CHAPTER XIII.
A Canyon through Marble—Multitudinous Rapids—Running the Sockdologer—A Difficult Portage, Rising Water, and a Trap—The Dean Upside Down—A Close Shave—Whirlpools and Fountains—The Kanab Canyon and the End of the Voyage.
By referring to the relief map opposite page 41, the mouth of the Paria is seen a trifle more than half-way up the right-hand side. The walls of Glen Canyon here recede from the river and become on the south the Echo Cliffs, taking the name from the Echo Peaks which form their beginning, and on the north the Vermilion Cliffs, so called by Powell because of their bright red colour. The latter, and the canyon of the Paria, make the edges of the great mesa called the Paria Plateau, and, running on north to the very head of the Kaibab uplift, strike off south-westerly to near Pipe Spring, where they turn and run in a north-west direction to the Virgen River. Between the receding lines of these cliffs, at the Paria, is practically the head of the Grand Canyon. The river at once begins an attack on the underlying strata, and the resulting canyon, while at first not more than two hundred feet deep, rapidly increases this depth, as the strata run up and the river runs down. The canyon is narrow, and seen from a height resembles, as previously mentioned, a dark serpent lying across a plain. As the formation down to the Little Colorado is mainly a fine-grained grey marble, Powell concluded to call this division by a separate name, and gave it the title it now bears, Marble Canyon. There is no separation between Marble Canyon and the following one, the Grand Canyon, except the narrow gorge of the Little Colorado, so that topographically the chasm which begins at the Paria, ends at the Grand Wash, a distance of 283 miles, as the river runs, the longest, deepest, and altogether most magnificent example of the canyon formation to be found on the globe. With an average depth of about four thousand feet, it reaches for long stretches between five thousand and six thousand. At the Paria (Lee’s Ferry) the altitude above the sea is 3170 feet, while at the end of the canyon, the Grand Wash, the elevation is only 840 feet. The declivity is thus very great (see the diagram on page 57, which gives from the Little Colorado down), the total fall being 2330 feet. Further comment on the character of the river within this wonderful gorge is unnecessary. Powell had been through it on his first expedition, and was now to make the passage again, to examine its geological and geographical features more in detail. Meanwhile, as recorded in the last chapter, Lieutenant Wheeler had made an effort, apparently to forestall this examination, and had precariously succeeded in reaching Diamond Creek, which is just at the south end of the Shewits Plateau, lower left-hand corner of the map facing page 41.
Navajos in Characteristic Dress.
Photograph by F.S. DELLENBAUGH.
Powell and Thompson arrived at our camp at the mouth of the Paria on the 13th of August (1872) accompanied by Mrs. Thompson, who had been at Kanab all the previous winter, and had pluckily made several trips with Thompson into the mountains, and Professor De Motte. They had come in by way of the south end of the Kaibab, and it was on this occasion that the valley on the southern part of the summit was named De Motte Park. Preparations for our descent through the great chasm were immediately begun. The boats had been previously overhauled, and as the Nellie Powell was found unseaworthy from last season’s knocks, or at least not in condition to be relied on in the Grand Canyon, she was abandoned, and Lee kept her for a ferry-boat. Perhaps she might have been repaired, but anyhow we had only men enough to handle two boats. Steward’s trouble had not sufficiently improved to warrant his risking further exposure, so he had returned to his home in Illinois. Bishop was in a similar plight, and went to Salt Lake to regain his health, and Beaman had started off to carry on some photographic operations of his own. He came to the river and crossed on his way to the Moki country, while we were preparing to depart from the Paria. Johnson and Fennemore, who had been with us part of the winter, were too ill to think of entering the great canyon, with all the uncertainties of such a venture, and as before noted they, too, had left. Our party, then, consisted of seven: Powell, Thompson, Hillers, Jones, W. C. Powell, Hattan, and Dellenbaugh, all from the first season’s crew. No one else was available, as the trip was regarded in that region as extremely desperate. On the 14th, the boats, Emma Dean and Cañonita, were in readiness, and we loaded and took them down a mile and a half to the point near where the road came in from Kanab, whence our final departure would be made as soon as Powell, who needed a little extra time for arranging his papers and general affairs, should say the word. Everything was carefully attended to, as if we were preparing our last will and testament, and were never to be seen alive again, and I believe this was the firm conviction of most of those not going with the boats. Those who were going had abundant respect for the dragon, and well knew that no holiday excursion was before them. Their spirit was humble, and no precaution was to be neglected; no spirit of bravado permitted to endanger the success of the undertaking. Mrs. Thompson and De Motte ran down with us through two small rapids that exist at the mouth of the Paria, and which we had to pass to reach the camp mentioned. Mrs. Thompson would willingly have gone all the way through if her husband had consented to it.
On the 15th it was “all ashore not going”; we said our farewells to those leaving for Kanab, and turned our attention to the river. We would see no one after starting till we arrived at the mouth of the Kanab, where we had discovered, during the winter, that a pack-train, with some difficulty, could be brought in with supplies. It was not till the 17th that we were able to leave, as the boats needed some further attention. On that day, about nine o’clock, we cast off and went down some five miles, running one little rapid and another of considerable size before we halted for dinner. The walls were still not high, only about five hundred feet, and I climbed out to secure a farewell glance at the open country. On starting again we had not gone far before we came to a really bad place, a fall of about eighteen feet in seventy-five yards, where it was deemed respectful to make a portage. This accomplished, another of the same nature, with an equally fierce growl, discovered itself not far below, and a camp was made where we landed at its head. This was ten miles below our starting-point, and seemed to be the spot where a band of ten mining prospectors were wrecked about a month before. They had gone in to the mouth of the Paria on a prospecting trip, and concluded they would examine the Grand Canyon. Consequently they built a large raft, and after helping themselves to a lot of our cooking utensils and other things from some caches we had made when we went out from the river for our winter’s work, they sailed, away, expecting to accomplish wonders. Ten miles, to the first bad rapids, was the extent of their voyage, and there they were fortunate to escape with their lives, but nothing else, and by means of ladders made from driftwood, they reached once more the outer world, having learned the lesson the Colorado is sure to teach those who regard it lightly. We made a portage at the place and enjoyed a good laugh when we looked at the vertical rocks and pictured the prospectors dismally crawling out of the roaring waters with nothing left but the clothes on their backs. Our opinion was, they were served just right: first, because they had stolen our property, and, second, because they had so little sense. The walls had rapidly grown in altitude, and near the river were vertical so that climbing out at this place was a particularly difficult undertaking. The river was still very high, but not at the highest stage of this year, which had been passed before the Cañonita party had come down to the Paria from Frémont River. But the canyon was even yet uncomfortably full and we were hoping the water would diminish rapidly, for high tide in such a place is a great disadvantage. The stream was thick with red mud, the condition from which it derived its name, and it swept along with a splendid vigour that betokened a large reserve flood in the high mountains. The marble composing the walls of this canyon for most of its length is of a greyish drab colour often beautifully veined, but it must not be supposed that the walls are the same colour externally, for they are usually a deep red, due to the discoloration of their surface by disintegration of beds above full of iron. Except where high water had scoured the walls, there was generally no indication of their real colour. In places the friction of the current had brought them to a glistening polish; the surface was smooth as glass, and was sometimes cut into multitudinous irregular flutings as deep as one’s finger. The grinding power of the current was well shown in some of the boulders, which had been dovetailed together till the irregular line of juncture was barely perceptible.