First through the Grand Canyon

by John Wesley Powell

Again we start, and make slow progress along a stony way. At night we camp under an overarching cliff.

September 10.—Here the river turns to the west, and our way, properly, is to the south; but we wish to explore the Rio Virgen as far as possible. The Indians tell us that the cañon narrows gradually, a few miles below, and that it will be impossible to take our animals much farther down the river. Early in the morning, I go down to examine the head of this narrow part. After breakfast, having concluded to explore the cañon for a few miles on foot, we arrange that the main party shall climb the cliff, and go around to a point eighteen or twenty miles below, where, the Indians say, the animals can be taken down by the river, and three of us set out on foot.

The Indian name of the cañon is Pa-ru′-nu-weap, or Roaring Water Cañon. Between the little river and the foot of the walls, is a dense growth of willows, vines, and wild rose bushes, and, with great difficulty, we make our way through this tangled mass. It is not a wide stream—only twenty or thirty feet across in most places; shallow, but very swift. After spending some hours in breaking our way through the mass of vegetation, and climbing rocks here and there, it is determined to wade along the stream. In some places this is an easy task, but here and there we come to deep holes, where we have to wade to our arm pits. Soon we come to places so narrow that the river fills the entire channel, and we wade perforce. In many places the bottom is a quicksand, into which we sink, and it is with great difficulty that we make progress. In some places the holes are so deep that we have to swim, and our little bundles of blankets and rations are fixed to a raft made of driftwood, and pushed before us. Now and then there is a little flood-plain, on which we can walk, and we cross and recross the stream, and wade along the channel where the water is so swift as to almost carry us off our feet, and we are in danger every moment of being swept down, until night comes on. We estimate we have traveled eight miles to-day. We find a little patch of flood-plain, on which there is a huge pile of driftwood and a clump of box-elders, and near by a great stream, which bursts from the rocks—a mammoth spring.

We soon have a huge fire, our clothes are spread to dry, we make a cup of coffee, take out our bread and cheese and dried beef, and enjoy a hearty supper.

The cañon here is about twelve hundred feet deep. It has been very narrow and winding all the way down to this point.

September 11.—Wading again this morning; sinking in the quicksand, swimming the deep waters, and making slow and painful progress where the waters are swift, and the bed of the stream rocky.

The cañon is steadily becoming deeper, and, in many places, very narrow—only twenty or thirty feet wide below, and in some places no wider, and even narrower, for hundreds of feet overhead. There are places where the river, in sweeping by curves, has cut far under the rocks, but still preserving its narrow channel, so that there is an overhanging wall on one side and an inclined wall on the other. In places a few hundred feet above, it becomes vertical again, and thus the view of the sky is entirely closed. Everywhere this deep passage is dark and gloomy, and resounds with the noise of rapid waters. At noon we are in a cañon 2,500 feet deep, and we come to a fall where the walls are broken down, and huge rocks beset the channel, on which we obtain a foothold to reach a level two hundred feet below. Here the cañon is again wider, and we find a flood-plain, along which we can walk, now on this, and now on that side of the stream. Gradually the cañon widens; steep rapids, cascades, and cataracts are found along the river, but we wade only when it is necessary to cross. We make progress with very great labor, having to climb over piles of broken rocks.

Late in the afternoon, we come to a little clearing in the valley, and see other signs of civilization, and by sundown arrive at the Mormon town of Schunesburg; and here we meet the train, and feast on melons and grapes.

September 12.—Our course, for the last two days, through Pa-ru′-nu-weap Cañon, was directly to the west. Another stream comes down from the north, and unites just here at Schunesburg with the main branch of the Rio Virgen. We determine to spend a day in the exploration of this stream. The Indians call the cañon, through which it runs, Mu-koon′-tu-weap, or Straight Cañon. Entering this, we have to wade up stream; often the water fills the entire channel, and, although we travel many miles, we find no flood-plain, talus, or broken piles of rock at the foot of the cliff. The walls have smooth, plain faces, and are everywhere very regular and vertical for a thousand feet or more, where they seem to break back in shelving slopes to higher altitudes; and everywhere, as we go along, we find springs bursting out at the foot of the walls, and, passing these, the river above becomes steadily smaller; the great body of water, which runs below, bursts out from beneath this great bed of red sandstone; as we go up the cañon, it comes to be but a creek, and then a brook. On the western wall of the cañon stand some buttes, towers, and high pinnacled rocks. Going up the cañon, we gain glimpses of them, here and there. Last summer, after our trip through the cañons of the Colorado, on our way from the mouth of the Virgen to Salt Lake City, these were seen as conspicuous landmarks, from a distance, away to the southwest, of sixty or seventy miles. These tower rocks are known as the Temples of the Virgen.

Having explored this cañon nearly to its head, we return to Schunesburg, arriving quite late at night.