First through the Grand Canyon

by John Wesley Powell

It is a peculiar feature of these walls, that many projections are set out into the river, as if the wall was buttressed for support. The walls themselves are half a mile high, and these buttresses are on a corresponding scale, jutting into the river scores of feet. In the recesses between these projections there are quiet bays, except at the foot of a rapid, when they are dancing eddies or whirlpools. Sometimes these alcoves have caves at the back, giving them the appearance of great depth. Then other caves are seen above, forming vast, dome shaped chambers. The walls, and buttresses, and chambers are all of marble.

The river is now quiet; the cañon wider. Above, when the river is at its flood, the waters gorge up, so that the difference between high and low water mark is often fifty or even seventy feet; but here, high-water mark is not more than twenty feet above the present stage of the river. Sometimes there is a narrow flood plain between the water and the wall.

Here we first discover mesquite shrubs, or small trees, with finely divided leaves and pods, somewhat like the locust.

August 10.—Walls still higher; water, swift again. We pass several broad, ragged cañons on our right, and up through these we catch glimpses of a forest clad plateau, miles away to the west.

At two o’clock, we reach the mouth of the Colorado Chiquito. This stream enters through a cañon, on a scale quite as grand as that of the Colorado itself. It is a very small river, and exceedingly muddy and salt. I walk up the stream three or four miles, this afternoon, crossing and recrossing where I can easily wade it. Then I climb several hundred feet at one place, and can see up the chasm, through which the river runs, for several miles. On my way back, I kill two rattlesnakes, and find, on my arrival, that another has been killed just at camp.

August 11.—We remain at this point to-day for the purpose of determining the latitude and longitude, measuring the height of the walls, drying our rations, and repairing our boats.

Captain Powell, early in the morning, takes a barometer, and goes out to climb a point between the two rivers.

I walk down the gorge to the left at the foot of the cliff, climb to a bench, and discover a trail, deeply worn in the rock. Where it crosses the side gulches, in some places, steps have been cut. I can see no evidence of its having been traveled for a long time. It was doubtless a path used by the people who inhabited this country anterior to the present Indian races—the people who built the communal houses, of which mention has been made.

I return to camp about three o’clock, and find that some of the men have discovered ruins, and many fragments of pottery; also, etchings and hieroglyphics on the rocks.

We find, to-night, on comparing the readings of the barometers, that the walls are about three thousand feet high—more than half a mile—an altitude difficult to appreciate from a mere statement of feet. The ascent is made, not by a slope such as is usually found in climbing a mountain, but is much more abrupt—often vertical for many hundreds of feet—so that the impression is that we are at great depths; and we look up to see but a little patch of sky.