Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico

by E. L. Kolb

Sunday, October the 29th, we remained at the same place, and by evening were both greatly benefited by the rest. On Monday morning we packed up again, leaving only the moving-picture camera out, and pictured each other, alternately, as the boats made the Plunge over the steep descent in rapid No. 23. Both boats disappeared from sight on two or three occasions in this rapid and emerged nearly filled with water.

The section just passed is credited with the greatest descent on the rivers, a fall of 75 feet in 3/4 of a mile. This includes the three rapids: Nos. 21, 22, and 23.

Proceeding on our way the canyon narrowed, going up almost sheer to a height of 2500 feet or over. Segregated spires, with castle-like tops, stood out from the upper walls. The rapids, or cataracts, compared well with those passed above, connected in some instances by swift-rushing water instead of the quiet pools which were usually found between the rapids. We ran ten rapids this day, but several of these which were counted as one were a series of two or three rapids, which might be one in high water. All had a shore on one side or the other, but caution was imperative when crossing in the swift water between the rapids. A mishap here meant destruction. We figured that we had travelled about ten miles for this day's run.

The menacing walls continued to go higher with the next day's travel, until they reached a height of 2700 feet. The left wall was so sheer that it almost seemed to overhang. The little vegetation which we had found on the lower slope gradually disappeared as the walls grew steeper, but a few scattered shrubs, sage-brush, and an occasional juniper grew on the rocky sides, or in one or two side canyons which entered from the south. These side canyons had the appearance of running back for considerable distances, but we did not explore any of them and could tell very little about them from the river.

After our noon lunch this day, in order to keep our minds from dwelling too much on the rather depressing surroundings, we proposed having a little sport. On two or three occasions we had made motion pictures from the deck of the boats as we rowed in the quiet water; here we proposed taking a picture from the boats as we went over the rapids. The two boats were fastened stern to stern, so that the rowing would be done from the first boat. My brother sat on the bow behind with the motion-picture camera in front of him, holding it down with his chin, his legs clinging to the sides of the boat, with his left hand clutching at the hatch cover, and with his right hand free to turn the crank. In this way we passed over two small rapids. After that one experience we never tried it in a large rapid. As Smith had said a few days before the boat bucked like a broncho, and Emery had a great deal of difficulty to stay with the boat, to say nothing of taking a picture. Once or twice he was nearly unseated but pluckily hung on and kept turning away at the crank when it looked as if he and the camera would be dumped into the river.

At one point in the lower end of Cataract Canyon we saw the name and date A.G. Turner, '07. Below this, close to the end of the canyon, were some ruins of cliff dwellings, and a ladder made by white men, placed against the walls below the ruins.

On reaching a very deep, narrow canyon entering from the south, locally known as Dark Canyon, we knew that we were nearing the end of the rapids in Cataract Canyon. Dark Canyon extends a great distance back into the country, heading in the mountains we had seen to the south, when we climbed out at the junction of the Green and the Grand. Pine cones and other growths entirely foreign to the growth of the desert region were found near its mouth. A flood had recently filled the bottom of this narrow canyon to a depth of several feet, but the water had settled down again and left a little stream of clear water running through the boulders. The rapid at the end of this canyon was one of the worst of the entire series, and had been the scene of more than one fatality, we had been told. It had a very difficult approach and swung against the right wall, then the water was turned abruptly to the left by a great pile of fallen boulders. The cresting waves looked more like breakers of the ocean than anything we had seen on the river.

We each had a good scare as we ran this rapid. Emery was completely hidden from my view, he was nearly strangled and blinded by the waves for a few seconds while struggling in the maelstrom; the Edith was dropped directly on top of a rock in the middle of this rapid, then lifted on the next wave. I also had a thrilling experience but avoided the rock. In the lower part of the rapid a rowlock pulled apart; and to prevent the boat from turning sideways in the rapid, I threw up my knee, holding the oar against it for a lever until I was in quieter water, and could get the other rowlock in position.

Separated from my brother in this instance, I had an opportunity to see the man and water conflict, with a perspective much as it would have appeared to a spectator happening on the scene. I was out of the heat of the battle. The excitement and indifference to danger that comes with a hand-to-hand grapple was gone. I heard the roar of the rapid; a roar so often heard that we forgot it was there. I saw the gloom of the great gorge, and the towering, sinister shafts of rock, weakened with cracks, waiting for the moment that would send them crashing to the bottom. I saw the mad, wild water hurled at the curving wall. Jagged rocks, like the bared fangs of some dream-monster, appeared now and then in the leaping, tumbling waves. Then down toward the turmoil—dwarfed to nothingness by the magnitude of the walls—sped the tiny shell-like boat, running smoothly like a racing machine! There was no rowing. The oar-blades were tipped high to avoid loss in the first comber; then the boat was buried in foam, and staggered through on the other side. It was buffeted here and there, now covered with a ton of water, now topping a ten-foot wave. Like a skilled boxer—quick of eye, and ready to seize any temporary advantage—the oarsman shot in his oars for two quick strokes, to straighten the boat with the current or dodge a threatening boulder; then covered by lifting his oars and ducking his head as a brown flood rolled over him. Time and again the manoeuvre was repeated: now here now there. One would think the chances were about one to a hundred that he would get through. But by some sort of a system, undoubtedly aided, many times, by good luck, the man and his boat won to land.

After running a small rapid, we came to another, in the centre of which was an island,—the last rapid in Cataract Canyon. While not as bad as the one at Dark Canyon it was rather difficult, and at this point we found no shore on either side. The south side was rendered impassable by great boulders, much higher than the river level, which were scattered through the channel. The opposite channel began much like the rapid at Dark Canyon, sweeping under the wall until turned by a bend and many fallen rocks below the end of the island, then crossed with a line of cresting waves to the opposite side, where it was joined by the other stream, and the left wall was swept clean in like manner. We ran it by letting our boats drop into the stream, but pulled away from the wall and kept close to the island, then when its end was reached crossed the ridge of waves and pulled for the right-hand shore. In such rapids as this we often found the line of waves in the swift-rushing centre to be several feet higher than the water along the shore.