the
original "Digger" Indians, called so by all the other tribes, but the
name has gradually spread beyond its original denotation to many tribes
of Utah, Nevada, and California.
The low desert, with its desolate mountains, which has thus been
described is plainly separated from the upper region of plateau by the
Mogollon Escarpment, which, beginning in the Sierra Madre of New Mexico,
extends northwestward across the Colorado far into Utah, where it ends
on the margin of the Great Basin. The rise by this escarpment varies
from 3,000 to more than 4,000 feet. The step from the lowlands to the
highlands which is here called the Mogollon Escarpment is not a simple
line of cliffs, but is a complicated and irregular facade presented
to the southwest. Its different portions have been named by the people
living below as distinct mountains, as Shiwits Mountains, Mogollon
28
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
Mountains, Piñal Mountains, Sierra Calitro, etc., but they all rise to
the summit of the same great plateau region.
The upper region, extending to the headwaters of the Grand and Green
Rivers, constitutes the great Plateau Province. These plateaus are
drained by the Colorado River and its tributaries; the eastern and
powell-canyons-9.jpg
OUR MESSENGER.
southern margin by the Rio Grande and its tributaries, and the western
by streams that flow into the Great Basin and are lost in the Great Salt
Lake and other bodies of water that have no drainage to the sea. The
general surface of this upper region is from 5,000 to 8,000 feet above
sea level, though the channels of the streams are cut much lower.
THE VALLEY OF THE COLORADO. 29
This high region, on the east, north, and west, is set with ranges of
snow-clad mountains attaining an altitude above the sea varying from
8,000 to 14,000 feet. All winter long snow falls on its mountain-crested
rim, filling the gorges, half burying the forests, and covering the
crags and peaks with a mantle woven by the winds from the waves of the
sea. When the summer sun comes this snow melts and tumbles down the
mountain sides in millions of cascades. A million cascade brooks unite
to form a thousand torrent creeks; a thousand torrent creeks unite to
form half a hundred rivers beset with cataracts; half a hundred roaring
rivers unite to form the Colorado, which rolls, a mad, turbid stream,
into the Gulf of California.
Consider the action of one of these streams. Its source is in the
mountains, where the snows fall; its course, through the arid plains.
Now, if at the river's flood storms were falling on the plains, its
channel would be cut but little faster than the adjacent country would
be washed, and the general level would thus be preserved; but under the
conditions here mentioned, the river. continually deepens its beds;
so all the streams cut deeper and still deeper, until their banks are
towering cliffs of solid rock. These deep, narrow gorges are called
canyons.
For more than a thousand miles along its course the Colorado has cut for
itself such a canyon; but at some few points where lateral streams join
it the canyon is broken, and these narrow, transverse valleys divide it
into a series of canyons.
The Virgen, Kanab, Paria, Escalante, Fremont, San Rafael, Price, and
Uinta on the west, the Grand, White, Yampa, San Juan, and Colorado
Chiquito on the east, have also cut for themselves such narrow winding
gorges, or deep canyons. Every river entering these has cut another
canyon; every lateral creek has cut a canyon; every brook runs in a
canyon; every rill born of a shower and born again of a shower and
living only during these showers has cut for itself a canyon; so that
powell-canyons-10.jpg
APACHE BASKET
30
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
the whole upper portion of the basin of the Colorado is traversed by a
labyrinth of these deep gorges.
Owing to a great variety of geological conditions, these canyons differ
much in general aspect. The Rio Virgen, between Long Valley and the
Mormon town of Rockville, runs through Parunuweap Can-
31 powell-canyons-11.jpg
OUR MESSENGER'S WIFE.
yon, which is often not more than 20 or 30 feet in width and is from 600
to 1,500 feet deep. Away to the north the Yampa empties into the Green
by a canyon that I essayed to cross in the fall of 1868, but was baffled
from day to day, and the fourth day had nearly passed before I could
find my way down to the river. But thirty miles above its mouth this
canyon ends, and a narrow valley with a flood plain
31 powell-canyons-12.jpg
RUINS OF TOYALONE.
32 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
is found. Still farther up the stream the river comes down through
another canyon, and beyond that a narrow valley is found, and its upper
course is now through a canyon and now through a valley. All these
canyons are alike changeable in their topographic characteristics.
The longest canyon through which the Colorado runs is that between the
mouth of the Colorado Chiquito and the Grand Wash, a distance of 217 1/2
miles. But this is separated from another above, 65 1/2 miles in length,
only by the narrow canyon valley of the Colorado Chiquito.
All the scenic features of this canyon land are on a giant scale,
strange and weird. The streams run at depths almost inaccessible,
lashing the rocks which beset their channels, rolling in rapids and
plunging in falls, and making a wild music which but adds to the gloom
of the solitude. The little valleys nestling along the streams are
diversified by bordering willows, clumps of box elder, and small groves
of cottonwood.
Low mesas, dry, treeless, stretch back from the brink of the canyon,
often showing smooth surfaces of naked, solid rock. In some places the
country rock is composed of marls, and here the surface is a bed of
loose, disintegrated material through which one walks as in a bed of
ashes. Often these marls are richly colored and variegated. In other
places the country rock is a loose sandstone, the disintegration of
which has left broad stretches of drifting sand, white, golden, and
vermilion. Where this sandstone is a conglomerate, a paving of pebbles
has been left,--a mosaic of many colors, polished by the drifting sands
and glistening in the sunlight.
After the canyons, the most remarkable features of the country are the
long lines of cliffs. These are bold escarpments scores or hundreds of
miles in length,--great geographic steps, often hundreds or thousands of
feet in altitude, presenting steep faces of rock, often vertical. Having
climbed one of these steps, you may descend by a gentle, sometimes
imperceptible, slope to the foot of another. They thus present a series
of terraces, the steps of which are well-defined escarpments of
rock. The lateral extension of such a line of cliffs is usually very
irregular; sharp salients are projected on the plains below, and deep
recesses are cut into the terraces above. Intermittent streams coming
33 powell-canyons-13.jpg
A ZUÑI COURT.
34 powell-canyons-14.jpg
ADOBE CHURCH--ZUÑI.
THE VALLEY OF THE COLORADO. 35
down the cliffs have cut many canyons or canyon valleys, by which the
traveler may pass from the plain below to the terrace above. By these
gigantic stairways he may ascend to high plateaus, covered with forests
of pine and fir.
The region is further diversified by short ranges of eruptive mountains.
A vast system of fissures--huge cracks in the rocks to the depths
below--extends across the country. From these crevices floods of lava
have poured, covering mesas and table-lands with sheets of black basalt.
The expiring energies of these volcanic agencies have piled up huge
cinder cones that stand along the fissures, red, brown, and black, naked
of vegetation, and conspicuous landmarks, set as they are in contrast to
the bright, variegated rocks of sedimentary origin.
36 These canyon gorges, obstructing cliffs, and desert wastes have
prevented the traveler from penetrating the country, so that until the
Colorado River Exploring Expedition was organized it was almost unknown.
In the early history of the country Spanish adventurers penetrated the
region and told marvelous stories of its wonders. It was also traversed
by priests who sought to convert the Indian tribes to Christianity. In
later days, since the region has been under the control of the United
States, various government expeditions have penetrated the land. Yet
enough had been seen in the earlier days to foment rumor, and many
wonderful stories were told in the hunter's cabin and the prospector's
camp--stories of parties entering the gorge in boats and being carried
down with fearful velocity into whirlpools where all were overwhelmed in
the abyss of waters, and stories of underground passages for the
great river into which boats had passed never to be seen again. It was
currently believed that the river was lost under the rocks for several
hundred miles. There were other accounts of great falls whose roaring
music could be heard on the distant mountain summits; and there were
stories current of parties wandering on the brink of the canyon and
vainly endeavoring to reach the waters below, and perishing with thirst
at last in sight of the river which was roaring its mockery into their
dying ears.
The Indians, too, have woven the mysteries of the canyons into the myths
of their religion. Long ago there was a great and wise chief who mourned
the death of his wife and would not be comforted,
36 powell-canyons-15.jpg
THE SITE OF MOENKOPI.
THE VALLEY OF THE COLORADO.
37
until Tavwoats, one of the Indian gods, came to him and told him his
wife was in a happier land, and offered to take him there that he might
see for himself, if, upon his return, he would cease to mourn. The great
chief promised. Then Tavwoats made a trail through the mountains that
intervene between that beautiful land, the balmy region of the great
west, and this, the desert home of the poor Numa. This trail was the
canyon gorge of the Colorado. Through it he led him; and when they had
returned the deity exacted from the chief a promise that he would tell
no one of the trail. Then he rolled a river into the gorge, a mad,
raging stream, that should engulf any that might attempt to enter
thereby.
38 powell-canyons-16.jpg
MOUNTAIN OF THE HOLY CROSS.
39
CHAPTER II.
MESAS AND BUTTES.
FROM the Grand Canyon of the Colorado a great plateau extends
southeastward through Arizona nearly to the line of New Mexico, where
this elevated land merges into the Sierra Madre. The general surface of
this plateau is from 6,000 to 8,000 feet above the level of the sea.
It is sharply defined from the lowlands of Arizona by the Mogollon
Escarpment. On the northeast it gradually falls off into the valley
of the Little Colorado, and on the north it terminates abruptly in the
Grand Canyon.
Various tributaries of the Gila have their sources in this escarpment,
and before entering the desolate valley below they run in beautiful
canyons which they have carved for themselves in the margin of the
plateau. Sometimes these canyons are in the sandstones and limestones
which constitute the platform of the great elevated region called the
San Francisco Plateau. The escarpment is caused by a fault, the great
block of the upper side being lifted several thousand feet above the
valley region. Through the fissure lavas poured out, and in many places
the escarpment is concealed by sheets of lava. The canyons in these lava
beds are often of great interest.
On the plateau a number of volcanic mountains are found, and black
cinder cones are scattered in profusion. Through the forest lands are
many beautiful prairies and glades that in midsummer are decked with
gorgeous wild flowers. The rains of the region give source to few
perennial streams, but intermittent streams have carved deep gorges in
the plateau, so that it is divided into many blocks. The upper surface,
although forest-clad and covered with beautiful grasses, is almost
destitute of water. A few springs are found, but they are far apart, and
some of the volcanic craters hold lakelets. The limestone and basaltic
rocks sometimes hold pools of water; and where the basins
40 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
are deep the waters are perennial. Such pools are known as "water
pockets."
This is the great timber region of Arizona. Not many years ago it was a
vast park for elk, deer, and antelope, and bears and mountain lions
were abundant. This is the last home of the wild turkey in the
powell-canyons-17.jpg
WINGATE CLIFF.
United States, for they are still found here in great numbers. San
Francisco Peak is the highest of these volcanic mountains, and about
it are grouped in an irregular way many volcanic cones, one of which
presents some remarkable characteristics. A portion of the cone is of
bright reddish cinders, while the adjacent rocks are of black basalt.
The contrast in the colors is so great that on viewing the mountain from
a distance the red cinders seem to be on fire. From this circumstance
the cone has been named Sunset Peak. When distant from it ten or twenty
miles it is hard to believe that the effect is produced by contrasting
colors, for the peak seems to glow with a light of its own.
In centuries past the San Francisco Plateau was the home of
pueblo-building tribes, and the ruins of their habitations are widely
scattered over this elevated region. Thousands of little dwellings
are found, usually built of blocks of basalt. In some cases they were
clustered in little towns, and three of these deserve further mention.
MESAS AND BUTTES.
41
A few miles south of San Francisco Peak there is an intermittent stream
known as Walnut Creek. This stream runs in a deep gorge 600 to 800
feet below the general surface. The stream has cut its way through the
limestone and through series of sandstones, and bold walls of rock are
presented on either side. In some places the softer sandstones lying
between the harder limestones and sandstones have yielded to weathering
agencies, so that there are caves running along the face of the wall,
sometimes for hundreds or thousands of feet, but not very deep. These
natural shelves in the rock were utilized by an ancient tribe of Indians
for their homes. They built stairways to the waters below and to the
hunting grounds above, and lived in the caves. They walled the fronts of
the caves with rock, which they covered with plaster, and divided them
into compartments or rooms; and now many hundreds of these dwellings are
found. Such is the cliff village of powell-canyons-18.jpg
PYRAMID BUTTE NEAR FORT WINGATE.
Walnut Canyon. In the ruins of these cliff houses mortars and pestles
are found in great profusion, and when first discovered many articles of
pottery were found, and still many potsherds are seen. The people were
42
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
very skillful in the manufacture of stone implements, especially spears,
knives, and arrows.
East of San Francisco Peak there is another low volcanic cone, composed
of ashes which have been slightly cemented by the processes of time,
but which can be worked with great ease. On this cone another tribe of
Indians made its village, and for the purpose they sunk shafts into the
easily worked but partially consolidated ashes, and after penetrating
from the surface three or four feet they enlarged the chambers so as to
make them ten or twelve feet in diameter. In such a chamber they made
a little fireplace, its chimney running up on one side of the
powell-canyons-19.jpg
ZUÑI CLIFFS.
wellhole by which the chamber was entered. Often they excavated smaller
chambers connected with the larger, so that sometimes two, three, four,
or even five smaller connecting chambers are grouped about a large
central room. The arts of these people resembled those of the people who
dwelt in Walnut Canyon. One thing more is worthy of special notice. On
the very top of the cone they cleared off a space for a courtyard, or
assembly square, and about it they erected booths, and
MESAS AND BUTTES.
43
within the square a space of ground was prepared with a smooth floor, on
which they performed the ceremonies of their religion and danced to the
gods in prayer and praise.
Some twelve or fifteen miles farther east, in another volcanic cone,
a rough crater is found, surrounded by piles of cinders and angular
powell-canyons-20.jpg
GREAT NECK NINE MILES SOUTH OF SALAZAR.
fragments of lava. In the walls of this crater many caves are found,
and here again a village was established, the caves in the scoria being
utilized as habitations of men. These little caves were fashioned into
rooms of more symmetry and convenience than originally found, and the
openings to the caves were walled. Nor did these people neglect the
gods, for in this crater town, as in the cinder-cone town, a place of
worship was prepared.
Many other caves opening into the canyon and craters of this plateau
were utilized in like manner as homes for tribal people, and in one cave
far to the south a fine collection of several hundred pieces of pottery
has been made.
44
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
On the northeast of the San Francisco Plateau is the valley of the
Little Colorado, a tributary of the Colorado River. This river is formed
by streams that head chiefly on the San Francisco Plateau, but in
part on the Zuñi Plateau. The Little Colorado is a marvelous river.
In seasons of great rains it is a broad but shallow torrent of mud; in
seasons of drought it dwindles and sometimes entirely disappears along
portions of its course. The upper tributaries usually run in beautiful
box canyons. Then the river flows through a low, desolate, bad-land
valley, and the river of mud is broad but shallow, except in seasons of
great floods. But fifty miles or more above the junction of this
stream with the Colorado River proper, it plunges into a canyon
powell-canyons-21.jpg
CINDER CONE AND NECK NORTHEAST OF GRANT STATION.
with limestone walls, and steadily this canyon increases in depth, until
at the mouth of the stream it has walls more than 4,000 feet in height.
The contrast between this canyon portion and the upper
MESAS AND BUTTES.
45
valley portion is very great. Above, the river ripples in a broad sheet
of mud; below, it plunges with violence over great cataracts and
rapids. Above, the bad lands stretch on either hand. This is
powell-canyons-22.jpg
TWO LARGE NECKS, THE MORE DISTANT ONE BEING THE CABAZON. MESAS IN THE
FOREGROUND.
the region of the Painted Desert, for the marls and soft rocks of which
the hills are composed are of many colors--chocolate, red, vermilion,
pink, buff, and gray; and the naked hills are carved in fantastic
forms. Passing to the region below, suddenly the channel is narrowed and
tumbles down into a deep, solemn gorge with towering limestone cliffs.
All round the margin of the valley of the Little Colorado, on the side
next to the Zuñi Plateau and on the side next to the San Francisco
Plateau, every creek and every brook runs in a beautiful canyon. Then
down in the valley there are stretches of desert covered with sage and
grease wood. Still farther down we come to the bad lands of the Painted
Desert; and scattered through the entire region low mesas or smaller
plateaus are everywhere found.
On the northeast side of the Little Colorado a great mesa country
stretches far to the northward. These mesas are but minor plateaus that
are separated by canyons and canyon valleys, and sometimes by
46
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
low sage plains. They rise from a few hundred to 2,000 or 3,000 feet
above the lowlands on which they are founded. The distinction between
plateaus and mesas is vague; in fact, in local usage the term mesa is
usually applied to all of these tables which do not carry volcanic moun-
powell-canyons-23.jpg
NECK SIX MILES NORTHEAST OF JUANTAFOYA.
tains. The mesas are carved out of platforms of horizontal or nearly
horizontal rocks by perennial or intermittent streams, and as the
climate is exceedingly arid most of the streams flow only during seasons
of rain, and for the greater part of the year they are dry arroyos. Many
of the longer channels are dry for long periods. Some of them are opened
only by floods that come ten or twenty years apart.
The region is also characterized by many buttes. These are plateaus or
mesas of still smaller dimensions in horizontal distance, though their
altitude may be hundreds or thousands of feet. Like the mesas and
plateaus, they sometimes form very conspicuous features of a landscape
and are of marvelous beauty by reason of their sculptured escarpments.
Below they are often buttressed on a magnificent scale. Softer beds give
rise to a vertical structure of buttresses and columns, while the harder
strata appear in great horizontal lines, suggesting
MESAS AND BUTTES.
47
architectural entablature. Then the strata of which these buttes are
composed are of many vivid colors; so color and form unite in producing
architectural effects, and the buttes often appear like Cyclopean
temples.
There is yet one other peculiarity of this landscape deserving mention
here. Before the present valleys and canyons were carved and the mesas
lifted in relief, the region was one of great volcanic activity. In
various places vents were formed and floods of lava poured in sheets
over the land. Then for a time volcanic action ceased, and rains and
rivers carved out the valleys and left the mesas and mountains standing.
