A Canyon Voyage / The Narrative of the Second Powell Expedition down the Green-Colorado River from Wyoming, and the Explorations on Land, in the Years 1871 and 1872

by Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh

Andy and Captain Dodds, who had gone to the mouth of the Paria to ascertain the condition of our boats, returned May 15th, reporting the boats all right, but the caches we had left torn up by wolves and prospectors. The latter had stolen oars and other things, and gone down on a raft to be wrecked at the first rapid in Marble Canyon, where they just escaped with their lives. A settler had established himself there a short time before, the notorious John D. Lee, who was reputed to have led the massacre of the unfortunate Missourians at Mountain Meadows in 1857, and who had eluded capture all these years. He had been "cut off," nominally at least, from the Mormon Church, and had lived in the most out-of-the-way places, constantly on his guard. Our men took all our ropes and remaining materials from the caches to his cabin, where they would be safe till our arrival. We prepared for the trip eastward across the unknown country to the mouth of the Dirty Devil River, and by the 22d of May I had completed the preliminary map of the region to westward which we had just reconnoitred. Mrs. Thompson was to stay in Kanab, for Prof. decided that it would not be advisable for her to accompany him on this journey, although she was the most cheerful and resolute explorer of the whole company. A large tent was erected for her in the corner of Jacob's garden, and she was to take her meals with Sister Louisa, whose house stood close by. With Fuzz, a most intelligent dog, for a companion in her tent and the genial Sister Louisa for a near neighbour she was satisfactorily settled. Fuzz had the peculiarity of sympathising with the Navajos in their contempt for the Pai Utes. The latter roused his ire on the instant, but when a Navajo came up, with his confident step, Fuzz would lie still, with merely a roll of the eye to signify that he was on guard.

Saturday, May 25th, our caravan of riders, pack animals, and a waggon moved slowly toward Eight-Mile Spring, the first stop in prospect. I rode a brisk little horse which had received the lofty name of Aaron. When we reached Eight-Mile Spring about noon there was barely enough water for our animals and for cooking dinner, which compelled our going elsewhere to put on the finishing touches to our outfit before cutting loose from the settlements, and Prof. directed the caravan to continue to Johnson, farther east and up one of the canyons of the Vermilion Cliffs. He returned to Kanab to make some final arrangements there, while we kept on to Johnson, passing the little settlement of two or three houses, and making a camp two miles above, where the canyon bottom was wide and level. Here we went over everything to be sure that all was in good order and nothing left behind. The animals were reshod where necessary, which operation kept Andy and Dodds busy all of Sunday, the 26th. By thus making a start and proceeding a few miles all defects and neglects become apparent before it is too late to remedy them. On Monday Jack went back to Kanab with the waggon, returning toward night with George Adair. Fennemore had started with them, but he had turned back after something forgotten, and they did not know whether or not he had come on. In the morning George went off to look for him, and met him down at the settlement. He had followed on the day before, but instead of turning up the Johnson road, according to instructions, he had gone ahead on the road towards the Paria settlement. Finally concluding that he was wrong he had tried to correct his mistake by moonlight, but after a while gave it up, tied his mule, unsaddled, to a cedar, and claimed the protection of another for himself. During the night the mule chewed the bridle in two and departed for Kanab, leaving Fennemore, when daylight came, to walk some eight miles under a hot sun without water or breakfast to Johnson. He was considerably used up by this episode, and put in the remainder of the day in recuperating. The evenings were wonderfully beautiful, and looking from a height the scene was exceptionally picturesque, with the red rocks, the warm sky, the camp equipage, and the air so still that the smoke of the camp-fires rose slender and unbroken till lost in the zenith.

