Just below this break the scene changed as we made a sharp turn to the left. Vasey's Paradise—named by Major Powell after Dr. Geo. W. Vasey, botanist of the United States Department of Agriculture—was disclosed to view. Beautiful streams gushed from rounded holes, fifty yards above the river. The rock walls reminded one of an ivy-covered castle of old England, guarded by a moat uncrossed by any drawbridge. It was trellised with vines, maidenhair ferns, and water-moss making a vivid green background for the golden yellow and burnished copper leaves which still clung to some small cottonwood trees—the only trees we had seen in Marble Canyon.
In our haste to push on, we left the brass motion-picture tripod head on an island, from which we pictured this lovely spot. A rapid was put behind us before we noticed our loss, and there was no going back then.
Another turn revealed a Gothic arch, or grotto, carved at the bend of the wall by the high water, with an overhang of more than a hundred feet, and a height nearly as great, for the flood waters ran above the hundred-foot stage in this narrow walled section. Then came a gloomy, prison-like formation, with a "Bridge of Sighs" two hundred feet above a gulch, connecting the dungeon to the perpendicular wall beyond; and with a hundred cave-like openings in its sheer sides like small windows, admitting a little daylight into its dark interior. The sullen boom of a rapid around the turn sounded like the march of an army coming up the gorge, so we climbed back into our boats after a vain attempt to climb up to some of the caves, and advanced to meet our foe. This rapid—the tenth for the day—while it was clear of rocks, had an abrupt drop, with powerful waves which did all sorts of things to us and to our boats; breaking a rowlock and the four pieces of line which held it, and flooding us both with a ton of water. We went into camp a short distance below this, in a narrow box canyon running back a hundred yards from the river, a gloomy, cathedral-like interior with sheer walls rising several hundred feet on three sides of us, and with the top of the south wall 2500 feet above us in plain sight of our camp, the one camp in Marble Canyon where our sleep was undisturbed by the roar of a rapid. But instead of the roar of a rapid, a howling wind swept down from the Painted Desert above, piling the mingled desert sands and river sands about our beds, scattering our camp material over the bottom of the narrow gorge.
Soon after this camp—the fourth and the last in Marble Canyon—was left behind us, the walls began to widen out, especially on the north-northwest, and by noon we had passed from the narrow, direct canyon, into one with slopes and plateaus breaking the sheer walls, the wall on the left or southeast side being much the lower of the two, and more nearly perpendicular, rising to a height of 3200 feet, while the northwest side lifted up to the Kaibab Plateau, one point—miles back from the river—rising 6000 feet above us.
We halted at noon beside the Nancoweep Valley. A wide tributary heading many miles back in the plateau the right, with a ramified series of canyons running into it, and with great expanses of sage-covered flats between. Deer tracks were found on these flats, deer which came down from the forest of the Buckskin Mountains. This was the point selected by Major Powell for the construction of a trail when he returned from his voyage of exploration to study the geology of this section. The trail, although neglected for many years, is still used by prospectors from Kanab, Utah, who make a yearly trip into the canyons to do some work on a mineral ledge a few miles below here.
What a glorious, exhilarating run we had that day! From here to the end of Marble Canyon the rapids were almost continuous, with few violent drops and seldom broken by the usual quiet pools. It was the finest kind of water for fast travelling, and we made the most of it. The only previous run we had made that could in any way compare with it was in Whirlpool and Split Mountain canyons, when the high water was on. As we travelled, occasional glimpses were had of familiar places on Greenland Point—that thirty-mile peninsula of the Kaibab Plateau extending between Marble Canyon and the Grand Canyon—where we had gone deer-hunting, or on photographic expeditions with Rust.
Another valley from the right was passed, then a peak rose before us close to the river, with its flat top rising to a height equal to the south wall. This was Chuar Butte. Once more we were in a narrow canyon, narrowing by this peak, but a canyon just the same. Soon we were below a wall we once had photographed from the mouth of the Little Colorado; then the stream itself came into view and we were soon anchored beside it. This was the beginning of the Grand Canyon.