These same agencies carried away the lava beds that spread over the
lands. But wherever there was a lava vent it was filled with molten
matter, which on cooling was harder than the sandstones and marls
through which it penetrated. The chimney to the region of fire below was
thus filled with a black rock which yielded more
48 powell-canyons-24.jpg
A GROUP OF NECKS NEAR MOUNT TAYLOR.
slowly to the disintegrating agencies of weather, and so black rocks
rise up from mesas on every hand. These are known as volcanic necks,
and, being of a somber color, in great contrast with the vividly colored
rocks from which they rise and by which they are surrounded, they
48 powell-canyons-25.jpg
PANORAMA FROM THE EDGE OF MOUNT TAYLOR MESA.
MESAS AND BUTTES. 49
lend a strange aspect to the landscape. Besides these necks, there are
a few volcanic mountains that tower over all the landscape and gather
about themselves the clouds of heaven. Mount Taylor, which stands over
the divide on the drainage of the Rio Grande del Norte, is one of
the most imposing of the dead volcanoes of this region. Still later
eruptions of lava are found here and there, and in the present valleys
and canyons sheets of black basalt are often found. These are known as
coulees, and sometimes from these coulees cinder cones arise.
This valley of the Little Colorado is also the site of many ruins, and
the villages or towns found in such profusion were of mueh larger size
than those on the San Francisco Plateau. Some of the pueblo-building
peoples yet remain. The Zuñi Indians still occupy their homes, and they
prove to be a most interesting people. They have cultivated the soil
from time immemorial. They build their houses of stone and line them
with plaster; and they have many interesting arts, being skilled potters
and deft weavers. The seasons are about equally divided between labor,
worship, and play.
50
A hundred miles to the northwest of the Zuñí pueblo are the seven
pueblos of Tusayan: Oraibi, Shumopavi, Shupaulovi, Mashongnavi,
Sichumovi, Walpi, and llano. These towns are built on high cliffs. The
people speak a language radically different from that of the Zuñi, but,
with the exception of that of the inhabitants of Hano, closely allied to
that of the Utes. The people of Hano are Tewans, whose ancestors moved
from the Rio Grande to Tusayan during the great Pueblo revolt against
Spanish authority in 1680-96.
Between the Little Colorado and the Rio San Juan there is a vast system
of plateaus, mesas, and buttes, volcanic mountains, volcanic cones, and
volcanic cinder cones. Some of the plateaus are forest-clad and have
perennial waters and are gemmed with lakelets. The mesas are sometimes
treeless, but are often covered with low, straggling, gnarled cedars and
pifions, trees that are intermediate in size between the bushes of
sage in the desert and the forest trees of the elevated regions. On the
western margin of this district the great Navajo Mountain stands, on the
brink of Glen Canyon, and from its summit many of the stupendous gorges
of the Colorado River can be seen. Central in the region stand the
Carrizo Mountains, the Lukachukai
50 powell-canyons-26.jpg
PANORAMA IN THE VALLEY OF THE PUERCO.
MESAS AND BUTTES. 51
Mountains, the Tunitcha Mountains, and the Chusca Mountains, which in
fact constitute one system, extending from north to south in the order
named. These are really plateaus crowned with volcanic peaks.
But the district we are now describing, which stretches from the Little
Colorado to the San Juan, is best characterized by its canyons. The
whole region is a labyrinth of gorges. On the west the Navajo Creek and
its tributaries run in profound chasms. Farther south the Moencopie with
its tributaries is a labyrinth of gorges; and all the streams that run
west into the Colorado, south into the Little Colorado, or north into
the San Juan have carved deep, wild, and romantic gorges. Immediately
west of the Chusca Plateau the Canyon del Muerta and the Canyon de
Chelly are especially noticeable. Many of these canyons are carved in
a homogeneous red sandstone, and their walls are often vertical for
hundreds of feet. Sometimes the canyons widen into narrow valleys, which
are thus walled by impassable cliffs, except where lateral canyons cut
their way through the battlements.
In these mountains, plateaus, mesas, and canyons the Navajo Indians have
their home. The Navajos are intruders in this country. They belong
to the Athapascan stock of British America and speak an Athapascan
language, like the Apaches of the Sierra Madre country. They are a
stately, athletic, and bold people. While yet this country was a part
of Mexico they acquired great herds of horses and flocks of sheep,
and lived in opulence compared with many of the other tribes of North
America. After the acquisition of this territory by the United States
they became disaffected by reason of encroaching civilization, and the
petty wars between United States troops and the Navajos were in the
main disastrous to our forces, due in part to the courage, skill, and
superior numbers of the Navajos and in part to the character of the
country, which is easily defended, as the routes of travel along the
canyons present excellent opportunities for defense and ambuscade. But
under the leadership and by the advice of Kit Carson these Indians were
ultimately conquered. This wily but brave frontiersman recommended a
new method of warfare, which was to destroy the herds and flocks of the
Navajos; and this course was pursued. Regular troops with volunteers
from California and New Mexico went into the Navajo country and shot
down their herds of half-wild horses,
52
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
killed hundreds of thousands of sheep, cut down their peach orchards
which were scattered about the springs and little streams, destroyed
their irrigating works, and devastated their little patches of corn,
squashes, and melons; and entirely neglected the Navajos themselves, who
were concealed among the rocks of the canyons. Seeing the destruction
wrought upon their means of livelihood, the Navajos at once yielded.
More than 8,000 of them surrendered at one time, coming in in straggling
bands. They were then removed far to the east, near to the Texas line,
and established on a reservation at the Bosque Redondo. Here they
engaged in civilized farming. A great system powell-canyons-27.jpg
RUINS AT THE HEAD OF MCELMO CANYON.
of irrigation was developed; but the appropriations necessary for the
maintenance of so large a body of people in the course of their passage
from savagery to civilization seemed too great to those responsible
for making grants from the national treasury, and just before 1870 the
Navajos were permitted to break up their homes at the Bosque Redondo and
return to the canyons and cliffs of their ancient land. Millions were
spent in conquering them where thousands were used to civilize them, so
that they were conquered but not civilized. Still, they are making good
progress, and have once more acquired large flocks and herds. It is
estimated that they now have more than a million sheep. Their experience
in irrigation at the Bosque Redondo has
MESAS AND BUTTES.
53
not been wholly wasted, for they now cultivate the soil by methods
of irrigation greatly improved over those used in the earlier time.
Originally they dwelt in hogans, or houses made of poles arranged with
much skill in conical form, the poles being covered with reeds and the
reeds with earth; now they are copying the dwelling places of civilized
men. They have also acquired great skill in the manufacture of silver
ornaments, with which they decorate themselves and the trappings of
their steeds.
Perhaps the most interesting ruins of America are found in this
region. The ancient pueblos found here are of superior structure, but
powell-canyons-28.jpg
A NAVAJO HOGAN.
they were all built by a people whom the Navajos displaced when they
migrated from the far North. Wherever there is water, near by an ancient
ruin may be found; and these ruins are gathered about centers, the
centers being larger pueblos and the scattered ruins representing single
houses. The ancient people lived in villages, or pueblos, but during
the growing season they scattered about by the springs and streams to
cultivate the soil by irrigation, and wherever there was a little farm
or garden patch, there was built a summer house of stone. When times
of war came, especially when they were invaded by the Navajos, these
ancient people left their homes in the pueblos and by the streams and
constructed temporary homes in the cliffs and canyon
54
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
walls. Such cliff ruins are abundant throughout the region, intimately
the ancient pueblo peoples succumbed to the prowess of the Navajos and
were driven out. A part joined related tribes in the valley of the Bio
Grande; others joined the Zuñi and the people of Tusayan; and stall
others pushed on beyond the Little Colorado to the San Francisco Plateau
and far down into the valley of the Gila. powell-canyons-29.jpg
AN ANCIENT COILED VASE FROM TUSAYAN.
Farther to the east, on the border of the region which we have
described, beyond the drainage of the Little Colorado and San Juan and
within the drainage of the Rio Grande, there lies an interesting plateau
region, which forms a part of the Plateau Province and which is worthy
of description. This is the great Tewan Plateau, which carries several
groups of mountains. The western edge of this plateau is known as the
MESAS AND BUTTES. 55
Nacimiento Mountain, a long north-and-south range of granite, which
presents a bold facade to the valley of the Puerco on the west.
Ascending to the summit of this granite range, there is presented to the
eastward a plateau of vast proportions, which stretches far toward Santa
Fe and is terminated by the canyon of the Rio Grande del Norte. The
eastern flank of this range as it slowly rose was a gentle slope, but as
it came up fissures were formed and volcanoes burst forth and poured out
their floods of lava, and now many extinct volcanoes can be seen. The
plateau was built by these volcanoes--sheets of lava piled on sheets
of lava hundreds and even thousands of feet in thickness. But with the
floods of lava came great explosions, like that of Krakatoa, by which
the heavens were filled with volcanic dust. These explosions came at
different times and at different places, but they were of enormous
magnitude, and when the dust fell again from the clouds it piled up in
beds scores and hundreds of feet in thickness. So the Tewan Plateau has
a foundation of red sandstone; upon this are piled sheets of lava and
sheets of dust in many alternating layers. It is estimated that there
still remain more than two hundred cubic miles of this dust, now
compacted into somewhat coherent rocks and interpolated between sheets
of lava. Everywhere this dust-formed rock is exceedingly light. Much of
it has a specific gravity so low that it will float on water. Above the
sheets of lava and above the beds of volcanic dust great volcanic cones
rise, and the whole upper region is covered with forests interspersed
with beautiful prairies. The plateau itself is intersected with many
deep, narrow canyons, having walls of lava, volcanic dust, or tufa, and
red sandstone. It is a beautiful region. The low mesas on every side are
almost treeless and are everywhere deserts, but the great Tewan Plateau
is booned with abundant rains, and it is thus a region of forests and
meadows, divided into blocks by deep, precipitous canyons and crowned
with cones that rise to an altitude of from 10,000 to 12,000 feet.
For many centuries the Tewan Plateau, with its canyons below and its
meadows and forests above, has been the home of tribes of Tewan Indians,
who built pueblos, sometimes of the red sandstones in the canyons, but
oftener of blocks of tufa, or volcanic dust. This light material can be
worked with great ease, and with crude tools of the
56
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
harder lavas they cut out blocks of the tufa and with them built pueblos
two or three stories high. The blocks are usually about twenty inches in
length, eight inches in width, and six inches in thickness, though they
vary somewhat in size. On the volcanic cones which dominate the country
these people built shrines and worshiped their gods with offerings of
meal and water and with prayer symbols made of the plumage of the birds
of the air. When the Navajo invasion came, by which kindred tribes were
displaced from the district farther west, these Tewan Indians left their
pueblos on the plateau and their dwellings by the rivers below in the
depths of the canyon and constructed cavate homes for themselves;
that is, they excavated chambers in the cliffs where these cliffs were
composed of soft, friable tufa. On the face of the cliff, hundreds of
feet high and thousands of feet or even miles in length, they dug out
chambers with stone tools, these chambers being little rooms eight or
ten feet in diameter. Sometimes two or more such chambers connected.
Then they constructed stairways in the soft rock, by which their cavate
houses were reached; and in these rock shelters they lived during times
powell-canyons-30.jpg
A TYPICAL CLIFF DWELLING.
57 powell-canyons-31.jpg
A ROOM IN A PUEBLO.
58
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
of war. When the Navajo invasion was long past, civilized men as Spanish
adventurers entered this country from Mexico, and again the Tewan
peoples left their homes on the mesas and by the canyons to find safety
in the cavate dwellings of the cliffs; and now the archaeologist in the
study of this country discovers these two periods of construction and
occupation of the cavate dwellings of the Tewan Indians.
North of the Rio San Juan another vast plateau region is found,
stretching to the Grand River. The mountains of this region are the La
Plata Mountains, Bear River Mountains, and San Miguel Mountains on the
east, and the Sierra El Late, the Sierra Abajo, and the Sierra La Sal on
the west, the latter standing near the brink of Cataract Canyon, through
which the Colorado flows immediately below the junction of the Grand and
Green. Throughout the region mountains, volcanic cones, volcanic necks,
and coulees are found, while the mountains themselves rise to great
altitudes and are forest-clad. Some of the plateaus attain huge
proportions, and between the plateaus labyrinthian mesas are found.
Buttes, as stupendous cameos, are scattered everywhere, and the whole
region is carved with canyons.
Grand River heads on the back of Long's Peak, in the Front Range of the
Rocky Mountains of central Colorado. At the foot of the mountain lies
Grand Lake, a sheet of emerald water that duplicates the forest
standing on its brink. Out of the lake flows Grand River, gathering on
powell-canyons-32.jpg
A NAVAJO READY FOR A JOURNEY.
MESAS AND BUTTES.
59
its way the many mountain streams whose waters fill the solitude with
perennial music--a symphony of cascades. In Middle Park boiling springs
issue from depths below and gather in pools covered with con-fervae.
Leaving Middle Park the river goes through a great range known as the
Gore's Pass Mountains; and still it flows on toward the Colorado, now
through canyon and now through valley, until the last forty miles of its
course it finds its way through a beautiful gorge known as Grand River
Canyon. In its principal course this canyon is a bright red homogeneous
sandstone, and the walls are often vertical and of great symmetry.
Farther down, its walls are rugged and angular, being composed of
limestones.
The principal tributaries from the south are the Blue, which heads in
Mt. Lincoln, and the Gunnison, which heads in the Wasatch Mountains.
These streams are also characterized by deep canyons and plateaus, and
mesas abound on every hand. Between the Grand River and the White River,
farther to the east, the Tavaputs Plateau is found. It begins at the
foot of Gore's Pass Range and extends down between the rivers last
mentioned to the very brink of Green River, which is in fact the upper
Colorado. Between the Grand River and the powell-canyons-33.jpg
A NAVAJO BOY.
60
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
foot of this plateau there is a low, narrow valley with mesas and
buttes. Then the country suddenly rises by a stupendous line of cliffs
2,000 or 3,000 feet high. These cliffs are composed of sand stones,
limestones, and shales, of many colors. The stratification in many
places is minute, so that they have been called the Book Cliffs.
powell-canyons-34.jpg
GARDENS OF ZUÑI.
From the cliffs many salients are projected into the valleys, and within
deep re-entering angles vast amphitheaters appear. About the projected
salients many towering buttes, with pinnacles and minarets, are found.
The long, narrow plateau is covered with a forest along its summit, and,
though it rises abruptly on the south side from Grand River Valley, it
descends more gently toward the White River, and on
MESAS AND BUTTES.
61 powell-canyons-35.jpg
A TUSAYAN LADDER.
this slope many canyons of rare beauty are seen. Plateaus and mesas
and canyons and buttes characterize the region north of White River and
stretch out to the Yampa. The Yampa itself has an important tributary
from the northwest, known as Snake River. Just below the affluence of
the Snake with the Yampa a strange phenomenon is observed. Right athwart
the course of the river rises a great dome-shaped mountain, with valley
stretches on every side, and through this mountain the river runs,
dividing it by a beautiful canyon, through which it flows to its
junction with the Green. This canyon is in soft, white sandstone,
usually with vertical walls varying from 500 to 2,000 feet in height,
and the river flows in a gentle winding way through all this stretch.
To the east of this plateau region, with its mesas and buttes and
its volcanic mountains, stand the southern Rocky Mountains, or Park
Mountains, a system of north-and-south ranges. These ranges are huge
billows in the crust of the earth out of which mountains have been
carved. The parks of Colorado are great valley basins enclosed by these
ranges, and over their surfaces moss agates are scattered. The mountains
are covered with dense forests and are rugged and wild. The higher peaks
rise above the timber line and are naked gorges of rocks. In them the
Platte and Arkansas rivers head and flow eastward to join the Missouri
River. Here also heads the Rio Grande del Norte, which flows southward
into the Gulf of Mexico, and still to the west head many streams which
pour into the Colorado waters destined for the Gulf of California.
Throughout all of this region drained by the Grand, White, and
Yampa rivers, there are many beautiful parks. The great moun-
powell-canyons-36.jpg
A ZUÑÍ STOOL.
62
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
tain slopes are still covered with primeval forests. Springs, brooks,
rivers, and lakes abound, and the waters are filled with trout. Not many
years ago the hills were covered with game--elk on the mountains, deer
on the plateaus, antelope in the valleys, and beavers building their
cities on the streams. The plateaus are covered with low, dwarf oaks
and many shrubs bearing berries, and in the chaparral of this region
cinnamon bears are still abundant.
From time immemorial the region drained by the Grand, White, and
Yampa rivers has been the home of Ute tribes of the Shoshonean
powell-canyons-37.jpg
A TUSAYAN FIELD SHELTER.
family of Indians. These people built their shelters of boughs and bark,
and to some extent lived in tents made of the skins of animals. They
never cultivated the soil, but gathered wild seeds and roots and were
famous hunters and fishermen. As the region abounds in game, these
tribes have always been well clad in skins and furs. The men wore
blouse, loincloth leggins, and moccasins, and the women dressed in
short kilts. It is curious to notice the effect which the contact of
civilization has had upon these women's dress. Even twenty years ago
they had lengthened their skirts; and dresses, made of buckskin, fringed
with furs, and beaded with elk teeth, were worn so long that they
trailed
MESAS AND BUTTES.
63
on the ground. Neither men nor women wore any headdress except on
festival occasions for decoration; then the women wore little basket
bonnets decorated with feathers, and the men wore headdresses made of
the skins of ducks, geese, eagles, and other large birds. Sometimes they
would prepare the skin of the head of the elk or deer, or of a bear or
mountain lion or wolf, for a headdress. For very cold weather both men
and women were provided with togas for their protection. Sometimes
the men would have a bearskin or elkskin for a toga; more
powell-canyons-38.jpg
ANOTHER TUSAYAN FIELD SHELTER.
often they made their togas by piecing together the skins of wolves,
mountain lions, wolverines, wild cats, beavers, and otters. The women
sometimes made theirs of fawnskins, but rabbitskin r,obes were far more
common. These rabbitskins were tanned with the fur on, and cut into
strips; then cords were made of the fiber of wild flax or yucca plants,
and round these cords the strips of rabbitskin were rolled, so that
they made long ropes of rabbitskin coils with a central cord of vegetal
fiber; then these coils were woven in parallel strings with cross
64 powell-canyons-39.jpg
VIEW OF HANO, ONE OF THE SEVEN PUEBLOS OF TUSAYAN. powell-canyons-40.jpg
MESA VERDE.