Early Wednesday morning Prof. rode up on his powerful buckskin-coloured horse, and with Johnson and me went over to our Point B some miles away for some bearings, while Fennemore rode in search of his abandoned saddle. By night there was nothing to interfere with our making the final start, which we did May 30th, proceeding up the canyon without Mormon, one of our strongest horses, which by an accident had been injured so badly that he had to be left behind at Johnson. He was a fractious, unruly beast, but with so great vitality that we were sorry not to have his services. He died a week or two later. Towards night we passed another very small settlement called Clarkston, and camped near it, the last houses we would see for some time. Several Pai Utes hung around, and Prof. engaged one called Tom to accompany us as interpreter and, so far as he might know the country, as guide.

The next day, after sixteen miles north-easterly up canyons, we entered about three o'clock an exceedingly beautiful little valley, with a fine spring and a small lake or pond at the lower end. George Adair instantly declared that he meant to come back here to live, and after dinner when we reconnoitred the place he staked out his claim. All the next morning, June 1st, our way led over rolling meadows covered with fine grass, but about noon this ended and we entered the broken country of the upper Paria, with gullies and gulches barren and dry the rest of the day, except two, in which we crossed small branches of the Paria. In one of the dry gulches we passed a grave, marked by a sandstone slab with E. A. cut on it, which the wolves had dug out, leaving the human bones scattered all around. We could not stop to reinter them. They were the remains of Elijah Averett, a young Mormon, who was killed while pursuing Pai Utes in 1866. Just before sunset we arrived at the banks of the Paria, where we made camp, with plenty of wood, water, and grass. Captain Dodds during the afternoon recognised a place he had been in when hunting a way the autumn before, and we followed his old trail for a time. Leaving the Paria the following day where it branches, we followed the east fork to its head, twelve miles, climbing rapidly through a narrow valley. We could plainly see on the left a high, flat, cliff-bounded summit, which was called Table Mountain, and early in the afternoon we reached a series of "hog-backs," and up one of which the old Indian trail we were now following took its precarious way. The hog-backs were narrow ridges of half-disintegrated clay-shale, with sides like the roof of a house, the trail following the sharp summit-line. Before we had fairly begun this very steep, slippery, and narrow climb, the thunder boomed and the heavens threw down upon us fierce torrents of rain, soaking everything and chilling us through and through, while making the trail like wet soap. Part way up, at one of the worst places, a pack came loose, and, slipping back, hung on the rump of the horse. There was no room for bucking it off, and there was no trouble so far as the beast of burden was concerned, for he realised fully his own danger. Two of us managed to climb along past the other animals to where he meekly stood waiting on the narrow ridge, with a descent on each side of eight hundred or nine hundred feet, and set things in order once more, when the cavalcade continued the ascent, the total amount of which was some twelve hundred feet.

Arriving at the top we found ourselves almost immediately on the edge of a delightful little valley, mossy and green with a fresh June dress, down which we proceeded two or three miles to a spring where Dodds and Jacob had made a cache of some flour the year before. The flour had disappeared. We made a camp and dried out our clothes, blankets, etc., by means of large fires. Though it was summer the air was decidedly chilly, for we were at an altitude of nearly 6000 feet. Our interpreter that was to be did not enjoy the situation and I think he dreaded meeting with the stranger Indians we might encounter. He declared he was "heap sick," and begged to be allowed to return, so Prof. gave him several days' rations and we saw him no more. There was a pretty creek in this valley flowing eastward, which Dodds said was the head of the Dirty Devil, the same stream he had followed down the year before in the attempt to find a way to bring us rations. The weather was very bad but we kept on down Potato Valley as it had been named, crossing three or four swift tributaries. About four o'clock we stopped beside a raging torrent and went into camp to reconnoitre. There were signs of some one having been here about a month before, and as the animals were shod we judged it was some prospector. The next day was so wet and Prof. was feeling so sick that we kept our camp, having made tents out of paulins and pack-covers, which gave me a chance to plot up the trail from Kanab to this point, one hundred and three miles. Instead of crossing the torrent the following day, June 5th, we went over the chief stream before the union and travelled down the right-hand side till we arrived within half a mile of the place where the river canyoned and received a tributary from the left. It cut into the rocks very abruptly and being high we could not enter the canyon as Dodds had done. While the party camped here, Prof. and Dodds rode away to the south on a dim trail to find out what move to make; how far we might be able to go down the Dirty Devil the next day. When they got back they reported finding a canyon twelve miles farther on, with many water-pockets, and concluded to go there. We arrived about noon Thursday, June 6th, making camp. Prof. and Dodds then climbed to where they could get a wide view, and Dodds pointed out the locality he had before reached when he thought himself so near the mouth of the Dirty Devil. No sooner had he done so than Prof. perceived at once that we were not on the river we thought we were on, for by this explanation he saw that the stream we were trying to descend flowed into the Colorado far to the south-west of the Unknown Mountains, whereas he knew positively that the Dirty Devil came in on the north-east. Then the question was, "What river is this?" for we had not noted a tributary of any size between the Dirty Devil and the San Juan. It was a new river whose identity had not been fathomed. This discovery put a different complexion on everything. The problem was more complicated than Dodds had imagined when he was trying to reach the mouth the year before.

