From our noon camp in a grove of cottonwoods opposite the mouth of Vermilion River, we could plainly see the great portal a mile or two away, the Gate of Lodore, where all this tranquillity would end, for the river cuts straight into the heart of the mountains forming one of the finest canyons of the series where the water comes down as Southey described it at Lodore, and the Major gave it that name. Before night we were at the very entrance and made our camp there in a grove of box-elders. Every man was looking forward to this canyon with some dread and before losing ourselves within its depths we expected to enjoy the letters from home which Mr. Harrell was to bring back from the railway for us. Myriads of mosquitoes gave us something else to think of, for they were exceedingly ferocious and persistent, driving us to a high bluff where a smudge was built to fight them off. We were nearly devoured. I fared best, a friend having given me a net for my head, and this, with buckskin gloves on my hands enabled me to exist with some comfort. The mountains rose abruptly just beyond our camp, and the river cleaved the solid mass at one stroke, forming the extraordinary and magnificent portal we named the "Gate of Lodore," one of the most striking entrances of a river into mountains to be found in all the world. It is visible for miles. Prof. climbed the left side of the Gate and also took observations for time.
I was sent back to the valley to make some sketches and also to accompany Steward on a geological tramp. We had an uncomfortable experience because of the excessive heat and aridity. I learned several things about mountaineering that I never forgot, one of which was to always thoroughly note and mark a place where anything is left to be picked up on a return, for, leaving our haversack under a cedar it eluded all search till the next day, and meanwhile we were compelled to go to the river two or three miles away for water. We had a rubber poncho and a blanket. Using the rubber for a mattress and the blanket for a covering we passed the night, starting early for the mountains, where at last we found our food bag. After eating a biscuit we went back to the river and made tea and toasted some beef on the end of a ramrod, when we struck for the main camp, arriving at dinner-time.
The Gate of Lodore seemed naturally the beginning of a new stage in our voyage to which we turned with some anxiety, for it was in the gorge now before us that on the first trip a boat had been irretrievably smashed. We were now 130 miles by river from the Union Pacific Railway crossing, and in this distance we had descended 700 feet in altitude, more than 400 feet of it in Red Canyon. Lodore was said to have an even greater declivity.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] Three points on Green River below the Union Pacific crossing had been determined by previous explorers, the mouth of Henry's Fork, the mouth of the Uinta, and Gunnison Crossing.
[6] I do not know the number of men composing this party.