How long we had waited for this view! How many memories it recalled—and how different it seemed to our previous visit there! Then, the high water was on, and the turquoise-tinted mineral water of the Colorado Chiquito was backed up by the turbid flood waters of the Rio Colorado, forty feet or more above the present level. Now it was a rapid stream, throwing itself with wild abandon over the rocks and into the Colorado. There was the same deserted stone hut, built by a French prospector, many years before, and a plough that he had packed in over a thirty-mile trail—the most difficult one in all this rugged region! There was the little grass-plot where we pastured the burro, while we made a fifteen-mile walk up the bed of this narrow canyon! What a hard, hot journey it had been! A year and a half ago we sat on that rock, and talked of the day when we should come through here in boats! Even then we talked of building a raft, and of loading the burro on it for a spin on the flood waters. Lucky for us and for the burro that we didn't! We understand the temper of these waters now.
Cape Desolation, a point of the Painted Desert on the west side of the Little Colorado, was almost directly above us, 3200 feet high. Chuar Butte, equally as high and with walls just as nearly perpendicular, extended on into the Grand Canyon on the right side, making the narrowest canyon of this depth that we had seen. The Navajo reservation terminated at the Little Colorado, although nothing but the maps indicated that we had passed from the land of the Red man to that of the White. Both were equally desolate, and equally wonderful. With the entrance of the new stream the canyon changes its southwest trend and turns directly west, and continues to hold to this general direction until the northwest corner of Arizona is reached.
But we must be on again! Soon familiar segregated peaks in the Grand Canyon began to appear. There was Wotan's Throne on the right, and the "Copper Mine Mesa" on the left. Three or four miles below the junction a four-hundred foot perpendicular wall rose above us. The burro, on our previous visit, was almost shoved off that cliff when the pack caught on a rock, and was only saved by strenuous pulling on the neck-rope and pack harness. Soon we passed some tunnels on both sides of the river where the Mormon miners had tapped a copper ledge. At 4.15 P.M. we were at the end of the Tanner Trail, the outlet of the Little Colorado Trail to the rim above. It had taken seven hours of toil to cover the same ground we now sped over in an hour and a quarter. Major Powell, in 1872, found here the remnant of a very small hut built of mesquite logs, but whether the remains of an Indian's or white man's shelter cannot be stated. The trail, without doubt was used by the Indians before the white man invaded this region.
The canyon had changed again from one which was very narrow to one much more complex, greater, and grander. The walls on top were many miles apart; Comanche Point, to our left, was over 4000 feet above us; Desert View, Moran Point, and other points on the south rim were even higher. On the right we could see an arch near Cape Final on Greenland Point, over 5000 feet up, that we had photographed, from the top, a few years before. Pagoda-shaped temples—the formation so typical of the Grand Canyon—clustered on all sides. The upper walls were similar in tint to those in Marble Canyon, but here at the river was a new formation; the algonkian, composed of thousands of brilliantly coloured bands of rock, standing at an angle—the one irregularity to the uniform layers of rock—a remnant of thousands of feet of rock which once covered this region, then was planed away before the other deposits were placed. All about us, close to the river, was a deep, soft sand formed by the disintegration of the rocks above, as brilliantly coloured as the rocks from which they came. What had been a very narrow stream above here spread out over a thousand feet wide, ran with a good current, and seemed to be anything but a shallow stream at that.
We had travelled far that day but still sped on,—with a few rapids which did not retard, but rather helped us on our way, and with a good current between these rapids,—only stopping to camp when a three-hundred foot wall rose sheer from the river's edge, bringing to an end our basin-like river bottom, where one could walk out on either side. It was not necessary to hunt for driftwood this evening, for a thicket of mesquite—the best of all wood for a camp-fire—grew out of the sand-dunes, and some half-covered dead logs were unearthed from the drifted sand, and soon reduced to glowing coals.
