The Grand Canyon.
Running the Sockdologer.
From a sketch afterwards by F. S. Dellenbaugh.
My back being towards the fall I could not see it, for I could not turn round while waiting every instant for orders. Nearer and nearer came the angry tumult; the Major shouted "Back water!" there was a sudden dropping away of all support; then the mighty waves smote us. The boat rose to them well, but we were flying at twenty-five miles an hour and at every leap the breakers rolled over us. "Bail!" shouted the Major,—"Bail for your lives!" and we dropped the oars to bail, though bailing was almost useless. The oars could not get away, for they had rawhide rings nailed around near the handle to prevent them from slipping through the rowlocks. The boat rolled and pitched like a ship in a tornado, and as she flew along Jack and I, who faced backwards, could look up under the canopies of foam pouring over gigantic black boulders, first on one side, then on the other. Why we did not land on top of one of these and turn over I don't know, unless it might be that the very fury of the current causes a recoil. However that may be, we struck nothing but the waves, the boats riding finely and certainly leaping at times almost half their length out of water, to bury themselves quite as far at the next lunge. If you will take a watch and count by it ninety seconds, you will probably have about the time we were in this chaos, though it seemed much longer to me. Then we were through, and immediately took advantage of an eddy on one side to lie to and bail out, for the boat was full of water. Setting her to rights as quickly as we could, we got ready to make a dash for the crew of the Cañonita in case she fared worse than we did. We looked anxiously for her to appear, and presently, at the top of what seemed to us now to be a straight wall of foam, her small white bulk hung for an instant and then vanished from our sight in the mad flood. Soon appearing at the bottom uninjured, she ran in to where we were waiting. The Cañonita, being lighter than our boat, did not ship as much water as in some other places, and altogether we agreed that notwithstanding its great descent and furious aspect the passage was not more difficult than we had made in several previous rapids.
Continuing on down the narrow and gloomy granite gorge, we encountered about a mile farther down a singular rapid, which turned the Cañonita completely around. About four o'clock we found ourselves before another tremendous fall, and a very ugly one. Landing on the left, we discovered that to be the wrong side, and crossed over to a little cove where there was a patch of gravel, surrounded by vertical walls, the crossing being easily made because the water seemed to slacken before the plunge. We did not intend to run the place if it could be avoided, and the south side gave no opportunity whatever for a portage, while the north side offered no very easy course. Prof. declared this to be one of the worst rapids we had seen, and we were now about two hundred feet above the head of it, with the vertical cliffs between. Immediately at the beginning of the drop on the same side that we were on was a pile of boulders, and our plan was to engineer the boats by lines from where we had landed down to these rocks, from which we believed we could work around over the rocks into an alcove there was there, and thence go down till we reached the lower part of the descent, through which we could navigate. Consequently several of the men entered one boat, and we lowered her from the stern of the second as far as her line would reach, and then lowered the second till the first lodged in the rocks at the desired point at the head of the fall. Then, pulling up the second boat, we who had remained got on board, and by clinging to the projections of the wall, the current close in being quite slow, we succeeded in arriving alongside the first boat. The next thing was to get around into the alcove. The sky above was heavy and rain began to come down steadily, making the dark granite blacker and intensifying the gloomy character of the locality. By hard work we finally got our boats across the rocks and down about two hundred feet farther into a cove, where they rested easily. Up to this time we had made in all, during the day, seven and one-quarter miles. As night was now dropping fast we had to make camp on a pile of broken granite, where a close search yielded an armful or two of small pieces of driftwood, all wet. Under a rock several dry sticks were discovered, and by their aid a fire soon blazed up by which the indomitable Andy proceeded to get supper. There was no use changing wet clothes for dry ones from the rubber bags as long as the rain fell, and it increased till water was dashing off the walls in streams. The thunder roared and crashed as if it were knocking the cliffs about to rearrange them all, and a deluge swept down in which Andy's struggling little fire died with hardly a sputter. The only thing remaining for us to do was to all stand with our backs against the foot of the wall, which was still warm from the day, and wait for something else to happen. The bread-pan seen through the dim and dismal light was a tempestuous lake, with an island of dough in it, while Andy the undaunted stood grimly gazing at it, the rain dribbling from his hat and shoulders till he resembled the fabled ferryman of the River Styx. The situation was so ludicrous that every one laughed, and the Weather God finding that we were not downcast slackened the downpour immediately. Then we put some oars against the wall and stretched a paulin to protect our noble chef, who finally got the wet firewood once more ignited, and succeeded in getting the bread almost baked and the coffee nearly hot and some dried peaches almost stewed. The rain ceasing, we hurriedly donned dry clothes and applied ourselves to the destruction of these viands, which tasted better than might be imagined. Each man then took his blankets, and, selecting rocks that in his judgment were the softest, he went to sleep.
