The Romance of the Colorado River / The Story of its Discovery in 1840, with an Account of the Later Explorations, and with Special Reference to the Voyages of Powell through the Line of the Great Canyons

by Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh

Head of Cataract Canyon, Looking down from Top of Walls near the Junction of the Grand and Green.
Depth, 1300 feet.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.

The supplies were now gone over and carefully and evenly divided, so that an accident to one boat should not cripple us any more than possible, and on Tuesday, the 19th of September, our bows were headed down the Colorado. A few miles below the Junction, a trail was seen coming down a canyon on the left, showing that the Utes have always known how to find the place. If Macomb had been properly guided he could have reached it. The familiar roar of rapids soon came to our ears, and thenceforth there was no respite from them. The first was so ugly that the boats were lowered by lines, the second was much the same, and then we reached a third which was even worse. The water was now growing cold, and as one’s clothes are always wet when running rapids or portaging on the Colorado, we felt the effects of the deep shadows, combined with the cold drenchings. Our dinners were quickly prepared, for we were on allowance and Andy was not bothered with trying to satisfy our appetites; he cooked as much as directed, and if there were hungry men around it was not his fault. We all felt that short rations were so much ahead of nothing that there was no grumbling. The volume of water was now nearly double what it had been on the Green, and the force of the rapids was greatly augmented. Huge boulders on the bottom, which the Green would have turned over only once or twice, here were rolled along, when they started, for many yards sensible to not the eye but to the ear. This was a distinct feature of Cataract Canyon and shows the declivity to be very great and the boulders to be well worn. The declivity for a few miles is greater than in Lodore, perhaps the greatest on the river. Sometimes in Cataract the rumble of these boulders was mistaken for distant thunder. At one rapid I remember that a rock many feet square was swaying from the current. After dinner, the boats were lowered over the rapid, fall, cataract, or whatever it might be called, before which we had paused, and then in short order over four more tremendous ones. When we had run a fifth, in which we received a violent shaking-up, we went into camp on the left bank at the head of another roarer, or pair of them, and hastened to throw off our saturated clothes and put on the dry from out the friendly rubber sacks. I never before understood the comfort of being dry. The topographers recorded a good day’s work: nine miles and eight powerful cataracts. Cataract, we decided was the proper name for these plunges, for though they were by no means vertical, they were more violent than what is ordinarily called a rapid. This was one part of the canyons where White, in his imaginary journey, found an easy passage! The next day Powell took me with him on a climb to the top. We had little trouble in getting out. On the way back the Major’s cut-off arm was on the rock side of a gulch we had followed up, and I found it necessary, two or three times, to place myself where he could step on my knee, as his stump had a tendency to throw him off his balance. Had he fallen at these points the drop would have been four hundred or five hundred feet. I mention this to show how he never permitted his one-armed condition to interfere with his doing things. The walls here were eighteen hundred feet, a gain of three hundred feet over the Junction. While we were away the men below had lowered the boats over two rapids, in one of which the Nell broke loose and went down alone with her cargo on board. As good fortune will have it, there is frequently an eddy or two at the foot of a rapid and into one of these she ran. By a desperate exertion of Hillers in swimming she was regained.

Side Canyon of Cataract Canyon.
1500 feet deep—20 feet wide at bottom, 300 feet at top.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.