Meanwhile, we were enjoying one of those remarkable Arizona desert sunsets. Ominous clouds had been gathering in the afternoon, rising from the southwest, drifting across the canyon, and piling up against the north wall. A few fleecy clouds in the west partially obscured the sun until it neared the horizon, then a shaft of sunlight broke through once more, telegraphing its approach long before it reached us, the rays being visibly hurled through space like a javelin, or a lightning bolt, striking peak after peak so that one almost imagined they would hear the thunder roll. A yellow flame covered the western sky, to be succeeded in a few minutes by a crimson glow. The sharply defined colours of the different layers of rock had merged and softened, as the sun dropped from sight; purple shadows crept into the cavernous depths, while shafts of gold shot to the very tiptop of the peaks, or threw their shadows like silhouettes on the wall beyond. Then the scene shifted again, and it was all blood-red, reflecting from the sky and staining the rocks below, so that distant wall and sky merged, with little to show where the one ended and the other began. That beautiful haze, which tints, but does not obscure, enshrouded the temples and spires, changing from heliotrope to lavender, from lavender to deepest purple; there was a departing flare of flame like the collapse of a burning building; a few clouds in the zenith, torn by the winds so that they resembled the craters of the moon, were tinted for an instant around the crater's rims; the clouds faded to a dove-like gray; they darkened; the gray disappeared; the purple crept from the canyon into the arched dome overhead; the day was ended, twilight passed, and darkness settled over all.
We sat silently by the fire for a few minutes, then rose and resumed our evening's work. This camp was at a point that could be seen from the Grand View hotel, fourteen miles from our home. We talked of building a signal fire on the promontory above the camp, knowing that the news would be telephoned to home if the fire was seen. But we gave up the plan. Although less than twenty miles from Bright Angel Trail, we were not safely through by any means. Two boats had been wrecked or lost in different rapids less than six miles from this camp. The forty-foot fall in the Hance or Red Canyon Rapid was three miles below us; the Sockdologer, the Grapevine, and other rapids nearly as large followed those; we might be no more fortunate than the others, and a delay after once giving a signal would cause more anxiety than no signal at all we thought, and the fire was not built.
Particular attention was paid to the loading of the boats the next morning. The moving-picture film was tucked in the toes of our sleeping bags, and the protecting bags were carefully laced. We were not going to take any chances in this next plunge—the much-talked-of entrance to the granite gorge. A half-hour's run and a dash through one violent rapid landed us at the end of the Hance Trail—unused for tourist travel for several years—with a few torn and tattered tents back in the side canyon down which the trail wound its way. We half hoped that we would find some of the prospectors who make this section their winter home either at the Tanner or the Hance Trail, but there was no sign of recent visitors at either place, unless it was the numerous burro tracks in the sand. These tracks were doubtless made by some of the many wild burros that roam all the lower plateaus in the upper end of the Grand Canyon.
After a careful inspection of the Hance Rapid we were glad the signal fire was not built. It was a nasty rapid. While reading over our notes one evening we were amused to find that we had catalogued different rapids with an equal amount of fall as "good," "bad," or "nasty," the difference depending nearly altogether on the rocks in the rapids. The "good rapids" were nothing but a descent of "big water," with great waves,—for which we cared little, but rather enjoyed if it was not too cold,—and with no danger from rocks; the "bad rapids" contained rocks, and twisting channels, but with half a chance of getting through. A nasty rapid was filled with rocks, many of them so concealed in the foam that it was often next to impossible to tell if rocks were there or not, and in which there was little chance of running through without smashing a boat. The Hance Rapid was such a one.
Such a complication of twisted channels and protruding rocks we had not seen unless it was at Hell's Half Mile. It meant a portage—nothing less—the second since leaving that other rapid in Lodore. So we went to work, carrying our duffle across deep, soft sand-dunes, down to the middle of the rapid, where quieted for a hundred yards before it made the final plunge. The gathering dusk of evening found all material and one boat at this spot, with the other one at the head of the rapid, to be portaged the next day. But we did not portage this boat. A good night's rest, and the safeguard of a boat at the bottom of the plunge made it look much less dangerous, and five minutes after breakfast was finished, this boat was beside its mate, and we had a reel of film which we hoped would show just how we successfully ran this difficult rapid. While going over the second section, on the opposite side of the river, Emery was thrown out of his boat for an instant when theEdithtouched a rock in a twenty-five mile an hour current, similar to my first upset in the Soap Creek Rapid—the old story: out again; in again; on again—landing in safety at the end of the rapid not one whit the worse for the spill.
