The Canyon of Brush Creek—Looking Up.
This stream enters the Green not far below foot of Split-Mountain Canyon.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
It required a good deal of work to complete the portage around the double fall so that night again compelled them to camp near its spray, this time on a sand bank at the foot of the lower descent. Here, half buried in the gravel of the beach, some objects were discovered which revealed the fact that some other party had suffered a similar disastrous experience. These were an iron bake-oven, several tin plates, fragments of a boat, and other indications of a wreck at this place long years before. In his report, Powell ascribes this wreck to Ashley, but this is a mistake, for Ashley seems never to have entered this canyon, ending his voyage, as I have previously stated, when he reached Brown’s Park. This wreckage then was from some other and later party. Powell also states that Ashley and one other survivor succeeded in reaching Salt Lake, where they were fed and clothed by the Mormons and employed on the Temple foundation until they had earned enough to enable them to leave the country. These men could not have been Ashley and a companion, for several reasons: one cited above; another that the Mormons had not yet settled at Salt Lake in Ashley’s day; and a third, that Ashley was a wealthy and distinguished man, and would not have required pecuniary help. The disaster recorded by the bake-oven, etc., must then have occurred after 1847, the year the Mormons went into the Salt Lake Valley. Possibly it may have been the party mentioned by Farnham in 1839, though this would not be true if the men found Mormons at Salt Lake. An old mountaineer, named Baker, once told Powell of a party of men starting down the river and named Ashley as one, and this story, which referred undoubtedly to the real Ashley party, became confused with some other wherein the survivors probably did strike for Salt Lake and were helped by the Mormons.[[1]] At any rate, the rapids which had wrecked the earlier party and swallowed up the No-Name were appropriately called Disaster Falls.
[1] Should any reader have knowledge of the men who were wrecked in Lodore between the time of Ashley and Powell, the author would be glad to hear of it.
The Canyon of Lodore.
Looking down on Triplet Falls. Depth about 2500 feet.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN U.S. Geol. Survey.
Echo Rock on Right, from which Echo Park Takes its Name.
To one sitting in a boat near foreground a sentence of ten words is repeated.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN.
The river descends throughout Lodore with great rapidity and every day brought with it hard work and narrow escapes. Sometimes the danger was of a novel and unexpected character, as on June 16th, when the dry willows around camp caught fire. Powell had started for a climb of investigation and looking down on the camp he perceived a sudden tremendous activity without being able for some moments to discover the cause. So rapidly did the fire spread that there was no escape except by the boats. Some had their clothing burned and their hair singed, while Bradley even had his ears scorched. The cook in his haste stumbled with his arms full of culinary utensils, and the load disappeared beneath the waters, ever on the alert to swallow up man, boat, or beast. Just below the camp was a rapid and, casting off, they were forced to run this without stopping to examine it. No harm was done to the boats, and they landed at the first opportunity. When the fire had burned out they went back along the rocks to pick up what had been left behind and was unconsumed. On the same day, as the men were in the act of lowering a boat by lines, she broke away and started on an independent run. Fortunately, she soon became entangled in an eddy, where she halted long enough to permit them to hurry down the small boat and recapture her. Sometimes the channel was beset with innumerable great rocks, amidst which the river seethed and boiled in a manner sufficient to terrify any boatmen, but, luckily, they were able to work their way cautiously along, and without further disaster they came, on the 17th of June, to a place where the walls broke away and they emerged into a beautiful park-like widening of the canyon with bounding cliffs only about 600 feet high near the river. After the continuous cliffs of from 2000 to 2500 feet this place seemed like open country. Once more they camped in a quiet place at the mouth of a river entering through a deep canyon on the left or east side. It was the Yampa, sometimes called Bear River. After a side trip of several hours up this canyon they started again on the descent and, skirting the smooth perpendicular wall which forms the west side of Echo Park, they turned a corner and found themselves in a new gorge, which, on account of many whirlpools existing at that stage of water, was called Whirlpool Canyon. The run through this was accomplished with great rapidity, as there were no serious obstacles, and in two days the expedition emerged into another expansion of the walls, where the tired men had a brief respite before they perceived the rocks, again closing in on the water.