This morning was Sunday, and the sun shone into the canyon with dazzling brilliancy, all being tranquil except the foaming rapid. The locality was so fascinating that we lingered to explore, finding especial interest in a delightful grotto carved out of the red sandstone by the waters of a small brook. The entrance was narrow, barely 20 feet, a mere cleft in the beginning, but as one proceeded up it between walls 1500 feet high, the cleft widened, till at 15 rods it ended in an amphitheatre 100 feet in diameter, with a domed top. Clear, cold water trickled and dropped in thousands of diamond-like globules from everything. Mosses and ferns filled all the crevices adding a brilliant green to the picture, while far up overhead a little ribbon of blue sky could be seen; and, beyond the mouth, the yellow river. It was an exquisite scene. At the request of Steward, it's discoverer, it was named after his little daughter, "Winnie's Grotto." So charming was it here that we did not get off till ten o'clock, Beaman meanwhile taking several views.
It was decided to run the rapid, for there was a comparatively straight channel about ten feet wide, and it was only a question of steering right. As our boat was to take it first the other crews came to a point where they could watch us to advantage and profit by our experience. Sticks, as usual, had been thrown in to determine the trend of the main current which must always be considered in dealing with any rapid. If it dashes against a cliff below, means must be found to cut across before reaching that point. On the other hand, if the main current has a comparatively clear chute, running through is not a difficult matter as in the present case. We pulled up-stream a short distance before putting out into the middle. Then we took the rapid as squarely as possible. We saw that we would have to go sharply to the left to avoid one line of rocks, and then to the right to clear another, both of which actions were successfully accomplished. Then we waited below for the others. They had no trouble either, and the three boats sped on and on into the greater depths beyond where wilder waters were foaming.
All rapids have "tails" of waves tapering out below, that is the waves grow smaller as they increase the distance from the initial wave. These waves are the reverse of sea waves, the form remaining in practically one place while the water flies through. In many rapids there is an eddy on each side of this tail in which a current runs up-river with great force. If a boat is caught in this eddy it may be carried a second time through a part of the rapid. We soon arrived at another rapid in which this very thing happened to our boat. We were caught by the eddy and carried up-stream to be launched directly into the path of the Nell, which had started down. Prof. skilfully threw his boat to one side and succeeded in avoiding a collision. Nothing could be done with our boat but to let her go where she would for the moment. We then ran two other rapids, rough ones too, but there was no trouble in them for any of the boats. The velocity at this stage of water was astonishing, and the opportunities to land in quiet water between the rapids now were few.
Canyon of Lodore.
Low Water.
Photograph by J. K. Hillers, 1874.
About dinner-time as we emerged at high speed from one rapid we saw immediately below lying in ominous shadow, another. It had a forbidding look. In Red Canyon owing to the east-and-west trend the sun fell to the bottom for many more hours than in Lodore which has a north-and-south trend. Hence here even at high noon, one side or the other might be in deep shadow. In this particular case it was the left wall which came down very straight to the river, the outside of a bend. Opposite was a rocky, wooded point. Between these the rapid swept down. There was no slack water separating the end of the rapid we left from the beginning of this one so obscurely situated. Landing was no easy task at the speed with which we were flying, but it would not do to try to run the rapid without an examination. The only possible place to stop was on the right where there was a cove with a little strip of beach, and we headed for it instantly, pulling with every muscle. Yet we continued going on down at railway speed. When at last we arrived within a few feet of the bank the problem was how to stop. The water appeared shallow, though we could not see bottom on account of its murky character, and there was only one course, which was to jump out and make anchors of our legs. As we did so we sank to our waists and were pulled along for a moment but our feet, braced against the large rocks on the bottom, served the purpose and the momentum was overcome. Once the velocity was gone it was easy to get the boat to the beach, and she was tied there just in time to allow us to rush to the help of the Nell.[7] Scarcely had the Nell been tied up than the Cañonita came darting for the same spot like a locomotive. With the force on hand she was easily controlled, and the fact that she carried the cook outfit as well as the cook added to our joy at having her so speedily on the beach. Andy went to work immediately to build a fire and prepare dinner while the rest overhauled the boats, took observations, plotted notes, or did other necessary things, and the Major and Prof. went down to take a close look at the rapid which had caused us such sudden and violent exertion. They reported a clear channel in the middle, and when we continued after dinner, we went through easily and safely, as of course we could have done in the first place if the Major had been willing to take an unknown risk. But in the shadow the fall might have been almost anything and it would have been foolhardy to run it without examination, even though we found it so hard to stop. Below the rapid that had halted us so abruptly there was nothing for about a mile but easy running, when we stopped in a cove to examine another rapid. Prof. here started up eleven mountain sheep, but by the time he had come back to the boats for a gun they were beyond reach. Though this rapid could be easily run, there was just below it only a short distance the fall where the No-Name was wrecked on the first trip, and we would have to be cautious, for the approach to that fall we knew was treacherous.