This rapid marks the place where the granite, or igneous rock, intrudes, rising at a sharp angle, sloping upward down the stream, reaching the height of 1300 feet about one mile below. It marks the end of the large deposit of algonkian. The granite, when it attains its highest point, is covered with a 200-foot layer of sedimentary rock called the tonto sandstone. The top of this formation is exposed by a plateau from a quarter of a mile to three miles in width, on either side of the granite gorge; the same walls which were found in Marble Canyon rise above this. The temples which are scattered through the canyon—equal in height, in many cases, to the walls—have their foundation on this plateau. These peaks contain the same stratified rock with a uniform thickness whether in peak or wall, with little displacement and little sign of violent uplift, nearly all this canyon being the work of erosion: 5000 feet from the rim to the river; the edges of six great layers of sedimentary rock laid bare and with a narrow 1300-foot gorge through the igneous rock below—the Grand Canyon of Arizona.
The granite gorge seemed to us to be the one place of all others that we had seen on this trip that would cause one to hesitate a long time before entering, if nothing definite was known of its nature. Another person might have felt the same way of the canyons we had passed, Lodore or Marble Canyon, for instance. A great deal depends on the nerves and digestion, no doubt; and the same person would look at it in a different light at different times, as we found from our own experiences. Our digestions were in excellent condition just at that time, and we were nerved up by the thought that we were going "to the plate for a home run" if possible, yet the granite gorge had a decidedly sinister look. The walls, while not sheer, were nearly so; they might be climbed in many places to the top of the granite; but the tonto sandstone wall nearly always overhangs this, breaks sheer, and seldom affords an outlet to the plateaus above, except where lateral canyons cut through. The rocks are very dark, with dikes of quartz, and with twisting seams of red and black granite, the great body of rock being made up of decomposed micaceous schists and gneiss, a treacherous material to climb. The entrance to this gorge is made on a quiet pool with no shore on either side after once well in.
But several parties had been through since Major Powell made his initial trip, so we did not hesitate, but pushed on with the current. Now we could truly say that we were going home. The Hance Rapid was behind us; Bright Angel Creek was about twelve miles away. Soon we were in the deepest part of the gorge. Great dikes and uplifts of jagged rocks towered above us; and up, up, up, lifted the other walls above that. Bissell Point, on the very top, could plainly be seen from our quiet pool.
Then came a series of rapids quite different from the Hance Rapid, and many others found above. Those others were usually caused in part by the detritus or deposit from side canyons, which dammed the stream, and what might be a swift stream, with a continuous drop, was transformed to a succession of mill-ponds and cataracts, or rapids. In nearly every case, in low water such as we were travelling on, the deposit made a shore on which we could land and inspect the rapid from below. The swift water invariably makes a narrow channel if it has no obstruction in its way; it is the quiet stream that makes a wide channel. But the rapids we found this day were nearly all different. They were seldom caused by great deposits of rock, but appeared to be formed by a dike or ledge of hard rock rising from the softer rock—the same intrusion being sometimes found on both sides of the stream—forming a dam the full width of the channel, over which the water made a swift descent, with a long line of interference waves below. But for a cold wind which swept up the stream, this style of rapid was more to our fancy. These were "good rapids," the "best" we had seen. There were few rocks to avoid. Some of the rapids were violent, but careful handling took us past every danger. There was little chance to make a portage at several of these places had we desired to do so. We gave them but a glance from the decks of the boats, then dropped into them. In one instance I saw theEdithliterally shoot through a wave bow first, both ends of the boat being visible, while her captain was buried in the foam.
