Cataract Canyon, Right-hand Wall toward Lower End.
Height about 2700 feet. Note figures of men near edge of water, lower right-hand corner. They show as very small upright dark lines.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
We proceeded as best we could with all caution. Every move was planned and carried out with the exactness of a battle; as if the falls were actual enemies striving to discover our weakness. One practice was to throw sticks in above them, and thus ascertain the trend of the chief currents, which enabled us to approach intelligently. The river here was not more than four hundred feet wide. As we continued, the canyon finally widened, and at one place there was a broad, rocky beach on the left. The opposite wall was nearly three thousand feet high. Beaman, by setting his camera far back on the rocks, was able to get a view to the top, with us in it by the river, while we were trying to work the boats past a rapid. This photograph is reproduced on this page {285}, and the figures, though very small, may be plainly seen. Not far below this the walls closed in again. Powell and Thompson tried to climb out, but they failed on the first trial and had no time to make a fresh start. They came back to camp and as soon as an early supper was over we started on—about five o’clock. The walls ran close together and at the water were perfectly vertical for a hundred feet or so, then there was a terrace. As we sailed down, the river was suddenly studded with pinnacles of rock, huge boulders or masses fallen from the heights. By steering carefully we could pass among these and, keeping in the dividing line of the current, make for the head of a rocky island, on each side of which the waters plunged against the cliffs with great force as they dropped away to a lower level. The danger lay in getting too far over either way, and it was somewhat difficult to dodge the pinnacles and steer for the island at the same time. The Cañonita went on the wrong side of one, and we held our breath, for it seemed as if she could not retrieve her position in the dividing current, but she did. As we approached the head of the island our keel bumped several times on the rocks, while the current changed from the simple dividing line and ran everywhere. At length we reached the shallow water, and as the keel struck gently on a rock we were overboard, soon pulling the boat on the island, where the others quickly followed. By hauling the craft down the right-hand side for about half the island’s length, we were able to pull directly across the tail of waves from the right-hand rapid, and avoid being swept against the cliff on the left where the whole river set. So close did every boat go that the oars on that side could not be used for a moment or two; and then we were past. At a higher stage of water this place would be much simpler. The river became serene; night was falling; we drifted on with the current till a roar issuing from the darkness ahead admonished us to halt. Some broken rocks on the right gave a footing and there we remained till morning. In the night it rained, and the rain continued into the daylight till cascades came leaping and plunging from everywhere into the canyon. Two of these opposite our camp were exceedingly beautiful. One was about two feet wide and the other five. For one thousand feet they made a clear plunge, then vanished in spray, feathery and beautiful. These rain cascades are a delightful feature of the country and some day will be famous. Soon Millecrag Bend, marking the end of Cataract Canyon, came in sight. The walls were only broken by a deep canyon valley coming in on the left, and the next canyon. Narrow, then began, but it was not one with difficult waters, and, being only nine miles in length, we were soon through it. At its foot was the mouth of the Dirty Devil and the beginning of Mound Canyon, which was later combined with Monument under the name of Glen.
Our rations were now very low. For some time, each man had been allowed for a meal, only a thin slice of bacon, a chunk of bread about the size of one’s fist, and all the coffee he desired. At long intervals a pot of Andy’s rare bean-soup was added to the feast. It was necessary, therefore, to push on with all haste, or we would be starving. The Cañonita was consequently taken out and “cached” under a huge rock which had fallen against the cliff, forming a natural house. Filling her with sand to keep her from “drying” to pieces we left her, feeling sure the party which was to come after her the next spring would find her safe. She was forty feet above low water. We now went ahead with good speed, leaving as much work as possible for the prospective Cañonita party to perform. All through Glen Canyon we found evidences of Puebloan occupation: house ruins, storage caves, etc. The river was tame, though the walls, about one thousand to sixteen hundred feet high, were beautiful, and often, in places, vertical. The low stage of water rendered progress somewhat difficult at times, but nevertheless we made fairly good time and on the 5th of October passed the San Juan, a shallow stream at this season, entering through a wide canyon of about the same depth as that of the Colorado, that is, about twelve hundred or fourteen hundred feet. A short distance below it we stopped at the Music Temple, where the Rowlands and Dunn had carved their names. Reaching the vicinity of Navajo Mountain, Powell thought of climbing it, but an inquiry as to the state of the larder received from Andy the unpleasant information that we were down to the last of the supplies; two or three more scant meals would exhaust everything edible in the boats. So no halt was made. On the contrary, the oars were plied more vigorously, and on the 6th we saw a burned spot in the bushes on the right,—there were alluvial bottoms in the bends,—and though this burned spot was not food, it was an indication that there were human beings about; we hoped it indicated also our near approach to the Crossing of the Fathers. Horses and men had recently been there. Noon came and the surroundings were as silent, unbroken, untrodden as they had been anywhere above the burned spot. Though there was little reason for it, we halted for a dinner camp, and Andy brought out a few last scraps for us to devour. Hillers threw in a line baited with a small bit of bacon and pulled out a fish, then a second and several. It was the miracle of the loaves and fishes over again!
Bend after bend was turned and left behind, and still no Crossing, but late in the afternoon a shot was heard; then we saw a white rag on a pole; then we landed and beheld a large pile of rations, in charge of three men. These men, Dodds, Bonnemort, and Riley, as we were days overdue, had about made up their minds we were lost, and had contemplated departing in the morning and leaving the rations to their fate. Riley and Bonnemort were prospectors, who remained only to see us and make some inquiries about the river above. They told me afterward we were the roughest-looking set of men they had ever seen. Our clothes were about used up.
The Town of Bluff.
Upper Valley of the San Juan River.
Photograph by CHARLES GOODMAN.