MESAS AND BUTTES. 65
strands of fiber. The robe when finished was usually about five or six
feet square, and it made a good toga for a cold day and a warm blanket
for the night.
The Ute Indians, like all the Indians of North America, have a wealth of
mythic stories. The heroes of these stories are the beasts, birds, and
reptiles of the region, and the themes of the stories are the doings
of these mythic beasts--the ancients from whom the present animals have
descended and degenerated. The primeval animals were wonderful
beings, as related in the lore of the Utes. They were the creators and
controllers of all the phenomena of nature known to these simple-minded
people. The Utes are zootheists. Each little tribe has its Shaman, or
medicine man, who is historian, priest, and doctor. The lore of this
Shaman is composed of mythic tales of ancient animals. The Indians
are very skillful actors, and they represent the parts of beasts or
reptiles, wearing masks and imitating the ancient zoic gods. In temples
walled with gloom of night and illumed by torch fires the people gather
about their Shaman, who tells and acts the stories of creation recorded
in their traditional bible. When fever prostrates one of the tribe
the Shaman gathers the actors about the stricken man, and with weird
dancing, wild ululation, and ecstatic exhortation the evil spirit is
driven from the body. Then they have their ceremonies to pray for
the forest fruits, for abundant game, for successful hunting, and for
prosperity in war.
66 powell-canyons-41.jpg
MOUNT MORAN, TETON RANGE, WYOMING.
67
CHAPTER III.
MOUNTAINS AND PLATEAUS.
GREEN RIVER has its source in Fremont's Peak, high up in the Wind River
Mountains among glacial lakes and mountain cascades. This is the real
source of the Colorado River, and it stands in strange contrast with
the mouth of that stream where it pours into the Gulf of California.
The general course of the river is from north to south and from great
altitudes to the level of the sea. Thus it runs "from land of snow
to land of sun." The Wind River Mountains constitute one of the most
imposing ranges of the United States. Fremont's Peak, the culminating
point, is 13,790 feet above the level of the sea. It stands in a
wilderness of crags. Here at Fremont's Peak three great rivers have
their sources: Wind River flows eastward into the Mississippi; Green
River flows southward into the Colorado; and Gros Ventre River flows
northwestward into the Columbia. From this dominating height many ranges
can be seen on every hand. About the sources of the Platte and the Big
Horn, that flow ultimately into the Gulf of Mexico, great ranges stand
with their culminating peaks among the clouds; and the mountains that
extend into Yellowstone Park, the land of geyser wonders, are seen.
The Yellowstone Park is at the southern extremity of a great system
of mountain ranges, the northern Rocky Mountains, sometimes called the
Geyser Ranges. This geological province extends into British America,
but its most wonderful scenery is in the upper Yellowstone basin, where
geysers bombard the heavens with vapor distilled in subterranean depths.
The springs which pour out their boiling waters are loaded with quartz,
and the waters of the springs, flowing away over the rocks, slowly
discharge their fluid magma, which crystallizes in beautiful forms and
builds jeweled basins that hold pellucid waters.
68 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
To the north and west of Fremont's Peak are mountain ranges that give
birth to rivers flowing into the great Columbia. Conspicuous among these
from this point of view is the great Teton Range, with its towering
facade of storm-carved rocks; then the Gros Ventre Mountains, the Snake
River Range, the Wyoming Range, and, still beyond the latter, the
Bear River Range, are seen. Far in the distant south, scarcely to be
distinguished from the blue clouds on the horizon, stand the Uinta
Mountains. On every hand are deep mountain gorges where snows accumulate
to form glaciers. Below the glaciers throughout the entire Wind River
Range great numbers of morainal lakes are found. These lakes are
gems--deep sapphire waters fringed with emerald zones. From these lakes
creeks and rivers flow, by cataracts and rapids, to form the Green. The
mountain slopes below are covered with dense forests of pines and firs.
The lakes are often fringed with beautiful aspens, and when the autumn
winds come their golden leaves are carried over the landscape in clouds
of resplendent sheen. The creeks descend from the mountains in wild
rocky gorges, until they flow out into the valley. On the west side of
the valley stand the Gros Ventre and the Wyoming mountains, low ranges
of peaks, but picturesque in form and forest stretch. Leaving the
mountain, the river meanders through the Green River Plains, a cold
elevated district much like that of northern Norway, except that the
humidity of Norway is replaced by the aridity of Wyoming. South of the
plains the Big Sandy joins the Green from the east. South of the Big
Sandy a long zone of sand-dunes stretches eastward. The western winds
blowing up the valley drift these sands from hill to hill, so that the
hills themselves are slowly journeying eastward on the wings of arid
gales, and sand tempests may be encountered more terrible than storms
of snow or hail. Here the northern boundary of the Plateau Province is
found, for mesas and high table-lands are found on either side of the
river.
69
On the east side of the Green, mesas and plateaus have irregular
escarpments with points extending into the valleys, and between these
points canyons come down that head in the highlands. Everywhere the
escarpments are fringed with outlying buttes. Many portions of the
region are characterized by bad lands. These are hills carved out of
sandstone, shales, and easily disintegrated rocks, which present many
69 powell-canyons-42.jpg
MARBLE BASINS, MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, YELLOWSTONE PARK.
70 powell-canyons-43.jpg
TERRACED BASINS, MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, YELLOWSTONE PABK.
MOUNTAINS AND PLATEAUS. 71
fantastic forms and are highly colored in a great variety of tint and
tone, and everywhere they are naked of vegetation. Now and then low
mountains crown the plateaus. Altogether it is a region of desolation.
Through the midst of the country, from east to west, flows an
intermittent stream known as Bitter Creek. In seasons of rain it carries
floods; in seasons of drought it disappears in the sands, and its waters
are alkaline and often poisonous. Stretches of bad-land desert are
interrupted by other stretches of sage plain, and on the high lands
gnarled and picturesque forests of juniper and piñón are found. On the
west side of the river the mesas rise by grassy slopes to the westward
into high plateaus that are forest-clad, first with juniper and piñon,
and still higher with pines and firs. Some of the streams run in canyons
and others have elevated valleys along their courses. On the south
border of this mesa and plateau country are the Bridger Bad Lands, lying
at the foot of the Uinta Mountains. These bad lands are of gray, green,
and brown shales that are carved in picturesque forms--domes, towers,
pinnacles, and minarets, and bold cliffs with deep alcoves; and all are
naked rock, the sediments of an ancient lake. These lake beds are filled
with fossils,--the preserved bones of fishes, reptiles, and mammals, of
strange and often gigantic forms, no longer found living on the globe.
It is a desert to the agriculturist, a mine to the paleontologist, and a
paradise to the artist.
The region thus described, from Fremont's Peak to the Uinta Mountains,
has been the home of tribes of Indians of the Shoshonean family from
time immemorial. It is a great hunting and fishing region, and the
vigorous Shoshones still obtain a part of their livelihood from mesa and
plain and river and lake. The flesh of the animals killed in fall and
winter was dried in the arid winds for summer use; the trout abounding
in the streams and lakes were caught at all seasons of the year; and the
seeds and fruits of harvest time were gathered and preserved for winter
use. When the seeds were gathered they were winnowed by tossing them
in trays so that the winds might carry away the chaff. Then they were
roasted in the same trays. Burning coals and seeds were mixed in the
basket trays and kept in motion by a tossing process which fanned the
coals until the seeds were done; then they were separated from the coals
by dexterous manipulation. Afterwards the seeds were ground on
72 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
mealing-stones and molded into cakes, often huge loaves, that were
stored away for use in time of need. Raspberries, chokecherries, and
buffalo berries are abundant, and these fruits were gathered and mixed
with the bread. Such fruit cakes were great dainties among these people.
In this Shoshone land the long winter night is dedicated to worship and
festival. About their camp fires scattered in forest glades by
brooks and lakes, they assemble to dance and sing in honor of their
gods--wonderful mythic animals, for they hold as divine the ancient
of bears, the eagle of the lost centuries, the rattlesnake of primeval
times, and a host of other zoic deities.
The Uinta Range stands across the course of Green River, which finds
its way through it by series of stupendous canyons. The range has an
east-and-west trend. The Wasatch Mountains, a long north-and-south
range, here divide the Plateau Province from what is known among
geologists as the Basin Range Province, on the west. The latter is the
great interior basin whose waters run into salt lakes and sinks, there
being no drainage to the sea. The Great Salt Lake is the most important
of these interior bodies of water.
The Great Basin, which lies to the west of the Plateau Province, forms
a part of the Basin Range Province. In past geological times it was the
site of a vast system of lakes, but the climate has since changed and
the water of most of these lakes has evaporated and the sediments of the
old lake beds are now desert sands. The ancient lake shores are often
represented by conspicuous terraces, each one marking a stage in the
height of a dead lake. While these lakes existed the region was one of
great volcanic activity and many eruptive mountains were formed. Some
burst out beneath the waters; others were piled up on the dry land.
From the desert valleys below, the Wasatch Mountains rise abruptly and
are crowned with craggy peaks. But on the east side of the mountains the
descent to the plateau is comparatively slight. The Uinta Mountains
are carved out of the great plateau which extends more than two hundred
miles to the eastward of the summit of the Wasatch Range. Its mountain
peaks are cameos, its upper valleys are meadows, its higher slopes
are forest groves, and its streams run in deep, solemn, and majestic
canyons. The snows never melt from its crowning heights, and an undying
anthem is sung by its falling waters.
73 powell-canyons-44.jpg
TABERNACLE CRATER AND LAVA BEDS OF THE BASIN PROVINCE.
74 powell-canyons-45.jpg
VIEW ON GREAT SALT LAKE DESERT, SHOWING MOUNTAINS HALF BURIED BY LAKE
SEDIMENTS.
MOUNTAINS AND PLATEAUS. 75
The Owiyukuts Plateau is situated at the northeastern end of the Uinta
Mountains. It is a great integral block of the Uinta system. A beautiful
creek heads in this plateau, near its center, and descends northward
into the bad lands of Vermilion Creek, to which stream it is tributary.
"Once upon a time" this creek, after descending from the plateau, turned
east and then southward and found its way by a beautiful canyon into
Brown's Park, where it joined the Green; but a great bend of the
Vermilion, near the foot of the plateau, was gradually enlarged--the
stream cutting away its banks--until it encroached upon the little
valley of the creek born on the Owiyukuts Plateau. This encroachment
continued until at last Vermilion Creek stole the Owiyukuts Creek and
carried its waters away by its own channel. Then the canyon channel
through which Owiyukuts Creek had previously run, no longer having a
stream to flow through its deep gorge, gathered the waters of brooks
flowing along its course into little lakelets, which are connected by a
running stream only through seasons of great rainfall. These lakelets in
the gorge of the dead creek are now favorite resorts of Ute Indians.
South of the Uinta Mountains is the Uinta River, a stream with many
mountain tributaries, some heading in the Uinta Mountains, others in the
Wasatch Mountains on the west, and still others in the western Tavaputs
Plateau.
The Uinta Valley is the ancient and present home of the Uinta Indians,
a tribe speaking the Uinta language of the Shoshonean family. Their
habits, customs, institutions, and mythology are essentially the same as
those of the Ute Indians of the Grand River country, already
described. In this valley there are also found many ruins of ancient
pueblo-building peoples--of what stock is not known.
The Tavaputs Plateau is one of the stupendous features of this country.
On the west it merges into the Wasatch Mountains; on the north
it descends by wooded slopes into the Uinta Valley. Its summit is
forest-clad and among the forests are many beautiful parks. On the south
it ends in a great escarpment which descends into Castle Valley. This
southern escarpment presents one of the most wonderful facades of the
world. It is from 2,000 to 4,000 feet high. The descent is not made by
one bold step, for it is cut by canyons and cliffs. It is a zone several
76
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
miles in width which is a vast labyrinth of canyons, cliffs, buttes,
pinnacles, minarets, and detached rocks of Cyclopean magnitude, the
whole destitute of soil and vegetation, colored in many brilliant
tones and tints, and carved in many weird forms,--a land of desolation,
dedicated forever to the geologist and the artist, where civilization
can find no resting-place.
Then comes Castle Valley, to describe which is to beggar language and
pall imagination. On the north is the Tavaputs; on the west is the
Wasatch Plateau, which lies to the south of the Wasatch Mountains and
is here the west boundary of the Plateau Province; on the south are
indescribable mesas and mountains; on the east is Grand River, a placid
stream meandering through a valley of meadows. Within these boundaries
there is a landscape of gigantic rock forms, interrupted here and there
by bad-land hills, dominated with the towering cliffs of Tavaputs, the
bold escarpment of the Wasatch Plateau, and the volcanic peaks of the
Henry Mountains on the south. It is a vast forest of rock forms, and
in its midst is San Rafael Swell, an elevation crowned with still more
gigantic rock forms. Among the rocks pools and lakelets are found, and
little streams run in canyons that seem like chasms cleft to nadir
77 powell-canyons-46.jpg
AN INDIAN HUNTER. ... ....
78 powell-canyons-47.jpg
RESERVOIR BUTTE, SHOWING TERRACES OF THE ANCIENT LAKE BONNEVILLE
SHORELINES.
79 powell-canyons-48.jpg
PAVANT BUTTE, OVER A SUBMARINE VOLCANO OF THE GREAT
BASIN.
MOUNTAINS AND PLATEAUS.
80
hell. San Rafael River and Fremont River drain this Castle land, heading
in the Wasatch Plateau and flowing into the Grand River. Along these
streams a few narrow canyon valleys are found, and in them Ute Indians
make their winter homes. The bad lands are filled with agates, jaspers,
and carnelians, which are gathered by the Indians and fashioned
powell-canyons-49.jpg
AN INDIAN CAMP.
into arrowheads and knives; along the foot of the canyon cliffs
workshops can be discovered that have been occupied by generations
from a time in the long past, and the chips of these workshops pave the
valleys. South of the Wasatch Plateau we have the Fish Lake Plateau,
the Awapa Plateau, and the Aquarius Plateau, which separate the waters
flowing into the Great Basin from the waters of the Colorado, which
81
80
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
here constitute the boundary of the Plateau Province. Awapa is a Ute
name signifying "Many waters."
All three of these plateaus are remarkable for the many lakelets found
on them. To the east are the Henry Mountains, a group of volcanic
domes that rise above the region. The rocks of the country
powell-canyons-50.jpg
INDIANS GAMBLING.
are limestones, sandstones, and shales, originally lying in horizontal
altitudes; but volcanic forces were generated under them and lavas
boiled up. These lavas did not, however, come to the surface, but as
they rose they lifted the sandstones, shales, and limestones, to a
thickness of 2,000 or 3,000 feet or more, into great domes. Then the
molten lavas cooled in great lenses of mountain magnitude, with the
82 powell-canyons-51.jpg
RUIN NEAR MOENKOPI. powell-canyons-52.jpg
RUINS OF PAYUPKI, SIX MILES NORTHWEST OF MASHONGNAVI, TUSAYAN.
MOUNTAINS AND PLATEAUS. 83
sedimentary rocks domed above them. Then the clouds gathered over these
domes and wept, and their tears were gathered in brooks, and the brooks
carved canyons down the sides of the domes; and now in these deep clefts
the structure of the mountains is revealed. The lenses of volcanic rocks
by which the domes were upheaved are known as "laccolites," i. e., rock
lakes.
Looking southwestward from the Henry Mountains the Circle Cliffs are
seen. A great escarpment, several thousand feet in height and 70 or 80
miles in length, faces the mountain. It is the step to the long, narrow
plateau. The streams that come down across these cliffs head in great
symmetric amphitheaters, and when first seen from above they present
a vast alignment of walled circles. The front of the cliffs, seen from
below, is everywhere imposing. On the southwest the Escalante River
holds its course. It heads in the Aquarius Plateau and flows into the
Colorado. Its course, as well as that of all its many tributaries, is in
deep box-canyons of homogeneous red sandstone, often with vertical walls
that are broken by many beautiful alcoves and glens. Much of the region
is of naked, smooth, red rock, but the alcoves and glens that break the
canyon walls are the sites of perennial springs, about which patches of
luxuriant verdure gather.
The Kaiparowits Plateau is an elevated table-land on the southwestern
side of the Escalante River. It is long and narrow, extending from the
northwest to the southeast approximately parallel with the Escalante.
It rises above the red sandstone of the Escalante region from 2,000
to 4,000 feet by a front of storm-carved cliffs. From the southeastern
extremity of this plateau, at an altitude of 7,500 feet, an instructive
view is obtained. One of the great canyons of the Colorado River can be
seen meandering its way through the red-rock landscape. In the distance,
and to the north, the Henry Mountains are in view, and below, the
canyons of the Escalante and the red-rock land are in sight. Across the
Colorado are the canyons of the San Juan, and below the mouth of the San
Juan is the great Navajo Mountain. Still to the south the Grand Canyon
of the Colorado is in view, and in the west a vast mesa landscape is
presented with its buttes and pinnacles. Still to the southward Paria
River is seen heading in a plateau on the margin of the province and
having a course a little east of south into the Colorado.
84 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
The region of country which has been thus described, from the Tava-puts
Plateau to the Paria River, was the home of a few scattered Ute Indians,
who lived in very small groups, and who hunted on the plateau, fished in
the waters, and dwelt in the canyons. There was nominally but one
tribe, but as the members of this tribe were in very small parties and
separated by wide distances the tribal bonds were very weak and often
unrecognized. The chief integrating agency was religion, for they
worshiped the same gods and periodically joined in the same religious
ceremonies and festivals. A country so destitute of animal and vegetal
life would not support large numbers, and the few who dwelt here gained
but a precarious and scant subsistence. To a large extent they lived on
seeds and roots. The low, warm canyons furnished admirable shelter for
the people, and their habitual costumes were loincloths, paints, and
necklaces of tiny arrowheads made of the bright-colored agates and
carnelians strung on snakeskins.
When the Mormon people encroached on this country from the west, and
when the Navajos on the east surrendered to the United States, a few
recalcitrant Navajos and the Utes of this region combined. They had long
been more or less intimately associated, and a jargon speech had grown
up by which they could communicate. Finally, the greater number of these
Utes and renegade Navajos took up their homes permanently on the eastern
bank of the Colorado River between the Grand and the San Juan rivers.
