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

Major Powell and a Pai Ute. Southern Utah, 1872.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.

The Expedition Photographer in the Field.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.

In triangulating I often had occasion to take the bearings of two large buttes lying to the north-west, and in order that my recorder could put down the readings so that I might identify them later I was obliged to give him titles for these. They had no names in our language, and I did not know the native ones, so, remembering that at the foot of one I had found some ant-hills covered with beautiful diamond-like quartz crystals, I called it Diamond Butte, and the other, having a dark, weird, forbidding look, I named on the spur of the moment Solitaire Butte. These names being used by the other members of the corps, they became fixtures and are now on all the maps. I had no idea at that time of their becoming permanent. This was also the case with a large butte on the east side of Marble Canyon, which I had occasion to sight to from the Kaibab. It stood up so like a great altar, and, having in my mind the house-building Amerinds who had formerly occupied the country, and whom the Pai Utes called Shinumo, I called it Shinumo Altar, the name it now bears. Probably there are people who wonder where the altar is from which it was named. It was the appearance that suggested the title, not any archaeological find. Once when we were in the Uinkaret country, Powell came in from a climb to the summit of what he named Mt. Logan, and said he had just seen a fine mountain off to the south-west which he would name after me. Of course I was much pleased at having my name thus perpetuated. The mountain turned out to be the culminating point of the Shewits Plateau. None of us visited it at that time, but Thompson went there later, and I crossed its slopes twice several years afterward. On the summit is a circular ruin about twenty feet in diameter with walls remaining two feet high.

Lake on the Aquarius Plateau.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.

It will be remembered that we had left one of our boats near the mouth of the Dirty Devil River. A party was to go overland to that point and bring this boat down to the Paria, and on the 25th of May (1872) Thompson started at the head of the party to try to explore a way in to the mouth of the Dirty Devil, at the same time investigating the country lying in between and examining the Unknown or Dirty Devil Mountains which had been seen from the river, just west of the course of the Dirty Devil River, now named Frémont River. We went west to a ranch called Johnson after the owner, thence north-westerly, passing the little Mormon settlement of Clarkson, and then struck out into the wilderness. Keeping a north-westerly course we crossed the upper waters of the Paria and made our way to the head of a stream flowing through what was called Potato Valley, and which the party of the previous year had followed down, endeavouring to find a trail by which to bring rations to us, under the impression that it was the head of the Dirty Devil. We also turned our course down it with the same idea. We had taken with us a Pai Ute guide whom we called Tom, but as we advanced into this region so far from his range, Tom got nervous and wanted to go back, and we saw him no more till our return. Six years before a Mormon reconnoitring party had penetrated as far as this, and in one place en route we passed the spot where one of their number who had been killed by the Utes had been buried. The grave had been dug out by the wolves, and a few whitened bones lay scattered around. It was a place where there was no water and we could not stop to reinter them. Several days after this we reached a point where progress seemed to be impossible in that direction, and Thompson and Dodds climbed up on high ground to reconnoitre. When they came back they said we were not on the headwaters of the Dirty Devil at all, and would be obliged to change our course completely. The Dirty Devil entered the Colorado on the other side of the Unknown Range and the stream we were on joined it on this side, the west, therefore it was plain that we had made a mistake. Accordingly, our steps were retraced to a point where we managed to ascend to the slopes of what is now called the Aquarius Plateau. Three men were sent back to Kanab after more rations, while Thompson with the other six pushed on around the slopes, trying to find a way to cross the labyrinth of canyons to the Unknown Mountains. On the 9th of June we were at an altitude of ten thousand feet above sea-level, with all the wilderness of canyons, cliffs, and buttes between us and the Colorado spreading below like a map, or rather like some kaleidoscopic phantasm. The slopes we were crossing were full of leaping torrents and clear lakes. They were so covered with these that the plateau afterwards was given the name Aquarius. Beaman, who had been photographer on our river trip, had left us, and we now had a new man from Salt Lake, named Fennemore. He was a frail man and the trip was almost too much for him. Down below we saw the smokes of native fires in several places, but we could not tell by what tribe they were made. At last we came to a point where the plateau broke back to the north, and we paused to search for a way to continue. I was sent out in one direction with one man, and Thompson went in another. I had not gone half a mile before I found an old trail which had very recently been travelled by natives, and when I had followed it far enough to get its trend, and as far as I dared, for I feared running on the camp at any point, I returned to report. Thompson decided to take this trail. It led us across strange country, and in one place for a long distance over barren sandstone into a peculiar valley. Here we camped about three miles from a great smoke, and the next morning ran right on top of a Ute encampment. At first we expected trouble, but there were only seven of the warriors, and they were, as we learned later, out of powder, so when they sighted us they disappeared. At last they returned, and we had a talk with them, trying to induce one to go with us as guide. They described the trails, but refused to go along.