Prof. declared it was impossible to proceed farther in this direction towards our goal. The canyon of the river was narrow, and with the stream swimming high it was out of the question as a path for us now, and even had we been able to go down far enough to get out on the other side, the region intervening between it and the distant mountains was a heterogeneous conglomeration of unknown mesas and canyons that appeared impassable. He concluded the only thing to do was to go north to the summit of the Wasatch cliffs and keep along the high land north-east to an angle where these slopes vanished to the north. From that point we might be able to cross to the Dirty Devil or Unknown Mountains. Once at these mountains we felt certain of finding a way to our former camp-ground at the mouth of the Dirty Devil River. We retraced our path to the foot of Potato Valley, and there Jones, Clem, and George Adair were sent out to Kanab for additional rations, it being plain that we were in for a longer effort than had been contemplated. They were to be here again in twelve days to meet Prof. with his party, on the return from starting down the Cañonita with a crew selected from the seven remaining men. This seven, which included Prof., were now to strike up a branch creek and reach the upper slopes of what he later called the Aquarius Plateau, and along its verdant slopes continue our effort to reach the Unknown Mountains. The two parties separated on Saturday, June 8th, our contingent travelling about eighteen miles nearly due north, till just at sunset we entered a high valley in which flowed two splendid creeks. There we camped with an abundance of everything needed to make a comfortable rest for man and beast. In such travel as this the beast is almost the first consideration, for without him movement is slow and difficult and distance limited. We had gone up in altitude a great deal, 1800 or 2000 feet, and the next day, which was Sunday, we continued this upward course, seeing signs of deer and elk with an occasional sight of a fat "pine hen" winging its heavy flight from tree to tree. The pines were very tall and thick, interspersed with fir and balsam as well as with the usual accompaniment of high altitude in the West, the aspen. Our aneroids indicated 10,000 feet above sea-level, and we could look down upon the vast canyoned desert to the south as on a map. Descending into a deep canyon where a clear torrent was foaming down at the rate of five hundred feet to the mile, we went up a branch and finally passing over a sudden crest discovered before us a very beautiful lake of an extent of some two hundred acres. It was now late, and though we had come only ten miles we went into camp for the night. There were several smaller lagoons nearby and we named the group the Aspen Lakes. Around them in the dense groves huge snowbanks still lingered from the heart of winter. A prettier mountain region than this could not be imagined, while the magnificent outlook to the south and east across the broken country was a bewildering sight, especially as the night enveloped it, deepening the mystery of its entangled gorges and cliffs. From every point we could see the Navajo Mountain and at least we knew what there was at the foot of its majestic northern slope. I climbed far above camp and crossing over a promontory looked down upon the nebulous region to the eastward that we were to fathom, and it seemed to me one of the most interesting sights I had ever beheld. The night was so cold that ice formed in our kettles, for our altitude in feet above sea was in the ten thousand still.

Navajo Mountain from near Kaiparowits Peak.

Photograph by J. K. Hillers, 1872.