The Navajos are the dominant race, yet they live on terms of practical
equality and affiliate without feuds. These are the great Freebooters of
the Plateau Province--the enemies of other tribes and of the white men.
In their canyon fortresses they have been able to hold their ground in
spite of their enemies on every hand.
Throughout the region and the plateaus by which it is surrounded and the
mountains by which it is interrupted, everywhere ruins of pueblos and
many cliff dwellings are found. None of these ancient pueblos are on
a large scale. The houses were usually one or two stories high and the
hamlets rarely provided shelter for more than two dozen people. Some of
the houses are of rather superior architecture, having well-constructed
walls with good geometric proportions. Their houses were plastered on
the inside, and sometimes on the outside,
85 powell-canyons-53.jpg
SHUPAULOVI.
86 powell-canyons-54.jpg
GENERAL VIEW OF ZUÑI, LOOKING WEST.
MOUNTAINS AND PLATEAUS. 87
and covered with flat roofs of sun-dried mud. The real home of the
people in their waking hours was on their housetops.
The rocks of the mountain are etched with many picture-writings
attesting the artistic skill of this people. The predominant form is the
rattlesnake, which is found in the crevices of the rocks on every hand.
It is inferred that the people worshiped the rattlesnake as one of their
chief deities, a god who carried the spirit of death in his mouth.
88 powell-canyons-55.jpg
THE GRAY CLIFFS.
89
CHAPTER IV.
CLIFFS AND TERRACES.
THERE is a great group of table-lands constituting a geographic unit
which have been named the Terrace Plateaus. They ex-tend from the Paria
and Colorado on the east to the Grand Wash and Pine Mountains on the
west, and they are bounded on the south by the Grand Canyon of the
Colorado, and on the north they divide the waters of the Colorado from
the waters of the Sevier, which flows northward and then westward until
it is lost in the sands of the Great Desert. It is an irregular system
of great plateaus with subordinate mesas and buttes separated by lines
of cliffs and dissected by canyons.
In this region all of the features which have been described as found
in other portions of the province are grouped except only the cliffs of
volcanic ashes, the volcanic cones, and the volcanic domes. The
volcanic mountains, cinder cones, and coulees, the majestic plateaus and
elaborate mesas, the sculptured buttes and canyon gorges, are all found
here, but on a more stupendous scale. The volcanic mountains are higher,
the cinder cones are larger, the coulees are more extensive and are
often sheets of naked, black rock, the plateaus are more lofty, the
cliffs are on a grander scale, the canyons are of profounder depth; and
the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, the most stupendous gorge known on the
globe, with a great river surging through it, bounds it on the south.
The east-and-west cliffs are escarpments of degradation, the
north-and-south cliffs are, in the main, though not always, escarpments
of displacement. Let us understand what this means. Over the entire
region limestones, shales, and sandstones were deposited through long
periods of geologic time to the thickness of many thousands of feet;
then the country was upheaved and tilted toward the north; but the
Colorado
90
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO. powell-canyons-56.jpg
River was flowing when the tilting commenced, and the upheaval was very
slow, so that the river cleared away the obstruction to its channel as
fast as it was presented, and this is the Grand Canyon. The rocks above
were carried away by rains and rivers, but not evenly all over the
country; nor by washing out valleys and leaving hills, but by carving
the country into terraces. The upper and later-formed rocks are found
far to the north, their edges standing in cliffs; then still earlier
rocks are found rising to the southward, until they terminate in cliffs;
and then a third series rises to the southward and ends in cliffs, and
finally a fourth series, the oldest rocks, terminating in the Grand
Canyon wall, which is a line of cliffs. There are in a general way four
great lines of cliffs extending from east to west across the district
and presenting their faces, or escarpments, southward. If these cliffs
are climbed it is found that each plateau or terrace dips gently to
the northward until it meets with another line of cliffs, which must be
ascended to reach the summit of another plateau. Place a book before you
on a table with its front edge toward you, rest another book on the back
of this, place a third on the back of the second, and in like manner a
fourth on the third. Now the leaves of the books dip from you and the
cut edges stand in tiny escarpments facing you. So the rock-formed
leaves of
91
V powell-canyons-57.jpg
A GROUP OF STONE CORRALS.
92 powell-canyons-58.jpg
RUINS.
CLIFFS AND TERRACES. 93
these books of geology have the escarpment edges turned southward, while
each book itself dips northward, and the crest of each plateau book
is the summit of a line of cliffs. These cliffs of erosion have been
described as running from east to west, but they diverge from that
course in many ways. First, canyons run from north to south through
them, and where these canyons are found deep angles occur; then sharp
salients extend from the cliffs on the backs of the lower plateaus. Each
great escarpment is made up more or less of minor terraces, or steps;
and at the foot of each grand escarpment there is always a great talus,
or sloping pile of rocks, and many marvelous buttes stand in front of
the cliffs.
But these east-and-west cliffs and the plateaus which they form are
divided by north-and-south lines in another manner. The country has been
faulted along north-and-south lines or planes. These faults are breaks
in the strata varying from 1,000 or 2,000 to 4,000 or 5,000 feet in
verticality. On the very eastern margin the rocks are dropped down
several thousand feet, or, which means the same thing, the rocks are
upheaved on the west side; that is, the beds that were originally
horizontal have been differentially displaced, so that on the west side
of the fracture the strata are several thousand feet higher than they
are on the east side of the fracture. The line of displacement is known
as the Echo Cliff Fault. West of this about twenty-five miles, there is
another fault with its throw to the east, the upheaved rocks being
on the west. This fault varies from 1,500 to 2,500 feet in throw, and
extends far to the northward. It is known as the East Kaibab Fault.
Still going westward, another fault is found, known as the West Kaibab
Fault. Here the throw is on the west side,--that is, the rocks are
dropped down to the westward from 1,000 to 2,000 feet. This fault
gradually becomes less to the northward and is flexed toward the east
until it joins with the East Kaibab Fault. The block between the two
faults is the Kaibab Plateau. Going westward from 60 to 70 miles, still
another fault is found, known as the Hurricane Ledge Fault. The throw
is again on the west side of the fracture and the rocks fall down some
thousands of feet. This fault extends far northward into central Utah.
To the west 25 or 30 miles is found a fault with the throw still on the
west. It has a drop of several thousand feet and extends across the Rio
Colorado far to
94 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
the southwest, probably beyond the Arizona-New Mexico line. It also
extends far to the north, until it is buried and lost under the Pine
Valley Mountains, which are of volcanic origin.
Now let us see what all this means. In order clearly to understand
this explanation the reader is referred to the illustration designated
"Section and Bird's-Eye View of the Plateaus North of the Grand Canyon."
Starting at the Grand Wash on the west, the Grand Wash Cliffs, formed by
the Grand Wash Fault, are scaled; and if we are but a few miles north of
the Grand Canyon we are on the Shiwits Plateau. Its western boundary is
the Grand Wash Cliffs, its southern boundary is the Grand Canyon, and
its northern boundary is a line of cliffs of degradation, which will
be described hereafter. Going eastward across the Shiwits Plateau the
Hurricane Cliffs are reached, and climbing them we are on the Uinkaret
Plateau, which is bounded on the south by the Grand Canyon and on the
north by the Vermilion Cliffs, that rise above its northern foot. Still
going eastward 30 or 40 miles to the brink of the Kanab Canyon, the West
Kanab Plateau is crossed, which is bounded by the Toroweap Fault on the
west, separating it from the Uinkaret Plateau, and by the Kanab Canyon
on the east, with the Grand Canyon on the south and the Vermilion Cliffs
on the north. Crossing the Kanab, we are on the East Kanab Plateau,
which extends about 30 miles to the foot of the West Kaibab Cliffs, or
the escarpment of the West Kaibab Fault. This canyon also has the Grand
Canyon on the south and the Vermilion Cliffs on the north. Climbing
the West Kaibab Fault, we are on the Kaibab Plateau. Now we have been
climbing from west to east, and each ascent has been made at a line
of cliffs. Crossing the Kaibab Plateau to the East Kaibab Cliffs;
the country falls down once more to the top of Marble Canyon Plateau.
Crossing this plateau to the eastward, we at last reach the Echo Cliff
Fault, where the rocks fall down on the eastern side once more; but the
surface of the country itself does not fall down--the later rocks still
remain, and the general level of the country is preserved except in
one feature of singular interest and beauty, to describe which a little
further explanation is necessary.
I have spoken of these north-and-south faults as if they were fractures;
and usually they are fractures, but in some places they are flex-
95 powell-canyons-59.jpg
LAGOON ON THE KAIBAB.
96 powell-canyons-60.jpg
PINK CLIFFS, PAUNSAGUNT PLATEAU.
CLIFFS AND TEEEACES. 97
ures. The Echo Cliffs displacement is a flexure. Just over the zone
of flexure a long ridge extends from north to south, known as the Echo
Cliffs. It is composed of a comparatively hard and homogeneous sandstone
of a later age than the limestones of the Marble Canyon Plateau west of
it; but the flexure dips down so as to carry this sandstone which forms
the face of the cliff (presented westward) far under the surface, so
that on the east side rocks of still later age are found, the drop being
several thousand feet. The inclined red sandstone stands in a ridge more
than 75 miles in length, with an escarped face presented to the west
and a face of inclined rock to the east. The western side is carved into
beautiful alcoves and is buttressed with a magnificent talus, and the
red sandstone stands in fractured columns of giant size and marvelous
beauty. On the east side the declining beds are carved into pockets,
which often hold water. This is the region of the Thousand Wells. The
foot of the cliffs on the east side is several hundred feet above
the foot of the cliffs on the west side. On the west there is a vast
limestone stretch, the top of the Marble Canyon Plateau; on the east
there are drifting sand-dunes.
The terraced land described has three sets of terraces: one set on the
east, great steps to the Kaibab Plateau; another set on the west, from
the Great Basin region to the Kaibab Plateau; and a third set from the
Grand Canyon northward. There are thus three sets of cliffs: cliffs
facing the east, cliffs facing the west, and cliffs facing the south.
The north-and-south cliffs are made by faults; the east-and-west cliffs
are made by differential degradation.
The stupendous cliffs by which the plateaus are bounded are of
indescribable grandeur and beauty. The cliffs bounding the Kaibab
Plateau descend on either side, and this is the culminating portion of
the region. All the other plateaus are terraces, with cliffs ascending
on the one side and descending on the other. Some of the tables carry
dead volcanoes on their backs that are towering mountains, and all of
them are dissected by canyons that are gorges of profound depth. But
every one of these plateaus has characteristics peculiar to itself and
is worthy of its own chapter. On the north there is a pair of plateaus,
twins in age, but very distinct in development, the Paunsagunt
and Markagunt. They are separated by the Sevier River, which flows
northward. Their
98 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
southern margins constitute the highest steps of the great system of
terraces of erosion. This escarpment is known as the Pink Cliffs. Above,
pine forests are found; below the cliffs are hills and sand-dunes. The
cliffs themselves are bold and often vertical walls of a delicate pink
color.
In one of the earlier years of exploration I stood on the summit of the
Pink Cliffs of the Paunsagunt Plateau, 9,000 feet above the level of the
sea. Below me, to the southwest, I could look off into the canyons of
the Virgen River, down into the canyon of the Kanab, and far away into
the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. From the lowlands of the Great Basin
and from the depths of the Grand Canyon clouds crept up over the cliffs
and floated over the landscape below me, concealing the canyons and
mantling the mountains and mesas and buttes; still on toward me the
clouds rolled, burying the landscape in their progress, until at last
the region below was covered by a mantle of storm--a tumultuous sea of
rolling clouds, black and angry in parts, white as the foam of cataracts
here and there, and everywhere flecked with resplendent sheen. Below me
spread a vast ocean of vapor, for I was above the clouds. On descending
to the plateau, I found that a great storm had swept the land, and the
dry arroyos of the day before were the channels of a thousand streams
of tawny water, born of the ocean of vapor which had invaded the land
before my vision.
Below the Pink Cliffs another irregular zone of plateaus is found,
stretching out to the margin of the Gray Cliffs. The Gray Cliffs are
composed of a homogeneous sandstone which in some places weathers gray,
but in others is as white as virgin snow. On the top of these cliffs
hills and sand-dunes are found, but everywhere on the Gray Cliff margin
the rocks are carved in fantastic forms; not in buttes and towers and
pinnacles, but in great rounded bosses of rock.
98
The Virgen River heads back in the Pink Cliffs of the Markagunt Plateau
and with its tributaries crosses one of these plateaus above the Gray
Cliffs, carving a labyrinth of deep gorges. This is known as the Colob
Plateau. Above, there is a vast landscape of naked, white and gray
sandstone, billowing in fantastic bosses. On the margins of the canyons
these are rounded off into great vertical walls, and at the bottom of
every winding canyon a beautiful stream of water is found
99 powell-canyons-61.jpg
A PERMIAN BUTTE.
100 powell-canyons-62.jpg
VERMILION CLIFFS AT KANAB.
CLIFFS AND TERRACES. 101
running over quicksands. Sometimes the streams in their curving have cut
under the rocks, and overhanging cliffs of towering altitudes are seen;
and somber chambers are found between buttresses that uphold the walls.
Among the Indians this is known as the "Rock Rovers' Land," and is
peopled by mythic beings of uncanny traits.
Below the Gray Cliffs another zone of plateaus is found, separated by
the north-and-south faults and divided from the Colob series by the Gray
Cliffs and demarcated from the plateaus to the south by the Vermilion
Cliffs. The Vermilion Cliffs that face the south are of surpassing
beauty. The rocks are of orange and red above and of chocolate,
lavender, gray, and brown tints below. The canyons that cut through
the cliffs from north to south are of great diversity and all are of
profound interest. In these canyon walls many caves are found, and
often the caves contain lakelets and pools of clear water. Canyons
and re-entrant angles abound. The faces of the cliffs are terraced and
salients project onto the floors below. The outlying buttes are many.
Standing away to the south and facing these cliffs when the sun is going
down beyond the desert of the Great Basin, shadows are seen to creep
into the deep recesses, while the projecting forms are illumined, so
that the lights and shadows are in great and sharp contrast; then a
million lights seem to glow from a background of black gloom, and a
great bank of Tartarean fire stretches across the landscape.
At the foot of the Vermilion Cliffs there is everywhere a zone of
vigorous junipers and piñons, for the belt of country is favored with
comparatively abundant rain. When the clouds drift over the plateaus
below from the south and west and strike the Vermilion Cliffs, they are
abruptly lifted 2,000 feet, and to make the climb they must unload their
burdens; so that here copious rains are discharged, and by such storms
the cliffs are carved and ever from age to age carried back farther
to the north. In the Pink Cliffs above and the Gray Cliffs and the
Vermilion Cliffs, there are many notches that mark channels running
northward which had their sources on these plateaus when they extended
farther to the south. The Rio Virgen is the only stream heading in the
Pink Cliffs and running into the Colorado which is perennial. The other
rivers and creeks carry streams of water in rainy seasons only. When a
succession of dry years occurs the canyons coming through the
102 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
cliffs are choked below, as vast bodies of sand are deposited. But now
and then, ten or twenty years apart, great storms or successions of
storms come, and the channels are flooded and cut their way again
through the drifting sands to solid rock below. Thus the streams below
are alternately choked and cleared from period to period.
To the south of the Vermilion Cliffs the last series or zone of plateaus
north of the Grand Canyon is found. The summits of these plateaus are
of cherty limestone. In the far west we have the Shiwits Plateau covered
with sheets of lava and volcanic cones; then climbing the Hurricane
Ledge we have the Kanab Plateau, on the southwest portion of which the
Uinkaret Mountains stand--a group of dead volcanoes with many black
cinder cones scattered about. It is interesting to know how these
mountains are formed. The first eruptions of lava were long ago, and
they were poured out upon a surface 2,000 feet or more higher than the
general surface now found. After the first eruptions of coulees the
lands round about were degraded by rains and rivers. Then new eruptions
occurred and additional sheets of lava were poured out; but these came
not through the first channels, but through later ones formed about the
flanks of the elder beds of lava, so that the new sheets are imbricated
or shingled over the old sheets. But the overlap is from below upward.
Then the land was further degraded, and a third set of coulees was
spread still lower down on the flanks, and on these last coulees the
black cinder cones stand. So the foundations of the Uinkaret Mountains
are of limestones, and these foundations are covered with sheets of
lava overlapping from below upward, and the last coulees are decked with
cones.
Still farther east is the Kaibab Plateau, the culminating table-land
of the region. It is covered with a beautiful forest, and in the forest
charming parks are found. Its southern extremity is a portion of the
wall of the Grand Canyon; its western margin is the wall of the West
Kaibab Fault; its eastern edge is the wall of the East Kaibab Fault;
and its northern point is found where the two faults join. Here antelope
feed and many a deer goes bounding over the fallen timber. In winter
deep snows lie here, but the plateau has four months of the sweetest
summer man has ever known.
On the terraced plateaus three tribes of Indians are found: the Shiwits
("people of the springs"), the Uinkarets ("people of the pine
103 powell-canyons-63.jpg
A MIDSUMMERDAY'S DREAM ON THE COLOB.
104
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
mountains"), and the Unkakaniguts ("people of the red lands," who
dwell along the Vermilion Cliffs). They are all Utes and belong to a
confederacy with other tribes living farther to the north, in Utah.
These people live in shelters made of boughs piled up in circles and
covered with juniper bark supported by poles. These little houses are
only large enough for half a dozen persons huddling together in sleep.
Their aboriginal clothing was very scant, the most important being
powell-canyons-64.jpg
AN INDIAN VILLAGE.
wildcatskin and wolfskin robes for the men, and rabbitskin robes for the
women, though for occasions of festival they had clothing of tanned deer
and antelope skins, often decorated with fantastic ornaments of snake
skins, feathers, and the tails of squirrels and chipmunks. A great
variety of seeds and roots furnish their food, and on the higher
plateaus there is much game, especially deer and antelope. But the whole
country abounds with rabbits, which are often killed with arrows and
CLIFFS AND TERRACES.