We had learned to discriminate by its noise, long before we could see a rapid, whether it was filled with rocks, or was merely a descent of big water. The latter, often just as impressive as the former, had a sullen, steady boom; the rocky rapids had the same sound, punctuated by another sound, like the crack of regiments of musketry. All were greatly magnified in sound by the narrow, echoing walls. We became so accustomed to this noise that we almost forgot it was there, and it was only after the long, quiet stretches that the noise was noticed In a few instances only we noticed the shattering vibration of air that is associated with waterfalls. Still there is noise enough in many rapids so that their boom can be heard several miles away from the top of the canyons.
Guided by these sounds, and aided by our method of holding the boat in mid-stream, while making a reconnaissance, we were quite well aware of what we were likely to find before we anchored above a rapid. We were never fearful of being drawn into a cataract without having a chance to land somewhere. The water is strangely quiet, to a comparatively close distance above nearly all rapids. We usually tied up anywhere from fifty feet to a hundred yards above a drop, before inspecting it. If it was a "big-water" rapid, we usually looked it over standing on the seat in the boats, then continued. By signals with the hands, the one first over would guide the other, if any hidden rocks or dangerous channel threatened. While we did not think much about it, we usually noted the places where one might climb out on the plateau. Little could be told about the upper walls from the river.
A chilling wind swept up the river, penetrating our soaked garments. But we paid little attention to this, only pulling the harder, not only to keep the circulation going, but every pull of the oars put us that much nearer home. We never paused in our rowing until we anchored at 4.30 P.M. under Rust's tramway, close to the mouth of Bright Angel Creek. According to the United States Geological Survey there is a descent of 178 feet from the head of the Hance Rapid to the end of Bright Angel Trail one mile below the creek. We would have a very moderate descent in that mile. The run from the Hance Rapid had been made in less than five hours.
Our boats were tied in the shadow of the cage hanging from a cable sixty feet above. It stretched across a quiet pool, 450 feet across—for the river is dammed by débris from the creek below, and fills the channel from wall to wall. Hurriedly we made our way up to Rust's camp,—closed for the winter; for heavy snows would cover the North Rim in a few days or a few weeks at the farthest, filling the trails with heavy drifts and driving the cougar into the canyon where dogs and horses cannot follow. But the latch-string was out for us, we knew, had we cared to use the tents. Our signal fire was built a mile above the camp, at a spot that was plainly visible on a clear day from our home on the other side, six miles away as the crow flies. We had often looked at this spot, with a telescope, from the veranda of our studio, watching the hunting and sight-seeing parties ride up the bed of the stream. We rather feared the drifting clouds and mists would hide the fire from view, but now and then a rift appeared, and we knew if they were looking they could see its light. Camp No. 51 was made close to Bright Angel Creek, that evening, Thursday, October the 16th, two months and eight days from the time we had embarked on our journey.
Three or four hours were spent in packing our material the next morning, so it could be stored in a miners' tunnel, near the end of the trail. We would pack little of this out, as we intended to resume our river work in a week or ten days. A five-minute run took us over the rapid below Bright Angel Creek, and down to a bend in the river, just above the Cameron or Bright Angel Trail. Two men—guides from the hotel—called to us as our boats swept into view. We made a quick dash over the vicious little drop below the bend,—easy for our boats, but dangerous enough for lighter craft on account of a difficult whirlpool,—and were soon on shore greeting old friends. Up on the plateau, 1300 feet above, a trail party of tourists and guides called down their welcome. The stores were put in the miners' tunnel as we had planned, and the boats were taken above the high-water mark; placed in dry dock one might say.
The guides had good news for us and bad news too. Emery's wife had been ill with appendicitis nearly all the time we were on our journey. We had received letters from her at every post-office excepting Lee's Ferry, but never a hint that all was not well. She knew it would break up the trip. Pretty good nerve, we thought!