There was another alcove about three hundred yards below our camp, and in the morning, Friday, August 30th, we proceeded to work our way down to this, several men clambering along a ledge about 150 feet above the water with the line, while I remained each time in the boat below with an oar to keep the bow in against the wall, so that she could not take the current on the wrong side—that is, on the side next to the wall—and cut out into the river. In this way we got both boats down to the alcove, whence we intended to pull out into the current and run the lower portion of the rapid. It was only noon when we reached the place, but then we discovered that both boats had been so pounded that they badly needed repairs—in fact, it was imperative to halt there for this purpose,—and we hauled them out on a patch of broken rocks, thirty or forty feet square, filling the curve of the alcove and bounded by vertical rocks and the river. While at work on them we happened to notice that the river was rapidly rising, and, setting a mark, the rate was found to be three feet an hour. The rocks on which we were standing and where all the cargo was lying were being submerged. We looked around for some way to get up the cliff, as it was now too late to think of leaving. About fifteen feet above the top of the rocks on which we were working there was a shelf five or six feet wide, to which some of the men climbed, and we passed up every article to them. When the repairs were done darkness was filling the great gorge. By means of lines from above and much hard lifting we succeeded in raising the boats up the side of the cliff, till they were four or five feet above the highest rocks of the patch on which we stood. This insured their safety for the time being, and if the river mounted to them we intended to haul them still higher. The next thing was to find a place to sleep. By walking out on a ledge from the shelf where our goods were we could turn a jutting point above the rushing river by clinging closely to the rocks, and walk back on a shelf on the other side to a considerable area of finely broken rocks, thirty feet above the torrent, where there was room enough for a camp. Rain fell at intervals, and the situation was decidedly unpromising. While Andy and the others were getting the cook outfit and rations around the point, I climbed the cliffs hunting for wood. I found small pieces of driftwood lodged behind mesquite bushes fully one hundred feet above the prevailing stage of water. I collected quite an armful of half-dead mesquite, which has the advantage of being so compact that it makes a fire hot as coal, and little is needed to cook by. Supper was not long in being despatched, and then, every man feeling about worn out, we put on dry clothes, the rain having ceased, and went to sleep on the rocks. Before doing so we climbed back to examine the boats, and found the river was not coming up farther, though it had almost completely covered the rocks.
Saturday, the 21st of August, 1872, was about the gloomiest morning I ever saw. Rain was falling, the clouds hung low over our heads like a lid to the box-like chasm in the black, funereal granite enclosing us, while the roar of the big rapid seemed to be intensified. We felt like rats in a trap. Eating breakfast as quickly as possible, we got everything together again on the shelf and lowered the boats. Though the river was not rising, it beat and surged into the cove in a way that made the boats jump and bounce the moment they touched the water. To prevent their being broken by pounding, one man at each steadied them while the others passed down the sacks and instrument boxes. Then it was seen that either a new leak had sprung in the Dean amidships or a hole had not been caulked, for a stream as wide as two fingers was spurting into the middle cabin. To repair her now meant hauling both boats back against the side of the cliff and spending another day in this trap, with the chance of the river rising much higher before night so that we might not be able to get away at all—at least not for days. For an instant the Major thought of pulling the boats out again, but as his quick judgment reviewed the conditions he exclaimed, "By God, we'll start! Load up!" It was the rarest thing for him to use an oath, and I remember only one other occasion when he did so—in Marble Canyon when he thought we were going to smash. We threw the things in as fast as we could, jammed a bag of flour against the leak in the Dean, battened down the hatches, threw our rifles into the bottom of the standing rooms where the water and sand washed unheeded over them, and jumped to our oars. The crew of the Cañonita held our stern till the bow swung out into the river, and then at the signal Jack and I laid to with all our strength—to shoot clear of an enormous rock about fifty feet below against which the fierce current was dashing. The Dean was so nearly water-logged that she was sluggish in responding to the oars, but we swept past the rock safely and rolled along down the river in the tail of the rapid with barely an inch of gunwale to spare,—in fact I thought the boat might sink. As soon as we saw a narrow talus on the right we ran in and landed.
When the Cañonita was ready to start one of Clem's oars could not be found, and Prof. had to delay to cut down one of the extras for him. Then they got their boat up as far as they could, and while Prof. and Andy kept her from pounding to pieces, Clem got in, bailed out, and took his oars. Prof. then climbed in at the stern, but the current was so strong that it pulled Andy off his feet and he was just able to get on, the boat drifting down stern first toward the big rock. Prof. concluded to let the stern strike and then try to throw the boat around into the river. By this time Andy had got hold of his oars, and the eddy seemed to carry them up-stream some twenty-five feet, so perverse and capricious is the Colorado. They swung the bow to starboard into the main current, and with a couple of strong oar-strokes the dreaded rock was cleared, and down the Cañonita came to us over the long waves like a hunted deer. We unloaded the Dean and pulled her out for repairs, but it was after four o'clock when we were able to go on again with a fairly tight boat. Then for eight miles the river was a continuous rapid broken by eight heavy falls, but luckily there were no rocks in any of them at this stage of water, and we were able to dash through one after another at top speed, stopping only once for examination. Two of these rapids were portages on the former trip, proving the ease and advantage of high water in some places; but the disadvantages are much greater. Through a very narrow canyon on the right we caught a glimpse of a pretty creek, but we were going so fast the view was brief and imperfect. At 5:15 o'clock we ran up to a wide sandbank on which grew a solitary willow tree and there Camp 99 was made. For a space the inner canyon was much wider than above and the mouth of Bright Angel Creek was just below us; a locality now well known because a trail from the Hotel Tovar on the south rim comes down at this point. The name was applied by the Major on his first trip to offset the name Dirty Devil applied farther up.
The Grand Canyon.