A boat must never be allowed to move without men aboard or lines attached. This would seem to go without saying, but for fear it does not I mention it for the sake of any who may want to try their skill at this work. In the morning there was a pleasant smooth stretch for some distance, but it was soon passed, and cataract followed cataract till we counted ten. Seven we ran with exhilarating speed; the other three demanding more respectful treatment, we lowered the boats by lines, when the noon hour was at hand and a halt was made for refreshments, five miles from the starting-point of the morning. As soon as we had consumed the allowance of bread, bacon, and coffee, we took up our task by making two very difficult and tiring let-downs; that is, manoeuvring the boats in and out, among and over, the rocks alongshore by lines, with one or two men aboard, always on the lookout to prevent being caught by outer currents. This brought us face to face with a furious fall, but one that seemed free from obstructions, and the order was to run it. Accordingly, over we went, the boats shipping the great seas below and each one tapping the keel on a submerged rock at the start. Owing to the trend of the canyon, and the lateness of the season, the sun now passed early from sight, the walls throwing the bottom of the gorge into deep shadow with a wintry chill that was quickly perceptible to us in our wet clothing. The result was that our teeth chattered in spite of all we could do to stop the uncomfortable performance, and our lips turned blue. To be soaked all day long near the end of September, in our climate, is not an agreeable condition. Though less than seven miles was made this day we were forced to stop when the shadow fell and make a camp at the first opportunity. It was only half-past three o’clock, but it had been sunset to us for half an hour. Thus each working day was sadly shortened, for even where the bends were most favourable, the warm sun shone upon us only for the middle hours. The walls were close together and very straight; they grew higher and more threatening with every mile of progress, so that it seemed as if another day or two would shut out the sun from the bottom altogether. On account of our limited larder, if for no other reason, we were obliged to push ahead as rapidly as possible. The next day we were at it early, easily running the first cataract, but just below it an immediate landing was imperative at the head of another which no man in his senses would think of running. Some hard work put us below that, and then came one far worse. The morning was gone before we saw its foam receding behind us. The following day, on summing up, after much severe toil, and stopping to repair boats, it was found that we had gone only a mile and a half! At this rate, we thought, when would we see the end of this gorge? But in the morning our wet clothes were put on without a murmur from any one, and once more we renewed the attack. The worst fall the next day was a drop of about twenty feet in twenty yards; a sharp plunge of the river in one mass. As it seemed free from rocks in the middle a run was decided on. We therefore pulled squarely into it. On both sides the river was beaten to solid foam amongst the rocks, but in the middle, where we were, there was a clean chute, followed by a long tail of ugly waves. We were entirely successful, though the waves broke over my head till they almost took my breath away. The walls reached a height of twenty-five hundred feet, seeming to us almost perpendicular on both sides. It was the narrowest deep chasm we had yet seen, and beneath these majestic cliffs we ourselves appeared mere pigmies, creeping about with our feeble strength to overcome the tremendous difficulties. The loud reverberation of the roaring water, the rugged rocks, the toppling walls, the narrow sky, all combined to make this a fearful place, which no pen can adequately describe. Another day the Major and I climbed out, reaching an altitude, some distance back from the brink, 3135 feet above the river. The day after this climb the walls ran up to about twenty-seven hundred feet, apparently in places absolutely vertical, though Stanton, who came through here in 1890, said he did not think they were anywhere perpendicular to the top. The tongue of a bend we found always more or less broken, but in the curve the cliffs certainly had all the effect of absolute perpendicularity, and in one place I estimated that if a rock should fall from the brink it would have struck on or near our boat. This shows, at any rate, that the walls were very straight. The boats seemed mere wisps of straw by comparison, and once when I saw one which had preceded ours, lying at the end of a clear stretch, I was startled by the insignificance of the craft on which our lives depended. Beaman tried to take some photographs which should give this height in full, but the place was far beyond the power of any camera. In this locality there seemed to be no possibility of a man’s finding a way to the summit. I concluded that at high water this part of Cataract Canyon would probably annihilate any human being venturing into it, though it is possible high water would make it easier. Where there was driftwood it was in tremendous piles, wedged together in inextricable confusion; hundreds of tree-trunks, large and small, battered and cut and limbless, with the ends pounded into a spongy lot of splinters. The interstices between the large logs were filled with smaller stuff, like boughs, railroad-ties, and pieces of dressed timber which had been swept away from the region above the Union Pacific Railway. Picture this narrow canyon twenty-seven hundred feet deep, at high water, with a muddy booming torrent at its bottom, sweeping along logs and all kinds of floating débris, and then think of being in there with a boat!

Side Canyon of Cataract Canyon.
See figures of men, centre foreground on brink of lower terrace.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.