Ragged and weary, but happy; a little lean and over-trained, but feeling entirely "fit,"—we commenced our seven-mile climb up the trail, every turn of which seemed like an old friend. When 1300 feet above the river, our little workshop beside a stream on the plateau—only used at intervals when no water can be had on top, and closed for three months past—gave us our first cheerless greeting. Although little more than a hundred feet from the trail, we did not stop to inspect it. Cameron's Indian Garden Camp was also closed for the day, and we were disappointed in a hope that we could telephone to our home, 3200 feet above. But the tents, under rows of waving cottonwoods, and surrounded by beds of blooming roses and glorious chrysanthemums, gave us a more cheerful welcome than our little building below. We only stopped to quench our thirst in the bubbling spring, then began the four-mile climb that would put us on top of the towering cliff. Soon we overtook the party we had seen on the plateau. Some of the tourists kindly offered us their mules, but mules were too slow for us, and they were soon far below us. Calls, faint at first, but growing louder as we advanced, came floating down from above. On nearing the top our younger brother Ernest, who had come on from Pittsburg to look after our business, came running down the trail to greet us. One member of a troupe of moving-picture actors, in cowboy garb, remarked that we "didn't look like moving-picture explorers"; then little Edith emerged from our studio just below the head of Bright Angel Trail and came skipping down toward us, but stopped suddenly when near us, and said smilingly: "Is that my Daddy with all those whiskers?"
Naturally we were very impatient to know just what success we had met with in our photographic work. Some of the motion pictures had been printed and returned to us. My brother, who meanwhile had taken his family to Los Angeles, sent very encouraging reports regarding some of the films.
Among the Canyon visitors who came down to inspect the results of our trip were Thomas Moran, the famous artist, with his daughter, Miss Ruth, whose interest was more than casual. Thomas Moran's name, more than any other, with the possible exception of Major Powell's, is to be associated with the Grand Canyon. It was his painting which hangs in the capital at Washington that first acquainted the American public with the wonders of the Canyon. This painting was the result of a journey he made with Major Powell, from Salt Lake City to the north side of the Canyon, thirty-eight years before. In addition he had made most of the cuts that illustrated Major Powell's government report; making his sketches on wood from photographs this expedition had taken with the old-fashioned wet plates that had to be coated and developed on the spot—wonderful photographs, which for beauty, softness, and detail are not excelled, and are scarcely equalled by more modern plates and photographic results. The only great advantage of the dry plates was the fact that they could catch the action of the water with an instantaneous exposure, where the wet plates had to have a long exposure and lost that action.
Thomas Moran could pick up almost any picture that we made, and tell us at once just what section it came from and its identifying characteristics. His daughter, Miss Ruth, was just as much interested in our trip and its results. She was anxious to know when we would go on again and planned on making the trail trip down to the plateau to see us take the plunge over the first rough rapid. She was just a little anxious to see an upset, and asked if we could not promise that one would occur.
A month passed before my brother returned from Los Angeles. His wife, who had remained there, was in good health again, and insisted on his finishing the trip at once. We were just as anxious to have it finished, but were not very enthusiastic about this last part on account of some very cold weather we had been having. On the other hand, we feared if the trip was not finished then it might never be completed. So we consoled ourselves with the thought that it was some warmer at the bottom than it was on top, and prepared to make the final plunge—350 miles to Needles, with a 1600-foot descent in the 185 miles that remained of the Grand Canyon.
A foot of snow had fallen two nights before we planned on leaving. The thermometer had dropped to zero, and a little below on one occasion, during the nights for a week past. Close to the top the trail was filled with drifts. The walls were white with snow down to the plateau, 3200 feet below; something unusual, as it seldom descends as snow lower than two thousand feet, but turns to rain. But a week of cold, cloudy weather, accompanied by hard winds, had driven all warmth from the canyon, allowing this snow to descend lower than usual. Under such conditions the damp cold in the canyon, while not registered on the thermometer as low as that on top, is more penetrating. Very little sun reaches the bottom of the inner gorge in December and January. It is usually a few degrees colder than the inner plateau above it, which is open, and does get some sun. These were the conditions when we returned to our boats December the 19th, 1911, and found a thin covering of ice on small pools near the river.
Our party was enlarged by the addition of two men who were anxious for some river experience. One was our younger brother, Ernest. We agreed to take him as far as the Bass Trail, twenty-five miles below, where he could get out on top and return to our home. The other was a young man named Bert Lauzon, who wanted to make the entire trip, and we were glad to have him. Lauzon, although but 24 years old, had been a quartz miner and mining engineer for some years. Coming from the mountains of Colorado, he had travelled over most of the Western states, and a considerable part of Mexico, in his expeditions. There was no question in our minds about Lauzon. He was the man we needed.
