Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico

by E. L. Kolb

Our helpers got a lot of experience in motion-picture making the next day, while we ran our boats through a number of good, strong rapids, well known locally as the Salt Creek Rapid, Granite Falls or Monument Rapid, the Hermit, the Bouchere, and others. This was all new to the boys, and provided some thrilling entertainment for them. When a difficult passage was safely made Bert would wave his hat and yell "Hoo" in a deep, long call that would carry above the roar of the rapids, then he and Ernest would follow along the shore with their cameras, as these rapids all had a shore on one side or the other. The sun shone on the river this day, and we congratulated ourselves on having made the most of our opportunities.

In our first rapid the next morning, we had to carry our passengers whether we wanted to or not. There was no shore on either side. In such plunges they would lie down on the deck of the boat behind the oarsman, holding to the raised bulkhead, ducking their heads when an oncoming wave prepared to break over them. Then they would shake themselves as a water-spaniel does, and Bert with a grin would say, "Young fellows, business is picking up!"

Ernest agreed, too, that he had never seen anything in Pittsburg that quite equalled it. If the rapid was not bad, they sat upright on the deck, but this made the boats top-heavy, and as much of the oarsman's work depended on swinging his weight from side to side, it was important that no mistake should be made about this distribution of weight. Often the bottom of a boat would show above the water as it listed to one side. At such a time a person sitting on the raised deck might get thrown overboard.

Before starting on this last trip we had thought it would be only right to give our younger brother a ride in a rapid that would be sure to give him a good ducking, as his experience was going to be short. But the water and the wind, especially in the shadows, was so very cold that we gave this plan up, and avoided the waves as much as possible. He got a ducking this morning, however, in a place where we least expected it. It was not a rapid, just smooth, very swift water, while close to the right shore there was one submerged rock with a foot of water shooting over it, in such a way that it made a "reverse whirl" as they are called in Alaska—water rolling back upstream, and from all sides as well, to fill the vacuum just below the rock. This one was about twelve feet across; the water disappeared as though it was being poured down a manhole.

The least care, or caution, would have taken me clear this place; but the smooth water was so deceptive, and was so much stronger than I had judged it to be, that I found myself caught sideways to the current, hemmed in with waves on all sides of the boat, knocked back and forth, and resisted in all my efforts to pull clear. The boat was gradually filling with the splashing water. Ernest was lying on the deck, hanging on like grim death, slipping off, first on one side, then on the other, and wondering what was going to happen. So was I. To be held up in the middle of a swift stream was a new experience, and I was not proud of it. The others passed as soon as they saw what had happened, and were waiting in an eddy below. Perhaps we were there only one minute, but it seemed like five. I helped Ernest into the cockpit. About that time the boat filled with splashing water and sunk low, the stream poured over the rock and into the boat, and she upset instantly.

Ernest had on two life-preservers, and came up about thirty feet below, swimming very well considering that he was weighted with heavy clothes and high-topped shoes. The boys pulled him in before he was carried against a threatening wall. Meanwhile, I held to the boat, which was forced out as soon as she was overturned, and climbed on top, or rather on the bottom. I was trying to make the best of things and was giving a cheer when some one said, "There goes your hatch cover and you've lost the motion-picture camera."

Perhaps I had. My cheering ceased. The camera had been hurriedly shoved down in the hatch a few minutes before.

On being towed to shore, however, we found the camera had not fallen out. It had been shoved to the side less than one inch, but that little bit had saved it. It was filled with water, though, and all the pictures were on the unfinished roll in the camera, and were ruined. We had been in the ice-cold water long enough to lose that glow which comes after a quick immersion and were chilled through; but what bothered me more than anything else was the fact that I had been caught in such a trap after successfully running the bad rapids above. We made a short run after that so as to get out of sight of the deceptive place, then proceeded to dry out. The ruined film came in handy for kindling our camp-fire.

We were now in the narrowest part of the upper portion of the Grand Canyon, the distance from rim to rim at one point being close to six miles. The width at Bright Angel varied from eight to fourteen miles. The peaks rising from the plateau, often as high as the canyon walls, and with flat tops a mile or more in width, made the canyon even narrower, so that at times we were in canyons close to a mile in depth, and little over four miles across at the tops.

In this section of the granite there were few places where one could climb out. Nearly all the lateral canyons ended quite a distance above the river, then fell sheer; the lower parts of the walls were quite often smooth-surfaced, where they were polished by the sands in the stream. The black granite in such cases resembled huge deposits of anthracite coal. Sections of the granite often projected out of the water as islands, with the softer rock washed away, the granite being curiously carved by whirling rocks and the emery-like sands. Holes three and four feet deep were worn by small whirling rocks, and grooves were worn at one place by growing willows working back and forth in the water, the sand, strange to say, having less effect on the limbs than it had on the hard rocks.