105
caught in snares. Every year they have great hunts, when scores of
rabbits are killed in a single day. It is managed in this way: They make
nets of the fiber of the wild flax and of some other plant, the meshes
of which are about an inch across. These nets are about three and a
half feet in width and hundreds of yards in length. They arrange
powell-canyons-65.jpg
ANTINAINTS, PUTUSIV, AND WICHUTS, IN FESTAL DRESS.
such a net in a circle, not quite closed, supporting it by stakes and
pinning the bottom firmly to the ground. From the opening of the circle
they extend net wings, expanding in a broad angle several hundred yards
from either side. Then the entire tribe will beat up a great district of
country and drive the rabbits toward the nets, and finally into
106
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
the circular snare, which is quickly closed, when the rabbits are killed
with arrows.
A great variety of desert plants furnish them food, as seeds, roots, and
powell-canyons-66.jpg
PERSPECTIVE VIEW OF TYPICAL SOLITARY HOUSE.
stalks. More than fifty varieties of such seed-bearing plants have been
collected. The seeds themselves are roasted, ground, and preserved
in cakes. The most abundant food of this nature is derived from the
sunflower and the nuts of the piñón. They still make stone arrowheads,
stone knives, and stone hammers, and kindle fire with the drill. Their
medicine men are famous sorcerers. Coughs are caused by invisible winged
insects, rheumatism by flesh-eating bugs too small to be seen, and the
toothache by invisible worms. Their healing art consists in searing and
scarifying. Their medicine men take the medicine themselves to produce
a state of ecstasy, in which the disease pests are discovered. They also
practice dancing about their patients to drive away the evil beings or
to avert the effects of sorcery. When a child is bitten by a rattlesnake
the snake is caught and brought near to the suffering urchin, and
ceremonies are performed, all for the purpose of prevailing upon the
snake to take back the evil spirit. They have quite a variety of mythic
personages. The chief of these are the
CLIFFS AND TEBEACES.
107
Enupits, who are pigmies dwelling about the springs, and the Rock
Rovers, who live in the cliffs. Their gods are zoic, and the chief among
them are the wolf, the rabbit, the eagle, the jay, the rattlesnake, and
the spider. They have no knowledge of the ambient air, but the winds
are the breath of beasts living in the four quarters of the earth.
Whirlwinds that often blow among the sand-dunes are caused by the
dancing of Enupits. The sky is ice, and the rain is caused by the
Rainbow God; he abraids the ice of the sky with his scales and the snow
falls, and if the weather be warm the ice melts and it is rain. The sun
is a poor slave compelled to make the same journey every day since he
was conquered by the rabbit. These tribes have a great body of romance,
in which the actors are animals, and the knowledge of these stories is
the lore of their sages.
Scattered over the plateaus are the ruins of many ancient stone pueblos,
not unlike those previously described.
The Kanab River heading in the Pink Cliffs runs directly southward
powell-canyons-67.jpg
PERSPECTIVE VIEW OP ROUND-HOUSE STRUCTURE OF LAVA.
and joins the Colorado in the heart of the Grand Canyon. Its way is
through a series of canyons. From one of these it emerges at the foot
of the Vermilion Cliffs, and here stood an extensive ruin not many years
ago. Some portions of the pueblo were three stories
108
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
high. The structure was one of the best found in this land of ruins. The
Mormon people settling here have used the stones of the old pueblo
in building their homes, and now no vestiges of the ancient structure
remain. A few miles below the town other ruins were found. They were
scattered to Pipe's Springs, a point twenty miles to the westward.
Ruins were also discovered up the stream as far as the Pink Cliffs, and
eastward along the Vermilion Cliffs nearly to the Colorado River, and
out on the margin of the Kanab Plateau. These were all ruins of outlying
habitations be-longing to the Kanab pueblo. From the study of the
existing pueblos found elsewhere and from extensive study of the ruins,
it seems that everywhere tribal pueblos were built of considerable
dimensions, usually to give shelter to several hundred people. Then the
people cultivated the soil by irrigation, and had powell-canyons-68.jpg
AN ANCIENT CLIFF HOUSE.
109 powell-canyons-69.jpg
A ZUÑI EAGLE CAGE.
110 powell-canyons-70.jpg
A VIEW OF ZUÑI.
111
CLIFFS AND TERRACES.
their gardens and little fields scattered at wide distances about the
central pueblo, by little springs and streams and wherever they could
control the water with little labor to bring it on the land. At such
points stone houses were erected sufficient to accommodate from one
to two thousand people, and these were occupied during the season of
cultivation and are known as rancherías. So one great tribe had its
central pueblo and its outlying rancherías. Sometimes the rancherías
were occupied from year to year, especially in time of peace, but
usually they were occupied only during seasons of cultivation. Such
groups of ruins and pueblos with accessory rancherías are still
inhabited, and have been described as found throughout the Plateau
Province except far to the north beyond the Uinta Mountains. A great
pueblo once existed in the Uinta Valley on the south side of the
mountains. This is the most northern pueblo which has yet been
discovered. But the pueblo-building tribes extended beyond the area
drained by the Colorado. On the west there was a pueblo in the Great
Basin at the site now occupied by Salt Lake City, and several more to
the southward, all on waters flowing into the desert. On the east such
pueblos were found among mountains at the headwaters of the Arkansas,
Platte, and Canadian rivers. The entire area drained by the Rio
Grande del Norte was occupied by pueblo tribes, and a number are still
inhabited. To the south they extended far beyond the territory of the
United States, and the so-called Aztec cities were rather superior
pueblos of this character. The known pueblo tribes of the United States
belong to several different linguistic stocks. They are far from being
one homogeneous people, for they have not only different languages but
different religions and worship different gods. These pueblo peoples
are in a higher grade of culture than most Indian tribes of the United
States. This is exhibited in the slight superiority of their arts,
especially in their architecture. It is also noticeable in their
mythology and religion. Their gods, the heroes of their myths, are more
often personifications of the powers and phenomena of nature, and their
religious ceremonies are more elaborate, and their cult societies
are highly organized. As they had begun to domesticate animals and
to cultivate the soil, so as to obtain a part of their subsistence by
agriculture, they had almost accomplished the ascent from savagery
112 powell-canyons-71.jpg
WALPI DANCE ROCK.
CLIFFS AND TERRACES. 113
to barbarism when first discovered by the invading European. All the
Indians of North America were in this state of transition, but the
pueblo tribes had more nearly reached the higher goal.
The great number of ruins found throughout the land has often been
interpreted as evidence of a much larger pueblo population than has been
found in post-Columbian time. But a careful study of the facts does not
warrant this conclusion. It would seem that for various reasons tribes
abandoned old pueblos and built new, thus changing their permanent
residence from time to time; but more frequent changes were made in
their rancherias. These were but ephemeral, being moved from place to
place by the varying conditions of water supply. Most of the streams of
the arid land are not perennial, but very many of the smaller streams
of the pueblo region discharge their waters into the larger streams
in times of great flood. Such floods occur now here, now there, and at
varying periods, sometimes fifty years apart. When dry years follow one
another for a long series, the channels of these intermittent streams
are choked with sand until the streams are buried and lost. Under such
circumstances the rancherias were moved from dead stream to living
stream. In rare instances pueblos themselves were removed for this
cause. Other pueblos, and the rancherias generally, were abandoned in
time of war; this seems to have been a potent cause for moving. When
pestilence attacked a pueblo the people would sometimes leave in a body
and never return. The cliff pueblos and dwellings, the cavate dwellings,
and the cinder-cone towns were all built and occupied for defensive
purposes when powerful enemies threatened. The history of some of the
old ruins has been obtained and we know the existing tribes who once
occupied them; others still remain enshrouded in obscurity.
114 powell-canyons-72.jpg
A PASSAGEWAY IN WALPI.
115
THE HURRICANE FAULT. powell-canyons-73.jpg
TOWERS OF THE VERMILION CLIFFS.
116 powell-canyons-74.jpg
TEMPLES AND TOWERS OF THE RIO VIRGEN.
117 powell-canyons-75.jpg
PANORAMA. UPPER VIEW LOOKING EAST, WITH THE GRAND CANYON IN THE
DISTANCE. LOWER VIEW LOOKING DOWN THE TOROWEAP.
118 powell-canyons-76.jpg
A PASSAGEWAY IN MASHONGNAVI
119 powell-canyons-77.jpg
TERRACED HOUSES IN ZUÑI.
120
CHAPTER V.
FROM GREEN RIVER CITY TO FLAMING GORGE.
IN the summer of 1867, with a small party of naturalists, students,
and amateurs like myself, I visited the mountain region of Colorado
Territory. While in Middle Park I explored a little canyon through which
the Grand River runs, immediately below the now well-known watering
place, Middle Park Hot Springs. Later in the fall I passed through Cedar
Canyon, the gorge by which the Grand leaves the park. A result of the
summer's study was to kindle a desire to explore the canyons of the
Grand, Green, and Colorado rivers, and the next summer I organized an
expedition with the intention of penetrating still farther into that
canyon country.
As soon as the snows were melted, so that the main range could be
crossed, I went over into Middle Park, and proceeded thence down the
Grand to the head of Cedar Canyon, then across the Park Range by Gore's
Pass, and in October found myself and party encamped on the White
River, about 120 miles above its mouth. At that point I built cabins and
established winter quarters, intending to occupy the cold season, as far
as possible, in exploring the adjacent country. The winter of 1868-69
proved favorable to my purposes, and several excursions were made,
southward to the Grand, down the White to the Green, northward to the
Yampa, and around the Uinta Mountains. During these several excursions I
seized every opportunity to study the canyons through which these upper
streams run, and while thus engaged formed plans for the exploration
of the canyons of the Colorado. Since that time I have been engaged in
executing these plans, sometimes employed in the field, sometimes in
the office. Begun originally as an exploration, the work was finally
developed into a survey, embracing the geography, geology, ethnography,
and natural
121 powell-canyons-78.jpg
THE START FROM GREEN RIVER STATION.
FROM GREEN RIVER CITY TO FLAMING GORGE.
history of the country, and a number of gentlemen have, from time to
time, assisted me in the work.
Early in the spring of 1869 a party was organized for the exploration of
the canyons. Boats were built in Chicago and transported by rail to the
point where the Union Pacific Railroad crosses the Green River. With
these we were to descend the Green to the Colorado, and the Colorado
down to the foot of the Grand Canyon.
May 24, 1869.--The good people of Green River City turn out to see us
start. We raise our little flag, push the boats from shore, and the
swift current carries us down.
Our boats are four in number. Three are built of oak; stanch and
firm; double-ribbed, with double stem and stern posts, and further
strengthened by bulkheads, dividing each into three compartments. Two of
these, the fore and aft, are decked, forming water-tight cabins. It is
expected these will buoy the boats should the waves roll over them in
rough water. The fourth boat is made of pine, very light, but 16 feet in
length, with a sharp cutwater, and every way built for fast rowing, and
divided into compartments as the others. The little vessels are 21 feet
long, and, taking out the cargoes, can be carried by four men.
We take with us rations deemed sufficient to last ten months, for we
expect, when winter comes on and the river is filled with ice, to lie
over at some point until spring arrives; and so we take with us abundant
supplies of clothing, likewise. We have also a large quantity of
ammunition and two or three dozen traps. For the purpose of building
cabins, repairing boats, and meeting other exigencies, we are supplied
with axes, hammers, saws, augers, and other tools, and a quantity
of nails and screws. For scientific work, we have two sextants, four
chronometers, a number of barometers, thermometers, compasses, and other
instruments.
The flour is divided into three equal parts; the meat, and all other
articles of our rations, in the same way. Each of the larger boats has
an axe, hammer, saw, auger, and other tools, so that all are loaded
alike. We distribute the cargoes in this way that we may not be entirely
destitute of some important article should any one of the boats be lost.
In the small boat we pack a part of the scientific
122
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
instruments, three guns, and three small bundles of clothing, only; and
in this I proceed in advance to explore the channel.
J. C. Sumner and William H. Dunn are my boatmen in the "Emma Dean";
then follows "Kitty Clyde's Sister," manned by W. H. Powell and G. Y.
Bradley; next, the "No Name," with O. G. Howland, Seneca Howland, and
Frank Goodman; and last comes the "Maid of the Canyon," with W. E.
Hawkins and Andrew Hall.
Sumner was a soldier during the late war, and before and since that time
has been a great traveler in the wilds of the Mississippi Valley and
the Rocky Mountains as an amateur hunter. He is a fair-haired,
delicate-looking man, but a veteran in experience, and has performed the
feat of crossing the Rocky Mountains in midwinter on snowshoes. He
spent the winter of 1886-87 in Middle Park, Colorado, for the purpose of
making some natural history collections for me, and succeeded in killing
three grizzlies, two mountain lions, and a large number of elk, deer,
sheep, wolves, beavers, and many other animals. When Bayard Taylor
traveled through the parks of Colorado, Sumner was his guide, and he
speaks in glowing terms of Mr. Taylor's genial qualities in camp, but
he was mortally offended when the great traveler requested him to act as
doorkeeper at Breckenridge to receive the admission fee from those who
attended his lectures.
Dunn was a hunter, trapper, and mule-packer in Colorado for many years.
He dresses in buckskin with a dark oleaginous luster, doubtless due to
the fact that he has lived on fat venison and killed many beavers since
he first donned his uniform years ago. His raven hair falls down to his
back, for he has a sublime contempt of shears and razors.
Captain Powell was an officer of artillery during the late war and
was captured on the 22d day of July, 1864, at Atlanta and served a ten
months' term in prison at Charleston, where he was placed with other
officers under fire. He is silent, moody, and sarcastic, though
sometimes he enlivens the camp at night with a song. He is never
surprised at anything, his coolness never deserts him, and he would
choke the belching throat of a volcano if he thought the spitfire meant
anything but fun. We call him "Old Shady."
Bradley, a lieutenant during the late war, and since orderly sergeant
FROM GREEN RIVER CITY TO FLAMING GORGE.
in the regular army, was, a few weeks previous to our start, discharged,
by order of the Secretary of War, that he might go on this trip. He
is scrupulously careful, and a little mishap works him into a passion,
powell-canyons-79.jpg
VIEW IN SICHUMOVI.
but when labor is needed he has a ready hand and powerful arm, and in
danger, rapid judgment and unerring skill. A great difficulty or
peril changes the petulant spirit into a brave, generous soul.
powell-canyons-80.jpg
TRAIL UP WALPI MESA.
FROM GREEN EIVER CITY TO FLAMING GORGE.
123
O. G. Howland is a printer by trade, an editor by profession, and a
hunter by choice. When busily employed he usually puts his hat in his
pocket, and his thin hair and long beard stream in the wind, giving
him a wild look, much like that of King Lear in an illustrated copy of
Shakespeare which tumbles around the camp.
Seneca Howland is a quiet, pensive young man, and a great favorite with
all.
Goodman is a stranger to us--a stout, willing Englishman, with
florid face and more florid anticipations of a glorious trip.
powell-canyons-81.jpg
RIDGES ON BITTER CREEK.
Billy Hawkins, the cook, was a soldier in the Union Army during the
war, and when discharged at its close went West, and since then has been
engaged as teamster on the plains or hunter in the mountains. He is
an athlete and a jovial good fellow, who hardly seems to know his own
strength.
Hall is a Scotch boy, nineteen years old, with what seems to us a
"secondhand head," which doubtless came down to him from some knight who
wore it during the Border Wars. It looks a very old head indeed,
with deep-set blue eyes and beaked nose. Young as he is, Hall has had
experience in hunting, trapping, and fighting Indians, and he makes the
most of it, for he can tell a good story, and is never encumbered by
unnecessary scruples in giving to his narratives those embellishments
which help to make a story complete. He is always ready for work or play
and is a good hand at either.
Our boats are heavily loaded, and only with the utmost care is it pos-
124
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
sible to float in the rough river without shipping water. A mile or two
below town we run on a sandbar. The men jump into the stream and
thus lighten the vessels, so that they drift over, and on we go.
powell-canyons-82.jpg
MESAS.
In trying to avoid a rock an oar is broken on one of the boats, and,
thus crippled, she strikes. The current is swift and she is sent reeling
and rocking into the eddy. In the confusion two other oars are lost
overboard, and the men seem quite discomfited, much to the amusement of
the other members of the party. Catching the oars and starting again,
the boats are once more borne down the stream, until we land at a small
cottonwood grove on the bank and camp for noon.
During the afternoon we run down to a point where the river sweeps the
foot of an overhanging cliff, and here we camp for the night. The sun
is yet two hours high, so I climb the cliffs and walk back among
the strangely carved rocks of the Green River bad lands. These are
sandstones and shales, gray and buff, red and brown, blue and black
strata in many alternations, lying nearly horizontal, and almost without
soil and vegetation. They are very friable, and the rain and streams
have carved them into quaint shapes. Barren desolation is stretched
before me; and yet there is a beauty in the scene. The fantastic
carvings, imitating architectural forms and suggesting rude but weird
FROM GREEN RIVER CITY TO FLAMING GORGE.
125
statuary, with the bright and varied colors of the rocks, conspire to
make a scene such as the dweller in verdure-clad hills can scarcely
appreciate.
Standing on a high point, I can look off in every direction over a vast
landscape, with salient rocks and cliffs glittering in the evening sun.
Dark shadows are settling in the valleys and gulches, and the heights
are made higher and the depths deeper by the glamour and witchery of
light and shade. Away to the south the Uinta Mountains stretch in a long
line,--high peaks thrust into the sky, and snow fields glittering like
lakes of molten silver, and pine forests in somber green, and rosy
clouds playing around the borders of huge, black masses; and heights
and clouds and mountains and snow fields and forests and rock-lands
are blended into one grand view. Now the sun goes down, and I return to
camp.
May 25.--We start early this morning and run along at a good
powell-canyons-83.jpg
A VALLEY WEST OF GREEN RIVER.
rate until about nine o'clock, when we are brought up on a gravelly bar.