To offset the weight of an extra man for each boat, our supplies were cut to the minimum, arrangements having been made with W.W. Bass—the proprietor of the Bass Camps and of the Mystic Springs Trail—to have some provisions packed in over his trail. What provisions we took ourselves were packed down on two mules, and anything we could spare from our boats was packed out on the same animals. As we were about ready to leave a friendly miner said: "You can't hook fish in the Colorado in the winter, they won't bite nohow. You'd better take a couple of sticks of my giant-powder along. That will help you get 'em, and it may keep you from starving." Under the circumstances it seemed like a wise precaution and we took his giant-powder, as he had suggested.
The river had fallen two feet below the stage on which we quit a month before. A scale of foot-marks on a rock wall rising from the river showed that the water twenty-seven feet deep at that spot. No measurement was made in the middle of the river channel. The current here between two small rapids flows at five and three-fourths miles per hour. The width of the stream is close to 250 feet. The high-water mark here is forty-five feet above the low-water stage, then the river spreads to five hundred feet in width, running with a swiftness and strength of current and whirlpool that is tremendous. The highest authentic measurement in a narrow channel, of which we know, is one made by Julius F. Stone in Marble Canyon. He recorded one spot where the high-water mark was 115 feet above the low-water mark. These figures might look large at first, but if they are compared with some of the floods on the Ohio River, for instance, and that stream were boxed in a two hundred foot channel the difference would not be great, we imagine.
One of the young men who greeted us when we landed came down with a companion to see us embark. On the plateau 1300 feet above, looking like small insects against the sky-line, was a trail party, equally interested. They did not stand on the point usually visited by such parties but had gone to a point about a mile to the west, where they had a good view of a short, rough rapid, the little rapid below the trail, while it was no place that one would care to swim in, had no comparison with this other rapid in violence. We had promised the party that we would run this rapid that afternoon, so we spent little time in packing systematically, but hurriedly threw the stuff in and embarked. Less than an hour later we had made the two-mile run and the dash through the short rapid, to the entire satisfaction of all concerned.
We camped a short distance below the rapid, just opposite a grave of a man whose skeleton had been found halfway up the granite, five years before. Judging by his clothes and hob-nailed shoes he was a prospector. He was lying in a natural position, with his head resting on a rock. An overcoat was buttoned tightly about him. No large bones were broken, but he might have had a fall and been injured internally. More likely he became sick and died. The small bones of the hands and feet had been taken away by field-mice, and no doubt the turkey-buzzards had stripped the flesh. His pockets contained Los Angeles newspapers of 1900; he was found in 1906. The pockets also contained a pipe and a pocket-knife, but nothing by which he could be identified. The coroner's jury—of which my brother was a member—buried him where he was found, covering the body with rocks, for there was no earth.
Such finds are not unusual in this rugged country. These prospectors seldom say where they are going, no track is kept of their movements, and unless something about their clothes tells who they are, their identity is seldom established. The proximity of this grave made us wonder how many more such unburied bodies there were along this river. We thought too of our friend Smith, back in Cataract Canyon, and wondered if we would hear from him again.
Our helpers got a lot of experience in motion-picture making the next day, while we ran our boats through a number of good, strong rapids, well known locally as the Salt Creek Rapid, Granite Falls or Monument Rapid, the Hermit, the Bouchere, and others. This was all new to the boys, and provided some thrilling entertainment for them. When a difficult passage was safely made Bert would wave his hat and yell "Hoo" in a deep, long call that would carry above the roar of the rapids, then he and Ernest would follow along the shore with their cameras, as these rapids all had a shore on one side or the other. The sun shone on the river this day, and we congratulated ourselves on having made the most of our opportunities.
In our first rapid the next morning, we had to carry our passengers whether we wanted to or not. There was no shore on either side. In such plunges they would lie down on the deck of the boat behind the oarsman, holding to the raised bulkhead, ducking their heads when an oncoming wave prepared to break over them. Then they would shake themselves as a water-spaniel does, and Bert with a grin would say, "Young fellows, business is picking up!"
