Canyon of Lodore at Triplet Falls.
Cliffs about 2500 feet. River about 300 feet wide.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
Here a stop was made for several days, and one evening some of us took a boat and went up the Yampa a little distance. The walls were vertical and high, and the shadows thrown by the cliffs as we floated along their base were fairly luminous, so bright was the moon. A song burst from the rowers and was echoed from wall to wall till lost in the silence of the night-enveloped wilderness. Nothing could have been more beautiful, and the tranquillity was a joy to us after the days of turmoil in Lodore.
CHAPTER XI.
An Island Park and a Split Mountain—The White River Runaways—Powell Goes to Salt Lake—Failure to Get Rations to the Dirty Devil—On the Rocks in Desolation—Natural Windows—An Ancient House—On the Back of the Dragon at Last—Cataracts and Cataracts in the Wonderful Cataract Canyon—A Lost Pack-Train—Naming the Echo Peaks.
With one of the boats from the camp in Echo Park Powell went up the Yampa to see what might be there. Though this stream was tranquil at its mouth, it proved to be rough farther up, and the party, in the four days they were gone, were half worn out, coming back ragged, gaunt, and ravenous, having run short of food. The Monday following their return, our boats were again carefully packed, life-preservers were inflated, and we went forth once more to the combat with the rapids. A few minutes’ rowing carried us to the end of Echo Rock, which is a narrow tongue of sandstone, about half a mile long and five hundred or six hundred yards thick, and turning the bend we entered Whirlpool Canyon; the cliffs, as soon as the other side of Echo Rock was passed, shooting up into the air and enfolding us again in a canyon embrace. The depth was quickly a couple of thousand feet with walls very close together till, in three or four miles, we came to a violent rapid. A landing was easily made and the boats lowered by lines. Below this the canyon was much wider, and the rapids were not difficult. By the time the camping hour came, we had put behind seven miles with five rapids and the extra bad one where the boats were lowered. No whirlpools were encountered, the stage of water not being favourable for them. As previously noted, every stage of water produces different conditions, so that the navigator on this river can never be certain of what he will find. Our course through Whirlpool was neither difficult nor dangerous, as we were able to make landings at the few bad places and ran the rest of the rapids without damage of any kind. Only one camp was made in this beautiful gorge, and there we slept, or tried to sleep, for two nights. Myriads of ants swarmed over the spot and made every hour more or less of a torment. They extended their investigations into every article brought out of the boats. During the whole time their armies marched and countermarched over, around, and through ourselves and everything we possessed. We saw a number of mountain sheep in this canyon, but owing to the quickness of the sheep, and the difficulty of pursuing them over the wild cliffs, which they seemed to know well, we were unable to bring any down.