The river comes at this point from the east, bends south, then west, and it is just at the western bend that the steep rush of the big fall begins and continues for three-quarters of a mile. On the right the waters beat fiercely against the foot of the perpendicular wall, while on the left they are confined by a rocky point, the end of which is composed of enormous blocks. The space for the stream between this point and the opposite cliff is narrow, while the river above it spreads rather wide with a deep bay on the left where there is quiet water. This bay is protected a quarter of a mile up by a jutting point, and is merely back water. Just off the point the whole river suddenly becomes saucer-like, and quite smooth, with all the currents drawing strongly in from every direction and pouring toward and over the falls. An object once within the grip of this "sag," as we called it, is obliged to pass over the falls. The situation is peculiar and it occurs nowhere else on the whole river. Not being understood on the first voyage one of the boats, the No-Name, was trapped, driven over the falls, and broken to fragments, though the men were rescued below. The disaster was the cause of some unpleasantness on that voyage, the men blaming the Major for not signalling properly and he blaming them for not landing quickly when he signalled.
We were on the lookout for it and the Major having the wreck to emphasise the peculiarities of the "sag" desired to have every boat turn the point at the correct moment. Ours ran through the preliminary rapid easily and we dropped cautiously down upon our great enemy, hugging the left bank as closely as we could to reach the jutting point around which the boat must pass to arrive in the safe waters of the bay. We turned the point with no difficulty, and proceeded a distance across the bay where we landed on a beach to watch for the other boats, the steersmen having been informed as to the precariousness of the locality. Nevertheless it was so deceptive that when the Nell came in sight she was not close enough to the left shore for safety. The Major signalled vigorously with his hat, and Prof. took the warning instantly and turned in, but when the Cañonita appeared we saw at once that she was altogether too far out and for some seconds we stood almost petrified while the Major again signalled with all his might. It seemed an even chance; then she gained on the current and finally reached good water whence she came to our position. Beaman had been a pilot on the Great Lakes and was expert with a steering-oar, and probably for that reason he was somewhat careless. There was hardly an excuse in this instance for a boat not to take the proper course for the experience of the No-Name told the whole story, yet the place is so peculiar and unusual that one even forewarned may fail. Across the bay pulling was safe and we ran to a beach very close to the head of the falls where we made our camp, the sun now being low and the huge cliffs casting a profound and sombre shadow into the bottom. It was a wild, a fierce, an impressive situation. The unending heavy roar of the tumbling river, the difficulty if not impossibility of turning back even if such a thing had been desired, the equal difficulty if not impossibility of scaling the walls that stood more than 2000 feet above us, and the general sublimity of the entire surroundings, rendered our position to my mind intensely dramatic. Two years before, on this identical spot the Major had camped with the loss of one of his boats bearing heavily on his mind, though his magnificent will, his cheerful self-reliance, and his unconquerable determination to dominate any situation gave him power and allied him to the river itself. The place practically chose its own name, Disaster Falls, and it was so recorded by the topographers.