All jump out and help the boats over by main strength. Then a rain comes
on, and river and clouds conspire to give us a thorough drenching. Wet,
chilled, and tired to exhaustion, we stop at a cotton-
126
CANYONS OF THE COLCHADO.
wood grove on the bank, build a huge fire, make a cup of coffee, and
are soon refreshed and quite merry. When the clouds "get out of our
sunshine" we start again. A few miles farther down a flock of mountain
sheep are seen on a cliff to the right. The boats are quietly tied
up and three or four men go after them. In the course of two
powell-canyons-84.jpg
ALCOVE LANDS.
or three hours they return. The cook has been successful in bringing
down a fat lamb. The unsuccessful hunters taunt him with finding it
dead; but it is soon dressed, cooked, and eaten, and makes a fine four
o'clock dinner.
"All aboard," and down the river for another dozen miles. On the way
we pass the mouth of Black's Fork, a dirty little stream that seems
somewhat swollen. Just below its mouth we land and camp.
May 26.--To-day we pass several curiously shaped buttes, standing
between the west bank of the river and the high bluffs beyond. These
buttes are outliers of the same beds of rocks as are exposed on the
faces of the bluffs,--thinly laminated shales and sandstones of many
colors, standing above in vertical cliffs and buttressed below with a
water-carved talus; some of them attain an altitude of nearly a thousand
feet above the level of the river.
FROM GREEN RIVER CITY TO FLAMING GORGE.
127
We glide quietly down the placid stream past the carved cliffs of the
mauvaises terres, now and then obtaining glimpses of distant mountains.
Occasionally, deer are started from the glades among the willows; and
several wild geese, after a chase through the water, are shot. After
dinner we pass through a short and narrow canyon into a broad valley;
from this, long, lateral valleys stretch back on either side as far as
the eye can reach.
Two or three miles below, Henry's Fork enters from the right. We land
a short distance above the junction, where a cache of instruments and
rations was made several months ago in a cave at the foot of the cliff,
a distance back from the river. Here they were safe from the elements
and wild beasts, but not from man. Some anxiety is powell-canyons-85.jpg
BAD LANDS.
felt, as we have learned that a party of Indians have been camped near
the place for several weeks. Our fears are soon allayed, for we find the
cache undisturbed. Our chronometer wheels have not been taken for hair
ornaments, our barometer tubes for beads, or the sextant thrown into the
river as "bad medicine," as had been predicted. Taking up our cache, we
pass down to the foot of the Uinta Mountains and in a cold storm go into
camp.
128
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
The river is running to the south; the mountains have an easterly and
westerly trend directly athwart its course, yet it glides on in a quiet
way as if it thought a mountain range no formidable obstruction. It
enters the range by a flaring, brilliant red gorge, that may be
seen from the north a score of miles away. The great mass of the
powell-canyons-86.jpg
OUR INDIAN GUIDE.
mountain ridge through which the gorge is cut is composed of bright
vermilion rocks; but they are surmounted by broad bands of mottled buff
and gray, and these bands come down with a gentle curve to the water's
edge on the nearer slope of the mountain.
This is the head of the first of the canyons we are about to explore--an
introductory one to a series made by the river through this
FROM GREEN RIVER CITY TO FLAMING GORGE.
129
range. We name it Flaming Gorge. The cliffs, or walls, we find on
measurement to be about 1,200 feet high.
May 27.--To-day it rains, and we employ the time in repairing one of our
barometers, which was broken on the way from New York. A new tube has
to be put in; that is, a long glass tube has to be filled with
mercury, four or five inches at a time, and each installment boiled
powell-canyons-87.jpg
OUR GUIDE'S BOY.
over a spirit lamp. It is a delicate task to do this without breaking
the glass; but we have success, and are ready to measure mountains once
more.
May 28.--To-day we go to the summit of the cliff on the left and take
observations for altitude, and are variously employed in topographic and
geologic work.
130
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
May 29.--This morning Bradley and I cross the river and climb more than
a thousand feet to a point where we can see the stream sweeping in a
long, beautiful curve through the gorge below. Turning and looking to
the west, we can see the valley of Henry's Fork, through which, for many
miles, the little river flows in a tortuous channel. Cottonwood groves
are planted here and there along its course, and between them are
stretches of grass land. The narrow mountain valley is inclosed on
either side by sloping walls of naked rock of many powell-canyons-88.jpg
GREEN RIVER PLAINS.
bright colors. To the south of the valley are the Uintas, and the peaks
of the Wasatch Mountains can be faintly seen in the far west. To the
north, desert plains, dotted here and there with curiously carved hills
and buttes, extend to the limit of vision.
For many years this valley has been the home of a number of
mountaineers, who were originally hunters and trappers, living with the
Indians. Most of them have one or more Indian wives. They no longer
roam with the nomadic tribes in pursuit of buckskin or beaver, but have
accumulated herds of cattle and horses, and consider themselves quite
well to do. Some of them have built cabins; others
FROM GREEN RIVER CITY TO FLAMING GORGE.
131
still live in lodges. John Baker is one of the most famous of these men,
and from our point of view we can see his lodge, three or four miles up
the river.
The distance from Green River City to Flaming Gorge is 62 miles. The
river runs between bluffs, in some places standing so close to each
other that no flood plain is seen. At such a point the river might
properly be said to run through a canyon. The bad lands on either side
are interrupted here and there by patches of Artemisia, or sage brush.
Where there is a flood plain along either side of the river, a few
cottonwoods may be seen. powell-canyons-89.jpg
THE CHIEF KIVA OF SHUPAULOVI.
132 powell-canyons-90.jpg
WALPI.
133
CHAPTER VI.
FROM FLAMING GORGE TO THE GATE OF LODORE.
ONE must not think of a mountain range as a line of peaks standing on a
plain, but as a broad platform many miles wide from which mountains have
been carved by the waters. One must conceive, too, that this plateau is
cut by gulches and canyons in many directions and that beautiful valleys
are scattered about at different altitudes. The first series of canyons
we are about to explore constitutes a river channel through such a range
of mountains. The canyon is cut nearly halfway through the range, then
turns to the east and is cut along the central line, or axis, gradually
crossing it to the south. Keeping this direction for more than 50
miles, it then turns abruptly to a southwest course, and goes diagonally
through the southern slope of the range.
This much we know before entering, as we made a partial exploration of
the region last fall, climbing many of its peaks, and in a few places
reaching the brink of the canyon walls and looking over precipices many
hundreds of feet high to the water below.
Here and there the walls are broken by lateral canyons, the channels
of little streams entering the river. Through two or three of these we
found our way down to the Green in early winter and walked along the low
water-beach at the foot of the cliffs for several miles. Where the river
has this general easterly direction the western part only has cut for
itself a canyon, while the eastern has formed a broad valley, called, in
honor of an old-time trapper, Brown's Park, and long known as a favorite
winter resort for mountain men and Indians.
May 30.--This morning we are ready to enter the mysterious canyon, and
start with some anxiety. The old mountaineers tell us that it cannot be
run; the Indians say, "Water heap catch 'em"; but all are eager for the
trial, and off we go.
134
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
Entering Flaming Gorge, we quickly run through it on a swift current and
emerge into a little park. Half a mile below, the river wheels sharply
to the left and enters another canyon cut into the mountain. We enter
the narrow passage. On either side the walls rapidly increase in
altitude. On the left are overhanging ledges and cliffs,--500, 1,000,
1,500 feet high.
On the right the rocks are broken and ragged, and the water fills the
channel from cliff to cliff. Now the river turns abruptly around a point
to the right, and the waters plunge swiftly down among great rocks; and
here we have our first experience with canyon rapids. I stand up on the
deck of my boat to seek a way among the wave-beaten rocks. All untried
as we are with such waters, the moments are filled with intense anxiety.
Soon our boats reach the swift current; a stroke or two, now on this.
side, now on that, and we thread the narrow passage with exhilarating
Velocity, mounting the high waves, whose foaming crests dash over us,
and plunging into the troughs, until we reach the quiet water below.
Then comes a feeling of great relief. Our first rapid is run. Another
mile, and we come into the valley again. powell-canyons-91.jpg
CAMP AT FLAMING GORGE
135 powell-canyons-92.jpg
MASHONGNAVI, WITH SHUPAULOVI IN THE DISTANCE.
136 powell-canyons-93.jpg
HORSESHOE CANYON.
FROM FLAMING GORGE TO THE GATE OF LODORE. 137
Let me explain this canyon. Where the river turns to the left above,
it takes a course directly into the mountain, penetrating to its very
heart, then wheels back upon itself, and runs out into the valley from
which it started only half a mile below the point at which it entered;
so the canyon is in the form of an elongated letter U, with the apex in
the center of the mountain. We name it Horseshoe Canyon.
Soon we leave the valley and enter another short canyon, very narrow at
first, but widening below as the canyon walls increase in height. Here
we discover the mouth of a beautiful little creek coming down through
its narrow water-worn cleft. Just at its entrance there is a park of two
or three hundred acres, walled on every side by almost vertical cliffs
hundreds of feet in altitude, with three gateways through the walls--one
up the river, another down, and a third through which the creek comes
in. The river is broad, deep, and quiet, and its waters mirror towering
rocks.
Kingfishers are playing about the streams, and so we adopt as names
Kingfisher Creek, Kingfisher Park, and Kingfisher Canyon. At night we
camp at the foot of this canyon.
Our general course this day has been south, but here the river turns to
the east around a point which is rounded to the shape of a dome. On its
sides little cells have been carved by the action of the water, and in
these pits, which cover the face of the dome, hundreds of swallows have
built their nests. As they flit about the cliffs, they look like swarms
of bees, giving to the whole the appearance of a colossal beehive of the
old-time form, and so we name it Beehive Point.
The opposite wall is a vast amphitheater, rising in a succession of
terraces to a height of 1,200 or 1,500 feet. Each step is built of
red sandstone, with a face of naked red rock and a glacis clothed with
verdure. So the amphitheater seems banded red and green, and the evening
sun is playing with roseate flashes on the rocks, with shimmering green
on the cedars' spray, and with iridescent gleams on the dancing waves.
The landscape revels in the sunshine.
May 31.--We start down another canyon and reach rapids made dangerous by
high rocks lying in the channel; so we run ashore and let our boats down
with lines. In the afternoon we come to more dangerous rapids and stop
to examine them. I find we must do the same work
138 8 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
again, but, being on the wrong side of the river to obtain a foothold,
must first cross over--no very easy matter in such a current, with
rapids and rocks below. We take the pioneer boat, "Emma Dean," over, and
unload her on the bank; then she returns and takes another load. Running
back and forth, she soon has half our cargo over. Then one of the larger
boats is manned and taken across, but is carried down almost to the
rocks in spite of hard rowing. The other boats follow and make the
landing, and we go into camp for the night.
At the foot of the cliff on this side there is a long slope covered with
pines; under these we make our beds, and soon after sunset are seeking
rest and sleep. The cliffs on either side are of red sandstone and
stretch toward the heavens 2,500 feet. On this side the long, pine-clad
slope is surmounted by perpendicular cliffs, with pines on their
summits. The wall on the other side is bare rock from the water's edge
up 2,000 feet, then slopes back, giving footing to pines and cedars.
As the twilight deepens, the rocks grow dark and somber; the threatening
roar of the water is loud and constant, and I lie awake with thoughts
of the morrow and the canyons to come, interrupted now and then by
characteristics of the scenery that attract my attention. And here I
make a discovery. On looking at the mountain directly in front, the
steepness of the slope is greatly exaggerated, while the distance to
its summit and its true altitude are correspondingly diminished. I have
heretofore found that to judge properly of the slope of a mountain side,
one must see it in profile. In coming down the river this afternoon, I
observed the slope of a particular part of the wall and made an estimate
of its altitude. While at supper, I noticed the same cliff from a
position facing it, and it seemed steeper, but not half so high. Now
lying on my side and looking at it, the true proportions appear. This
seems a wonder, and I rise to take a view of it standing. It is the same
cliff as at supper time. Lying down again, it is the cliff as seen in
profile, with a long slope and distant summit. Musing on this, I forget
"the morrow and the canyons to come"; I have found a way to estimate the
altitude and slope of an inclination, in like manner as I can judge of
distance along the horizon. The reason is simple. A reference to the
stereoscope will
FROM FLAMING GOEGE TO THE GATE OF LODOEE.
139
suggest it. The distance between the eyes forms a base line for optical
triangulation.
June 1.--To-day we have an exciting ride. The river rolls down the
canyon at a wonderful rate, and, with no rocks in the way, we make
140 powell-canyons-94.jpg
SCENE IN HAND.
almost railroad speed. Here and there the water rushes into a narrow
gorge; the rocks on the side roll it into the center in great waves,
and the boats go leaping and bounding over these like things of life,
reminding me of scenes witnessed in Middle Park--herds of startled deer
bounding through forests beset with fallen timber. I
140 powell-canyons-95.jpg
PESCADO PUEBLO----OUTSIDE STEPS.
FROM FLAMING GORGE TO THE GATE OF LODORE.
141
mention the resemblance to some of the hunters, and so striking is it
that the expression, "See the blacktails jumping the logs," comes to be
a common one. At times the waves break and roll over the boats, which
necessitates much bailing and obliges us to stop occasionally for that
purpose. At one time we run twelve miles in an hour, stoppages included.
Last spring I had a conversation with an old Indian named Páriate,
who told me about one of his tribe attempting to run this canyon. "The
rocks," he said, holding his hands above his head, his arms vertical,
and looking between them to the heavens, "the rocks h-e-a-p,
powell-canyons-96.jpg
OVEN NEAR PESCADO PUEBLO.
h-e-a-p high; the water go h-oo-woogh, h-oo-woogh; water-pony li-e-a-p
buck; water catch 'em; no see 'em Injun any more! no see 'em squaw any
more! no see 'em papoose any more!"
Those who have seen these wild Indian ponies rearing alternately before
and behind, or "bucking," as it is called in the vernacular, will
appreciate his description.
At last we come to calm water, and a threatening roar is heard in the
distance. Slowly approaching the point whence the sound issues, we come
near to falls, and tie up just above them on the left. Here we shall be
compelled to make a portage; so we unload the boats,
142
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO. powell-canyons-97.jpg
PRIMITIVE ANDIRON IN SHUMOPAVI.
and fasten a long line to the bow of the smaller one, and another to the
stern, and moor her close to the brink of the fall. Then the bowline is
taken below and made fast; the stern line is held by five or six men,
and the boat let down as long as they can hold her against the rushing
waters; then, letting go one end of the line, it runs through the ring;
the boat leaps over the fall and is caught by the lower rope.
Now we rest for the night.
June 2.--This morning we make a trail among the rocks, transport the
cargoes to a point below the fall, let the remaining boats over, and are
ready to start before noon.
On a high rock by which the trail passes we find the inscription:
"Ashley 18-5." The third figure is obscure--some of the party reading
it 1835, some 1855. James Baker, an old-time mountaineer, once told me
about a party of men starting down the river, and Ashley was
FROM FLAMING GORGE TO THE GATE OF LODORE.
143
named as one. The story runs that the boat was swamped, and some of
the party drowned in one of the canyons below. The word "Ashley" is a
warning to us, and we resolve on great caution. Ashley Falls is the name
we give to the cataract.
The river is very narrow, the right wall vertical for 200 or 300 feet,
the left towering to a great height, with a vast pile of broken rocks
lying between the foot of the cliff and the water. Some of the rocks
broken down from the ledge above have tumbled into the channel and
caused this fall. One great cubical block, thirty or forty feet high,
stands in the middle of the stream, and the waters, parting to either
side, plunge down about twelve feet, and are broken again by the smaller
rocks into a rapid below. Immediately below the falls the water occupies
the entire channel, there being no talus at the foot of the cliffs.
powell-canyons-98.jpg
TUSAYAN HEALING-STONES.
144 powell-canyons-99.jpg
K1VA AND STONE CORRALS OF MASHONGNAVI.
FROM FLAMING GORGE TO THE GATE OF LODORE. 145
We embark and run down a short distance, where we find a landing-place
for dinner.
On the waves again all the afternoon. Near the lower end of this canyon,
to which we have given the name of Red Canyon, is a little park, where
streams come down from distant mountain summits and enter the river on
either side; and here we camp for the night under two stately pines.
June 3.--This morning we spread our rations, clothes, etc., on the
ground to dry, and several of the party go out for a hunt. I take a walk
of five or six miles up to a pine-grove park, its grassy carpet bedecked
with crimson velvet flowers, set in groups on the stems of pear-shaped
cactus plants; patches of painted cups are seen here and there, with
yellow blossoms protruding through scarlet bracts; little blue-eyed
flowers are peeping through the grass; and the air is filled with
fragrance from the white blossoms of the Spiraea. A mountain brook runs
through the midst, ponded below by beaver dams. It is a quiet place for
retirement from the raging waters of the canyon.
It will be remembered that the course of the river from Flaming Gorge
to Beehive Point is in a southerly direction and at right angles to the
Uinta Mountains, and cuts into the range until it reaches a point within
five miles of the crest, where it turns to the east and pursues a course
not quite parallel to the trend of the range, but crosses the axis
slowly in a direction a little south of east. Thus there is a triangular
tract between the river and the axis of the mountain, with its acute
angle extending eastward. I climb the mountain overlooking this country.
To the east the peaks are not very high, and already most of the snow
has melted, but little patches lie here and there under the lee of
ledges of rock. To the west the peaks grow higher and the snow fields
larger. Between the brink of the canyon and the foot of these peaks,
there is a high bench. A number of creeks have their sources in the
snowbanks to the south and run north into the canyon, tumbling down
from 3,000 to 5,000 feet in a distance of five or six miles. Along their
upper courses they run through grassy valleys, but as they approach Red
Canyon they rapidly disappear under the general surface of the country,
and emerge into the canyon below in
146
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
deep, dark gorges of their own. Each of these short lateral canyons is
marked by a succession of cascades and a wild confusion of rocks and
trees and fallen timber and thick undergrowth.
The little valleys above are beautiful parks; between the parks are
stately pine forests, half hiding ledges of red sandstone. Mule deer
and elk abound; grizzly bears, too, are abundant; and here wild cats,
wolverines, and mountain lions are at home. The forest aisles are filled
with the music of birds, and the parks are decked powell-canyons-100.jpg
"HOGBACKS," WITH INTERVENING VALLEYS.
with flowers. Noisy brooks meander through them; ledges of moss-covered
rocks are seen; and gleaming in the distance are the snow fields, and
the mountain tops are away in the clouds.
