By 7.30 in the morning of August 7th we were again on our way towards the depths ahead, between walls of rapidly increasing altitude showing that we were cutting into some great rock structure. Here and there we came to shoals that compelled us to get overboard and wade alongside lifting the boats at times. As these shoals had the peculiarity of beginning gradually and ending very abruptly we got some unexpected plunge baths during this kind of progression. But the air was hot, the thermometer being about 90° F., and being soaked through was not uncomfortable. At one place Prof. succeeded in shooting a beaver which was near the bank and it was secured before it could get to its hole, being badly wounded. Steward caught it around the middle from behind and threw it into the boat—he had jumped into the water—and there it was finished with an oar. It measured three feet from tip to tip. We had heard a good deal about beaver as food and would now have a chance to try it. About eleven o'clock, we stopped for examinations and for dinner on the right but, of course, could not yet cook the beaver. Prof., Steward, and Cap. climbed to the top of a butte 1050 feet above the river upon which they found a small monument left there by the Major on the former trip. Though this butte was so high the average of the walls was only about five hundred feet. We made seventeen miles this day.
That night our camp (No. 35) was again on an island. There Cap. skinned and dressed the beaver and turned over the edible portions to Andy who cooked some steak for breakfast the next morning. It tasted something like beef, but we were not enthusiastic for I fear this beaver belonged to the same geological epoch as the goose we had cooked at the upper end of the valley. Fortified by the beaver steak we pushed off and ran about a mile on a smooth river when a stop was made for pictures and geologising. This consumed the whole morning, a fact Andy took advantage of to make some beaver soup for dinner. This concoction was voted not a success and we turned to bacon and beans as preferable thereafter. Opposite this dinner place was a rough lateral canyon full of turrets and minarets which had the remarkable property of twice distinctly repeating a shout as loud as the original, and multiplying a rifle shot to peals of thunder. There had been people here before any white men, for Steward found an artificial wall across an indentation of the cliff, the first work of the ancient builders we had encountered. It was mysterious at the time, the South-western ruins having then not been discovered with one or two exceptions. We ascribed this wall, however, to the ancestors of the Moki (Hopi).
In the afternoon as we pulled along we came to a small rapid and the walls by this time being closer together and growing constantly higher, we knew that we were now fairly within the Canyon of Desolation and for about one hundred miles would have a rough river. Not more than two miles below our dinner camp we reached a locality where the stream doubled back on itself forming a vast and beautiful amphitheatre. We could not pass this by without taking a picture of it and Beaman was soon at work with his apparatus while I got out my pencils. The photograph did not turn out well, and Prof. determined to remain till the next day. Our camp was on the left in a thick grove of cottonwoods, and box-elders or ash-leaved maples, at the end of the point. As the sun sank away bats flew about and an insect orchestra began a demoniacal concert that shrilled through the night and made us feel like slaughtering the myriads if we could. The noises ceased with the day, or most of them, though some seemed to intensify with the light. We helped Beaman get his dark box and other paraphernalia up to the summit of the ridge back of camp, which was easy so far as climbing was concerned, the rocks rising by a series of shelves or steps. I made several pencil sketches there, which I have never seen since the close of the expedition. The crest of the promontory was about forty yards wide at its maximum and three yards at the minimum, with a length of three-fourths of a mile. From the middle ridge one could look down into the river on both sides, and it seemed as if a stone could almost be thrown into each from one standpoint. The opposite amphitheatre was perhaps one thousand feet high, beautifully carved by the rains and winds. It was named Sumner's Amphitheatre after Jack Sumner of the first expedition. Several of our men climbed in different directions, but all did not succeed in getting out. The day turned out very cloudy with sprinkles of rain and Prof. decided to wait still longer to see if Beaman could get a good photograph, and we had another night of insect opera. The next day by noon the photographer had caught the scene and we continued our descending way. The river was perfectly smooth, except a small rapid late in the day, with walls on both sides steadily increasing their altitude. Desolation in its beginning is exactly the reverse of Lodore and Split Mountain. In the latter the entrance could hardly be more sudden, whereas the Canyon of Desolation pushes its rock walls around one so diplomatically that it is some little time before the traveller realises that he is caught. The walls were ragged, barren, and dreary, yet majestic. We missed the numerous trees which in the upper canyons had been so ornamental wherever they could find a footing on the rocks. Here there were only low shrubs as a rule and these mainly along the immediate edge of the water, though high up on north slopes pines began to appear. Altitude, latitude, and aridity combine to modify vegetation so that in an arid region one notices extraordinary changes often in a single locality. The walls still had the tendency to break into turrets and towers, and opposite our next camp a pinnacle stood detached from the wall on a shelf high above the water suggesting a beacon and it was named Lighthouse Rock. Prof. with Steward and Cap. in the morning, August 11th, climbed out to study the contiguous region which was found to be not a mountain range but a bleak and desolate plateau through which we were cutting along Green River toward a still higher portion. This was afterwards named the Tavaputs Plateau, East and West divisions, the river being the line of separation.
The walls now began to take on a vertical character rising above the water 1200 to 1800 feet, and at that height they were about a quarter of a mile apart. From their edges they broke back irregularly to a separation as nearly as could be determined of from three to five miles, the extreme summit being 2500 feet above the river.
Steward.
Canyon of Desolation.
Photograph by E. O. Beaman, 1871.
While waiting for Prof. to come down from the cliffs, Beaman made some photographs and then two boats dropped down a quarter of a mile where he made some more and Andy got dinner. I remained with the Nell and about eleven o'clock the climbers came. We went down on the boat to the noon camp, and as soon as we had refreshed the inner man we proceeded thinking it about time for rapids to appear. We had not gone far before we distinguished a familiar roar just preceding the turn of a bend which disclosed three lying within half a mile. They were not bad but the river was wide and shallow, making the descent more difficult than it would ordinarily have been. The river was now approaching its lowest stage, and we saw an uncomfortable looking lot of rocks. High water makes easy going but increases the risk of disaster; low water makes hard work, batters the boats, and delays progress, but as a rule it is less risky. All the boats cleared the first rapid without any difficulty, but in the second the Nell struck a sunken rock, though lightly, while our boat landed squarely on the top of a large boulder partially submerged, where we hung fast with the water boiling furiously around and almost coming over the sides. I tried to get out over the port bow but the current drew me under the boat and I had to get back. Jack concluded we were only fast by the extreme end of the keel and Jones coming forward Jack slid cautiously out over the stern and felt around with his feet till he touched the rock and put his weight on it. Thus relieved, the boat lifted slightly and shot away like an arrow but not before Jack leaped on again. As soon as we could we made land and watched the Cañonita which fared still worse. She struck so hard that two of the after ribs and some planks were stove in. They then extricated her and pulling her up on the rocky shore we went to work to repair with cleats made from a broken oar. This delayed us an hour and a half. Then saws and hammers were stowed away and the third rapid was run without a mishap. It was only the low stage of water that caused the trouble. A little farther on a fourth rapid was vanquished and we went into camp on the left bank in a cottonwood grove at the head of another. "If the rocks, they don't sthop us," sang Jack, "We will cross to Killiloo, whacky-whay!" And there were plenty of rocks in the midst of foaming waters, but one great advantage of low water is the decreased velocity, and velocity on a river like this with so heavy and constant a fall is one of the chief factors to reckon with in navigation.