June 4---We start early and run through to Brown's Park. Halfway down
the valley, a spur of a red mountain stretches across the river, which
cuts a canyon through it. Here the walls are comparatively low, but
vertical. A vast number of swallows have built their adobe houses on the
face of the cliffs, on either side of the river. The waters are deep and
quiet, but the swallows are swift and noisy enough, sweeping by in their
curved paths through the air or chattering from the rocks, while the
young ones stretch their little heads on naked necks
FROM FLAMING GORGE TO THE GATE OF LODORE. 147
through the doorways of their mud houses and clamor for food. They are a
noisy people. We call this Swallow Canyon.
Still down the river we glide until an early hour in the afternoon, when
we go into camp under a giant cottonwood standing on the right bank a
little way back from the stream. The party has succeeded in killing
a fine lot of wild ducks, and during the afternoon a mess of fish is
taken.
June 5.--With one of the men I climb a mountain, off on the right. A
long spur, with broken ledges of rock, puts down to the river, and along
its course, or up the "hogback," as it is called, I make the ascent.
Dunn, who is climbing to the same point, is coming up the gulch. Two
hours' hard work has brought us to the summit. These mountains are
all verdure-clad; pine and cedar forests are set on green terraces;
snow-clad mountains are seen in the distance, to the west; the plains of
the upper Green stretch out before us to the north until they are lost
in the blue heavens; but half of the river-cleft range intervenes, and
the river itself is at our feet.
This half range, beyond the river, is composed of long ridges nearly
parallel with the valley. On the farther ridge, to the north, four
creeks have their sources. These cut through the intervening ridges, one
of which is much higher than that on which they head, by canyon gorges;
then they run with gentle curves across the valley, their banks set with
willows, box-elders, and cottonwood groves. To the east we look up the
valley of the Vermilion, through which Fremont found his path on his way
to the great parks of Colorado.
The reading of the barometer taken, we start down in company, and reach
camp tired and hungry, which does not abate one bit our enthusiasm as we
tell of the day's work with its glory of landscape.
June 6.--At daybreak I am awakened by a chorus of birds. It seems as
if all the feathered songsters of the region have come to the old tree.
Several species of warblers, woodpeckers, and flickers above, meadow
larks in the grass, and wild geese in the river. I recline on my elbow
and watch a lark near by, and then awaken my bedfellow, to listen to my
Jenny Lind. A real morning concert for me; none of your "matinées"!
Our cook has been an ox-driver, or "bull-whacker," on the plains, in
148
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO. powell-canyons-101.jpg
AN ANCIENT PUEBLO METATE.
one of those long trains now no longer seen, and he hasn't forgotten his
old ways. In the midst of the concert, his voice breaks in: "Roll out!
roll out! bulls in the corral! chain up the gaps! Roll out! roll out!
roll out!" And this is our breakfast bell.
To-day we pass through, the park, and camp at the head of another
canyon.
June 7.--To-day two or three of us climb to the summit of the cliff on
the left, and find its altitude above camp to be 2,086 feet. The rocks
are split with fissures, deep and narrow, sometimes a hundred feet or
more to the bottom, and these fissures are filled with loose earth and
decayed vegetation in which lofty pines find root. On a rock we find a
pool of clear, cold water, caught from yesterday evening's shower. After
a good drink we walk out to the brink of the canyon and look down to
the water below. I can do this now, but it has taken several years of
mountain climbing to cool my nerves so that I can sit with my feet over
the edge and calmly look down a precipice 2,000 feet. And yet I cannot
look on and see another do the same. I must either bid him come away
or turn my head. The canyon walls are buttressed on a grand scale, with
deep alcoves intervening; columned crags crown the cliffs, and the river
is rolling below.
When we return to camp at noon the sun shines in splendor on vermilion
walls, shaded into green and gray where the rocks are lichened over; the
river fills the channel from wall to wall, and the canyon opens, like
a beautiful portal, to a region of glory. This evening, as I write,
the sun is going down and the shadows are settling in the canyon. The
vermilion gleams and roseate hues, blending with the green and gray
tints, are slowly changing to somber brown above, and black shadows are
creeping over them below; and now it is a dark portal to a region
of gloom--the gateway through which we are to enter on our voyage of
exploration tomorrow. What shall we find? powell-canyons-102.jpg
A ZUÑÍ STOOL.
FROM FLAMING GORGE TO THE GATE OF LODORE.
149
The distance from Flaming Gorge to Beehive Point is 9 2/3 miles.
Besides passing through the gorge, the river runs through Horseshoe and
Kingfisher canyons, separated by short valleys. The highest point on the
walls at Flaming Gorge is 1,300 feet above the river. The east wall at
the apex of Horseshoe Canyon is about 1,600 feet above the water's edge,
and from this point the walls slope both to the head and foot of the
canyon.
Kingfisher Canyon, starting at the water's edge above, steadily
increases in altitude to 1,200 feet at the foot.
Red Canyon is 25 2/3 miles long, and the highest walls are about 2,500
feet.
Brown's Park is a valley, bounded on either side by a mountain range,
really an expansion of the canyon. The river, through the park, is 35
1/2 miles long, but passes through two short canyons on its way, where
spurs from the mountains on the south are thrust across its course.
powell-canyons-103.jpg
150 powell-canyons-104.jpg
THE HOME OF THE CHIEF.
151
CHAPTER VII.
THE CANYON OF LODORE.
JUNE 8.--We enter the canyon, and until noon find a succession of
rapids, over which, our boats have to be taken. Here I must explain our
method of proceeding at such places. The "Emma Dean "'goes in advance;
the other boats follow, in obedience to signals. When we approach a
rapid, or what on other rivers would often be called a fall, I stand
on deck to examine it, while the oarsmen back water, and we drift on as
slowly as possible. If I can see a clear chute between the rocks, away
we go; but if the channel is beset entirely across, we signal the other
boats, pull to land, and I walk along the shore for closer examination.
If this reveals no clear channel, hard work begins. We drop the boats to
the very head of the dangerous place and let them over by lines or make
a portage, frequently carrying both boats and cargoes over the rocks.
The waves caused by such falls in a river differ much from the waves
of the sea. The water of an ocean wave merely rises and falls; the form
only passes on, and form chases form unceasingly. A body floating on
such waves merely rises and sinks--does not progress unless impelled by
wind or some other power. But here the water of the wave passes on while
the form remains. The waters plunge down ten or twenty feet to the foot
of a fall, spring up again in a great wave, then down and up in a series
of billows that gradually disappear in the more quiet waters below; but
these waves are always there, and one can stand above and count them.
A boat riding such billows leaps and plunges along with great velocity.
Now, the difficulty in riding over these falls, when no rocks are in the
way, is with the first wave at the foot. This will sometimes gather for
a moment, heap up higher and higher, and then break back.
152 2 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
If the boat strikes it the instant after it breaks, she cuts through,
and the mad breaker dashes its spray over the boat and washes overboard
all who do not cling tightly. If the boat, in going over the falls,
chances to get caught in some side current and is turned from its
course, so as to strike the wave "broadside on," and the wave breaks at
the same instant, the boat is capsized; then we must cling to her, for
the water-tight compartments act as buoys and she cannot sink; and so we
go, dragged through the waves, until still waters are reached, when
we right the boat and climb aboard. We have several such experiences
to-day.
At night we camp on the right bank, on a little shelving rock between
the river and the foot of the cliff; and with night comes gloom into
these great depths. After supper we sit by our camp fire, made of
driftwood caught by the rocks, and tell stories of wild life; for
the men have seen such in the mountains or on the plains, and on the
battlefields of the South. It is late before we spread our blankets on
the beach.
Lying down, we look up through the canyon and see that only a little of
the blue heaven appears overhead--a crescent of blue sky, with two or
three constellations peering down upon us. I do not sleep for some time,
as the excitement of the day has not worn off. Soon I see a bright star
that appears to rest on the very verge of the cliff overhead to the
east. Slowly it seems to float from its resting place on the rock over
the canyon. At first it appears like a jewel set on the brink of the
cliff, but as it moves out from the rock I almost wonder that it does
not fall. In fact, it does seem to descend in a gentle curve, as though
the bright sky in which the stars are set were spread across the canyon,
resting on either wall, and swayed down by its own weight. The stars
appear to be in the canyon. I soon discover that it is the bright star
Vega; so it occurs to me to designate this part of the wall as the
"Cliff of the Harp."
June 9.--One of the party suggests that we call this the Canyon of
Lodore, and the name is adopted. Very slowly we make our way, often
climbing on the rocks at the edge of the water for a few hundred yards
to examine the channel before running it. During the afternoon we come
to a place where it is necessary to make a portage. The little boat is
landed and the others are signaled to come up.
THE CANYON OF LODOKE.
153
When these rapids or broken falls occur usually the channel is
suddenly narrowed by rocks which have been tumbled from the cliffs or
powell-canyons-105.jpg
GATE OF LODORE.
have been washed in by lateral streams. Immediately above the narrow,
rocky channel, on one or both sides, there is often a bay of quiet
water, in which a landing can be made with ease. Sometimes
154 4 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
the water descends with a smooth, unruffled surface from the
broad, quiet spread above into the narrow, angry channel below by a
semicircular sag. Great care must be taken not to pass over the brink
into this deceptive pit, but above it we can row with safety. I walk
along the bank to examine the ground, leaving one of my men with a flag
to guide the other boats to the landing-place. I soon see one of the
boats make shore all right, and feel no more concern; but a minute
after, I hear a shout, and, looking around, see one of the boats
shooting down the center of the sag. It is the "No Name," with Captain
Howland, his brother, and Goodman. I feel that its going over is
inevitable, and run to save the third boat. A minute more, and she turns
the point and heads for the shore. Then I turn down stream again and
scramble along to look for the boat that has gone over. The first fall
is not great, only 10 or 12 feet, and we often run such; but below, the
river tumbles down again for 40 or 50 feet, in a channel filled with
dangerous rocks that break the waves into whirlpools and beat them into
foam. I pass around a great crag just in time to see the boat strike
a rock and, rebounding from the shock, careen and fill its open
compartment with water. Two of the men lose their oars; she swings
around and is carried down at a rapid rate, broadside on, for a few
yards, when, striking amidships on another rock with great force, she
is broken quite in two and the men are thrown into the river. But the
larger part of the boat floats buoyantly, and they soon seize it, and
down the river they drift, past the rocks for a few hundred yards, to a
second rapid filled with huge boulders, where the boat strikes again and
is dashed to pieces, and the men and fragments are soon carried beyond
my sight. Running along, I turn a bend and see a man's head above the
water, washed about in a whirlpool below a great rock. It is Frank
Goodman, clinging to the rock with a grip upon which life depends.
Coming opposite, I see Howland trying to go to his aid from an island on
which he has been washed. Soon he comes near enough to reach Frank with
a pole, which he extends toward him. The latter lets go the rock, grasps
the pole, and is pulled ashore. Seneca Howland is washed farther down
the island and is caught by some rocks, and, though somewhat bruised,
manages to get ashore in safety. This seems a long time as I tell it,
but it is quickly done.
THE CANYON OF LODORE. 155
And now the three men are on an island, with a swift, dangerous river on
either side and a fall below. The "Emma Dean" is soon brought down, and
Sumner, starting above as far as possible, pushes powell-canyons-106.jpg
WRECK AT DISASTER FALLS.
out. Right skillfully he plies the oars, and a few strokes set him on
the island at the proper point. Then they all pull the boat up stream as
far as they are able, until they stand in water up to their necks. One
156 6 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
sits on a rock and holds the boat until the others are ready to pull,
then gives the boat a push, clings to it with his hands, and climbs in
as they pull for mainland, which they reach in safety. We are as glad
to shake hands with them as though they had been on a voyage around the
world and wrecked on a distant coast.
Down the river half a mile we find that the after cabin of the
powell-canyons-107.jpg
METALLIFEROUS VEINS EXPOSED TO VIEW.
wrecked boat, with a part of the bottom, ragged and splintered, has
floated against a rock and stranded. There are valuable articles in the
cabin; but, on examination, we determine that life should not
THE CANYON OF LODORE. 157
be risked to save them. Of course, the cargo of rations, instruments,
and clothing is gone.
We return to the boats and make camp for the night. No sleep comes to
me in all those dark hours. The rations, instruments, and clothing have
been divided among the boats, anticipating such an accident as this; and
we started with duplicates of everything that was deemed necessary
to success. But, in the distribution, there was one exception to this
precaution--the barometers were all placed in one boat, and they are
lost! There is a possibility that they are in the cabin lodged against
the rock, for that is where they were kept. But, then, how to reach
them? The river is rising. Will they be there to-morrow? Can I go out to
Salt Lake City and obtain barometers from New York?
June 10.--I have determined to get the barometers from the wreck, if
they are there. After breakfast, while the men make the portage, I go
down again for another examination, There the cabin lies, only carried
50 or 60 feet farther on. Carefully looking over the ground, I am
satisfied that it can be reached with safety, and return to tell the
men my conclusion. Sumner and Dunn volunteer to take the little boat and
make the attempt. They start, reach it, and out come the barometers!
The boys set up a shout, and I join them, pleased that they should be as
glad as myself to save the instruments. When the boat lands on our side,
I find that the only things saved from the wreck were the barometers, a
package of thermometers, and a three-gallon keg of whiskey. The last is
what the men were shouting about. They had taken it aboard unknown to
me, and now I am glad they did take it, for it will do them good, as
they are drenched every day by the melting snow which runs down from the
summits of the Rocky Mountains.
We come back to our work at the portage and find that it is necessary to
carry our rations over the rocks for nearly a mile and to let our
boats down with lines, except at a few points, where they also must be
carried. Between the river and the eastern wall of the canyon there
is an immense talus of broken rocks. These have tumbled down from the
cliffs above and constitute a vast pile of huge angular fragments. On
these we build a path for a quarter of a mile to a small sand-beach
covered with driftwood, through which we clear a way for several
158 8 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
hundred yards, then continue the trail over another pile of rocks nearly
half a mile farther down, to a little bay. The greater part of the day
is spent in this work. Then we carry our cargoes down to the beach and
camp for the night.
While the men are building the camp fire, we discover an iron bake-oven,
several tin plates, a part of a boat, and many other fragments, which
denote that this is the place where Ashley's party was wrecked.
June 11.--This day is spent in carrying our rations down to the bay--no
small task, climbing over the rocks with sacks of flour and bacon. We
carry them by stages of about 500 yards each, and when night comes and
the last sack is on the beach, we are tired, bruised, and glad to sleep.
June 12.--To-day we take the boats down to the bay. While at this work
we discover three sacks of flour from the wrecked boat that have lodged
in the rocks. We carry them above high-water mark and leave them, as
our cargoes are already too heavy for the three remaining boats. We also
find two or three oars, which we place with them.
As Ashley and his party were wrecked here and as we have lost one of our
boats at the same place, we adopt the name Disaster Falls for the scene
of so much peril and loss.
Though some of his companions were drowned, Ashley and one other
survived the wreck, climbed the canyon wall, and found their way across
the Wasatch Mountains to Salt Lake City, living chiefly on berries,
as they wandered through an unknown and difficult country. When they
arrived at Salt Lake they were almost destitute of clothing and nearly
starved. The Mormon people gave them food and clothing and employed them
to work on the foundation of the Temple until they had earned sufficient
to enable them to leave the country. Of their subsequent history, I have
no knowledge. It is possible they returned to the scene of the disaster,
as a little creek entering the river below is known as Ashley's Creek,
and it is reported that he built a cabin and trapped on this river for
one or two winters; but this may have been before the disaster.
June 13.--Rocks, rapids, and portages still. We camp to-night at
THE CANYON OF LODOEE.
159
the foot of the left fall, on a little patch of flood plain covered
with a dense growth of box-elders, stopping early in order to spread the
clothing and rations to dry. Everything is wet and spoiling.
June 14.--Howland and I climb the wall on the west side of the canyon
to an altitude of 2,000 feet. Standing above and looking to the west, we
discover a large park, five or six miles wide and twenty or thirty long.
The cliff we have climbed forms a wall between the canyon and the park,
for it is 800 feet down the western side to the valley. A creek comes
winding down 1,200 feet above the river, and, entering the intervening
wall by a canyon, plunges down more than 1,000 feet, by a broken
cascade, into the river below.
June 15.--To-day, while we make another portage, a peak, standing on the
east wall, is climbed by two of the men and found to be 2,700 feet above
the river. On the east side of the canyon a vast amphitheater has
been cut, with massive buttresses and deep, dark alcoves in which
powell-canyons-108.jpg
WINNIE'S GROTTO, A SIDE CANYON.
160 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
grow beautiful mosses and delicate ferns, while springs burst out from
the farther recesses and wind in silver threads over floors of sand
rock. Here we have three falls in close succession. At the first the
water is compressed into a very narrow channel against the right-hand
cliff, and falls 15 feet in 10 yards. At the second we have a broad
sheet of water tumbling down 20 feet over a group of rocks that thrust
their dark heads through the foam. The third is a broken fall, or short,
abrupt rapid, where the water makes a descent of more than 20 feet among
huge, fallen fragments of the cliff. We name the group Triplet Falls.
We make a portage around the first; past the second and the third we let
down with lines.
During the afternoon, Dunn and Howland having returned from their climb,
we run down three quarters of a mile on quiet waters and land at the
head of another fall. On examination, we find that there is an abrupt
plunge of a few feet and then the river tumbles for half a mile with a
descent of a hundred feet, in a channel beset with great numbers of
huge boulders. This stretch of the river is named Hell's Half-Mile. The
remaining portion of the day is occupied in making a trail among the
rocks at the foot of the rapid.
June 16.--Our first work this morning is to carry our cargoes to the
foot of the falls. Then we commence letting down the boats. We take two
of them down in safety, but not without great difficulty; for, where
such a vast body of water, rolling down an inclined plane, is broken
into eddies and cross-currents by rocks projecting from the cliffs and
piles of boulders in the channel, it requires excessive labor and
much care to prevent the boats from being dashed against the rocks or
breaking away. Sometimes we are compelled to hold the boat against a
rock above a chute until a second line, attached to the stem, is carried
to some point below, and when all is ready the first line is detached
and the boat given to the current, when she shoots down and the men
below swing her into some eddy.
At such a place we are letting down the last boat, and as she is set
free a wave turns her broadside down the stream, with the stem, to which
the line is attached, from shore and a little up. They haul on the line
to bring the boat in, but the power of the current, striking obliquely
against her, shoots her out into the middle of the river. The
THE CANYON OF LODORE.
161
men have their hands burned with the friction of the passing line; the
boat breaks away and speeds with great velocity down the stream.
The "Maid of the Canyon" is lost! So it seems; but she drifts
powell-canyons-109.jpg
ERODED TOWERS CAPPED WITH LARGE BLOCKS OF SANDSTONE.
some distance and swings into an eddy, in which she spins about until we
arrive with the small boat and rescue her.
Soon we are on our way again, and stop at the mouth of a little brook on
the right for a late dinner. This brook comes down from the distant
162
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
mountains in a deep side canyon. We set out to explore it, but are soon
cut off from farther progress up the gorge by a high rock, over which
the brook glides in a smooth sheet. The rock is not quite vertical, and
the water does not plunge over it in a fall.
Then we climb up to the left for an hour, and are 1,000 feet above the
river and 600 above the brook. Just before us the canyon divides, a
little stream coming down on the right and another on the left, and we
can look away up either of these canyons, through an ascending vista, to
cliffs and crags and towers a mile back and 2,000 feet overhead. To the
right a dozen gleaming cascades are seen. Pines and firs stand on the
rocks and aspens overhang the brooks. The rocks below are red and brown,
set in deep shadows, but above they are buff and vermilion and stand in
the sunshine. The light above, made more brilliant by the bright-tinted
rocks, and the shadows below, more gloomy powell-canyons-110.jpg
FIRE IN CAMP.
by reason of the somber hues of the brown walls, increase the apparent
depths of the canyons, and it seems a long way up to the world of
sunshine and open sky, and a long way down to the bottom of the
THE CANYON OF LODORE. 163
canyon glooms. Never before have I received such an impression of the
vast heights of these canyon walls, not even at the Cliff of the Harp,
where the very heavens seemed to rest on their summits. We sit on some
overhanging rocks and enjoy the scene for a time, listening to the music
of the falling waters away up the canyon. We name this Rippling Brook.
Late in the afternoon we make a short run to the mouth of another little
creek, coming down from the left into an alcove filled with luxuriant
vegetation. Here camp is made, with a group of cedars on one side and a
dense mass of box-elders and dead willows on the other.
I go up to explore the alcove. While away a whirlwind comes and scatters
the fire among the dead willows and cedar-spray, and soon there is
a conflagration. The men rush for the boats, leaving all they cannot
readily seize at the moment, and even then they have their clothing
burned and hair singed, and Bradley has his ears scorched. The cook
fills his arms with the mess-kit, and jumping into a boat, stumbles and
falls, and away go our cooking utensils into the river. Our plates are
gone; our spoons are gone; our knives and forks are gone. "Water catch
'em; h-e-a-p catch 'em."
When on the boats, the men are compelled to cut loose, as the flames,
running out on the overhanging willows, are scorching them. Loose on the
stream, they must go down, for the water is too swift to make headway
against it. Just below is a rapid, filled with rocks. On the shoot,
no channel explored, no signal to guide them! Just at this juncture
I chance to see them, but have not yet discovered the fire, and the
strange movements of the men fill me with astonishment. Down the rocks
I clamber, and run to the bank. When I arrive they have landed. Then
we all go back to the late camp to see if anything left behind can be
saved. Some of the clothing and bedding taken out of the boats is found,
also a few tin cups, basins, and a camp kettle; and this is all the
mess-kit we now have. Yet we do just as well as ever.
June 17.--We run down to the mouth of Yampa River. This has been a
chapter of disasters and toils, notwithstanding which the Canyon of
Lodore was not devoid of scenic interest, even beyond the power
164 powell-canyons-111.jpg
AN ISOLATED HOUSE AT ZUÑI.
THE CANYON OF LODOKE.
165
of pen to tell. The roar of its waters was heard unceasingly from the
hour we entered it until we landed here. No quiet in all that time.
But its walls and cliffs, its peaks and crags, its amphitheaters and
alcoves, tell a story of beauty and grandeur that I hear yet--and shall
hear.
The Canyon of Lodore is 20 3/4 miles in length. It starts abruptly at
what we have called the Gate of Lodore, with walls nearly 2,000 feet
high, and they are never lower than this until we reach Alcove Brook,
about three miles above the foot. They are very irregular, standing
in vertical or overhanging cliffs in places, terraced in others, or
receding in steep slopes, and are broken by many side gulches and
canyons. The highest point on the wall is at Dunn's Cliff, near Triplet
Falls, where the rocks reach an altitude of 2,700 feet, but the peaks a
little way back rise nearly 1,000 feet higher. Yellow pines, nut pines,
firs, and cedars stand in extensive forests on the Uinta Mountains, and,
clinging to the rocks and growing in the crevices, come down the walls
to the water's edge from Flaming Gorge to Echo Park. The red sandstones
are lichened. over; delicate mosses grow in the moist places, and ferns
festoon the walls. powell-canyons-112.jpg
166 powell-canyons-113.jpg
AN ORAIBE COURT.
167
CHAPTER VIII.
FROM ECHO PARK TO THE MOUTH OF THE UINTA RIVER.
THE Yampa enters the Green from the east. At a point opposite its mouth
the Green runs to the south, at the foot of a rock about 700 feet high
and a mile long, and then turns sharply around the rock to the right
and runs back in a northerly course parallel to its former direction for
nearly another mile, thus having the opposite sides of a long, narrow
rock for its bank. The tongue of rock so formed is a peninsular
precipice with a mural escarpment along its whole course on the east,
but broken down at places on the west.
On the east side of the river, opposite the rock and below the Yampa,
there is a little park, just large enough for a farm, already fenced
with high walls of gray homogeneous sandstone. There are three river
entrances to this park: one down the Yampa; one below, by coming up the
Green; and another down the Green. There is also a land entrance down
a lateral canyon. Elsewhere the park is inaccessible. Through this land
entrance by the side canyon there is a trail made by Indian hunters, who
come down here in certain seasons to kill mountain sheep. Great hollow
domes are seen in the eastern side of the rock, against which the Green
sweeps; willows border the river; clumps of box-elder are seen; and a
few cottonwoods stand at the lower end. Standing opposite the rock, our
words are repeated with startling clearness, but in a soft, mellow tone,
that transforms them into magical music. Scarcely can one believe it is
the echo of his own voice. In some places two or three echoes come back;
in other places they repeat themselves, passing back and forth across
the river between this rock and the eastern wall. To hear these repeated
echoes well, we must shout. Some of the party aver that ten or twelve
repetitions can be heard. To
168 8 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
me, they seem rapidly to diminish and merge by multiplicity, like
telegraph poles on an outstretched plain. I have observed the same
phenomenon once before in the cliffs near Long's Peak, and am pleased to
meet with it again.
During the afternoon Bradley and I climb some cliffs to the north.
Mountain sheep are seen above us, and they stand out on the rocks and
eye us intently, not seeming to move. Their color is much like that of
the gray sandstone beneath them, and, immovable as they are, they appear
like carved forms. Now a fine ram beats the rock with his fore foot,
and, wheeling around, they all bound away together, leaping over rocks
and chasms and climbing walls where no man can follow, and this with an
ease and grace most wonderful. At night we return to our camp under the
box-elders by the river side. Here we are to spend two or three days,
making a series of astronomic observations for latitude and longitude.
June 18.--We have named the long peninsular rock on the other side Echo
Rock. Desiring to climb it, Bradley and I take the little boat and
pull up stream as far as possible, for it cannot be climbed directly
opposite. We land on a talus of rocks at the upper end in order to reach
a place where it seems practicable to make the ascent; but we find we
must go still farther up the river. So we scramble along, until we reach
a place where the river sweeps against the wall. Here we find a shelf
along which we can pass, and now are ready for the climb.
We start up a gulch; then pass to the left on a bench along the wall;
then up again over broken rocks; then we reach more benches, along
which we walk, until we find more broken rocks and crevices, by which we
climb; still up, until we have ascended 600 or 800 feet, when we are
met by a sheer precipice. Looking about, we find a place where it seems
possible to climb. I go ahead; Bradley hands the barometer to me, and
follows. So we proceed, stage by stage, until we are nearly to the
summit. Here, by making a spring, I gain a foothold in a little crevice,
and grasp an angle of the rock overhead. I find I can get up no farther
and cannot step back, for I dare not let go with my hand and cannot
reach foothold below without. I call to Bradley for help. He finds a way
by which he can get to the top of the
FROM ECHO PARK TO THE MOUTH OF UINTA RIVER.
169
rock over my head, but cannot reach me. Then he looks around for some
stick or limb of a tree, but finds none. Then he suggests that he would
better help me with the barometer case, but I fear I cannot hold on to
it. The moment is critical. Standing on my toes, my muscles begin to
tremble. It is sixty or eighty feet to the foot of the precipice. If I
lose my hold I shall fall to the bottom and then perhaps roll over the
bench and tumble still farther down the cliff. At this instant it occurs
to Bradley to take off his drawers, which he does, and swings them down
to me. I hug close to the rock, let go with my hand, seize the dangling
legs, and with his assistance am enabled to gain the top.
Then we walk out on the peninsular rock, make the necessary observations
for determining its altitude above camp, and return, finding an easy way
down.
June 19.--To-day, Howland, Bradley, and I take the "Emma Dean" and start
up the Yampa River. The stream is much swollen, the current swift, and
we are able to make but slow progress against it. The canyon in this
part of the course of the Yampa is cut through light gray sandstone.
The river is very winding, and the swifter water is usually
powell-canyons-114.jpg
THE RESCUE.
170
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
found on the outside of the curve, sweeping against vertical cliffs
often a thousand feet high. In the center of these curves, in many
places, the rock above overhangs the river. On the opposite side the
walls are broken, craggy, and sloping, and occasionally side canyons
enter. When we have rowed until we are quite tired we stop and take
advantage of one of these broken places to climb out of the canyon. When
above, we can look up the Yampa for a distance of several miles. From
the summit of the immediate walls of the canyon the rocks rise gently
back for a distance of a mile or two, having the appearance of a
valley with an irregular and rounded sandstone floor and in the
powell-canyons-115.jpg
ECHO PARK.
center a deep gorge, which is the canyon. The rim of this valley on the
north is from 2,500 to 3,000 feet above the river; on the south it is
not so high. A number of peaks stand on this northern rim, the highest
of which has received the name Mount Dawes.
Late in the afternoon we descend to our boat and return to camp in Echo
Park, gliding down in twenty minutes on the rapid river, a distance of
four or five miles, which was made up stream only by several hours' hard
rowing in the morning.
June 20.--This morning two of the men take me up the Yampa for a short
distance, and I go out to climb. Having reached the top of
FROM ECHO PARK TO THE MOUTH OF UINTA RIVER.
171
the canyon, I walk over long stretches of naked sandstone, crossing
gulches now and then, and by noon reach the summit of Mount Dawes. From
this point I can look away to the north and see in the dim distance the
Sweetwater and Wind River mountains, more than 100 miles away. To the
northwest the Wasatch Mountains are in view, and peaks of the Uinta.
To the east I can see the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains,
powell-canyons-116.jpg
FRAGMENT OF WALL, ZUÑI.
more than 150 miles distant. The air is singularly clear to-day;
mountains and buttes stand in sharp outline, valleys stretch out in
perspective, and I can look down into the deep canyon gorges and see
gleaming waters.
Descending, I cross to a ridge near the brink of the Canyon of Lodore,
the highest point of which is nearly as high as the last mentioned
mountain. Late in the afternoon I stand on this elevated
172
CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
point and discover a monument that has evidently been built by human
hands. A few plants are growing in the joints between the rocks, and
all are lichened over to a greater or less extent, giving evidence
powell-canyons-117.jpg
172
KIVAS OF SHUMOPAVI.
that the pile was built a long time ago. This line of peaks, the eastern
extension of the Uinta Mountains, has received the name of Sierra
Escalante, in honor of a Spanish priest who traveled in this region of
country nearly a century ago. Perchance the reverend father built this
monument.
Now I return to the river and discharge my gun, as a signal for the boat
to come and take me down to camp. While we have been in the park the
men have succeeded in catching a number of fish, and we have an abundant
supply. This is a delightful addition to our menu.
June 21.-- We float around the long rock and enter another canyon. The
walls are high and vertical, the canyon is narrow, and the river
FROM ECHO PARK TO THE MOUTH OF UINTA RIVER.
173
fills the whole space below, so that there is no landing-place at the
foot of the cliff. The Green is greatly increased by the Yampa, and we
now have a much larger river. All this volume of water, confined, as it
is, in a narrow channel and rushing with great velocity, is set eddying
and spinning in whirlpools by projecting rocks and short curves, and the
waters waltz their way through the canyon, making their own rippling,
rushing, roaring music. The canyon is much narrower than any we have
seen. We manage our boats with difficulty. They spin about from side to
side and we know not where we are going, and find it impossible to keep
them headed down the stream. At first this causes us great alarm, but we
soon find there is little danger, and that there is a general movement
or progression down the river, to which this whirling is but an
adjunct--that it is the merry mood powell-canyons-118.jpg
GENERAL VTEW OF AWATUBI.
of the river to dance through this deep, dark gorge, and right gaily do
we join in the sport.
But soon our revel is interrupted by a cataract; its roaring command is
heeded by all our power at the oars, and we pull against the whirling
current. The "Emma Dean" is brought up against a cliff
174 4 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
about 50 feet above the brink of the fall. By vigorously plying the oars
on the side opposite the wall, as if to pull up stream, we can hold her
against the rock. The boats behind are signaled to land where they can.
The "Maid of the Canyon" is pulled to the left wall, and, by constant
rowing, they can hold her also. The "Sister" is run into an alcove on
the right, where an eddy is in a dance, and in this she joins. Now my
little boat is held against the wall only by the utmost exertion, and
it is impossible to make headway against the current. On examination, I
find a horizontal crevice in the rock, about 10 feet above the water and
a boat's length below us; so we let her down to that point. One of the
men clambers into the crevice, into which he can just crawl; we toss him
the line, which he makes fast in the rocks, and now our boat is tied up.
Then I follow into the crevice and we crawl along up stream a distance
of 50 feet or more, and find a broken place where we can climb about 50
feet higher. Here we stand on a shelf that passes along down stream to
a point above the falls, where it is broken down, and a pile of rocks,
over which we can descend to the river, is lying against the foot of the
cliff.
It has been mentioned that one of the boats is on the other side. I
signal for the men to pull her up alongside of the wall, but it cannot
be done; then to cross. This they do, gaining the wall on our side just
above where the "Emma Dean" is tied.
The third boat is out of sight, whirling in the eddy of a recess.
Looking about, I find another horizontal crevice, along which I crawl to
a point just over the water where this boat is lying, and, calling loud
and long, I finally succeed in making the crew understand that I want
them to bring the boat down, hugging the wall. This they accomplish by
taking advantage of every crevice and knob on the face of the cliff, so
that we have the three boats together at a point a few yards above the
falls. Now, by passing a line up on the shelf, the boats can be let down
to the broken rocks below. This we do, and, making a short portage, our
troubles here are over.
Below the falls the canyon is wider, and there is more or less space
between the river and the walls; but the stream, though wide, is rapid,
and rolls at a fearful rate among the rocks. We proceed with great
caution, and run the large boats wholly by signal.
FROM ECHO PARK TO THE MOUTH OF UINTA EIVER.
175
At night we camp at the mouth of a small creek, which affords us a
good supper of trout. In camp to-night we discuss the propriety
powell-canyons-119.jpg
SWALLOW CAVE.
of several different names for this canyon. At the falls encountered at
noon its characteristics change suddenly. Above, it is very narrow, and
the walls are almost vertical; below, the canyon is much wider
176 6 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
and more flaring, and high up on the sides crags, pinnacles, and towers
are seen. A number of wild and narrow side canyons enter, and the walls
are much broken. After many suggestions our choice rests between two
names, Whirlpool Canyon and Craggy Canyon, neither of which is strictly
appropriate for both parts of it; so we leave the discussion at this
point, with the understanding that it is best, before finally deciding
on a name, to wait until we see what the character of the canyon is
below.
June 22.--Still making short portages and letting down with lines. While
we are waiting for dinner to-day, I climb a point that gives me a good
view of the river for two or three miles below, and I think we can make
a long run. After dinner we start; the large boats are to follow in
fifteen minutes and look out for the signal to land. Into the middle
of the stream we row, and down the rapid river we glide, only making
strokes enough with the oars to guide the boat. What a headlong ride it
is! shooting past rocks and islands. I am soon filled with exhilaration
only experienced before in riding a fleet horse over the outstretched
prairie. One, two, three, four miles we go, rearing and plunging with
the waves, until we wheel to the right into a beautiful park and land on
an island, where we go into camp.
An hour or two before sunset I cross to the mainland and climb a point
of rocks where I can overlook the park and its surroundings. On the
east it is bounded by a high mountain ridge. A semicircle of naked hills
bounds it on the north, west, and south.
The broad, deep river meanders through the park, interrupted by many
wooded islands; so I name it Island Park, and decide to call the canyon
above, Whirlpool Canyon.
June 23.--We remain in camp to-day to repair our boats, which have had
hard knocks and are leaking. Two of the men go out with the barometer to
climb the cliff at the foot of Whirlpool Canyon and measure the walls;
another goes on the mountain to hunt; and Bradley and I spend the day
among the rocks, studying an interesting geologic fold and collecting
fossils. Late in the afternoon the hunter returns and brings with him a
fine, fat deer; so we give his name to the mountain--Mount Hawkins. Just
before night we move camp to the lower end of the park, floating down
the river about four miles.
PROM ECHO PAEK TO THE MOUTH OF UINTA KIVEK.
177
June 24.--Bradley and I start early to climb the mountain ridge to the
east, and find its summit to be nearly 3,000 feet above camp. It has
required some labor to scale it; but on its top, what a view! There is a
long spur running out from the Uinta Mountains toward the south, and
the river runs lengthwise through it. Coming down Lodore
powell-canyons-120.jpg
VIEW OF SIIUMOPAVI.
and Whirlpool canyons, we cut through the southern slope of th
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