Ernest agreed, too, that he had never seen anything in Pittsburg that quite equalled it. If the rapid was not bad, they sat upright on the deck, but this made the boats top-heavy, and as much of the oarsman's work depended on swinging his weight from side to side, it was important that no mistake should be made about this distribution of weight. Often the bottom of a boat would show above the water as it listed to one side. At such a time a person sitting on the raised deck might get thrown overboard.
Before starting on this last trip we had thought it would be only right to give our younger brother a ride in a rapid that would be sure to give him a good ducking, as his experience was going to be short. But the water and the wind, especially in the shadows, was so very cold that we gave this plan up, and avoided the waves as much as possible. He got a ducking this morning, however, in a place where we least expected it. It was not a rapid, just smooth, very swift water, while close to the right shore there was one submerged rock with a foot of water shooting over it, in such a way that it made a "reverse whirl" as they are called in Alaska—water rolling back upstream, and from all sides as well, to fill the vacuum just below the rock. This one was about twelve feet across; the water disappeared as though it was being poured down a manhole.
The least care, or caution, would have taken me clear this place; but the smooth water was so deceptive, and was so much stronger than I had judged it to be, that I found myself caught sideways to the current, hemmed in with waves on all sides of the boat, knocked back and forth, and resisted in all my efforts to pull clear. The boat was gradually filling with the splashing water. Ernest was lying on the deck, hanging on like grim death, slipping off, first on one side, then on the other, and wondering what was going to happen. So was I. To be held up in the middle of a swift stream was a new experience, and I was not proud of it. The others passed as soon as they saw what had happened, and were waiting in an eddy below. Perhaps we were there only one minute, but it seemed like five. I helped Ernest into the cockpit. About that time the boat filled with splashing water and sunk low, the stream poured over the rock and into the boat, and she upset instantly.
Ernest had on two life-preservers, and came up about thirty feet below, swimming very well considering that he was weighted with heavy clothes and high-topped shoes. The boys pulled him in before he was carried against a threatening wall. Meanwhile, I held to the boat, which was forced out as soon as she was overturned, and climbed on top, or rather on the bottom. I was trying to make the best of things and was giving a cheer when some one said, "There goes your hatch cover and you've lost the motion-picture camera."
Perhaps I had. My cheering ceased. The camera had been hurriedly shoved down in the hatch a few minutes before.
On being towed to shore, however, we found the camera had not fallen out. It had been shoved to the side less than one inch, but that little bit had saved it. It was filled with water, though, and all the pictures were on the unfinished roll in the camera, and were ruined. We had been in the ice-cold water long enough to lose that glow which comes after a quick immersion and were chilled through; but what bothered me more than anything else was the fact that I had been caught in such a trap after successfully running the bad rapids above. We made a short run after that so as to get out of sight of the deceptive place, then proceeded to dry out. The ruined film came in handy for kindling our camp-fire.
We were now in the narrowest part of the upper portion of the Grand Canyon, the distance from rim to rim at one point being close to six miles. The width at Bright Angel varied from eight to fourteen miles. The peaks rising from the plateau, often as high as the canyon walls, and with flat tops a mile or more in width, made the canyon even narrower, so that at times we were in canyons close to a mile in depth, and little over four miles across at the tops.
In this section of the granite there were few places where one could climb out. Nearly all the lateral canyons ended quite a distance above the river, then fell sheer; the lower parts of the walls were quite often smooth-surfaced, where they were polished by the sands in the stream. The black granite in such cases resembled huge deposits of anthracite coal. Sections of the granite often projected out of the water as islands, with the softer rock washed away, the granite being curiously carved by whirling rocks and the emery-like sands. Holes three and four feet deep were worn by small whirling rocks, and grooves were worn at one place by growing willows working back and forth in the water, the sand, strange to say, having less effect on the limbs than it had on the hard rocks.
About noon of the day following this upset we reached the end of the Bass Trail and another cable crossing, about sixty feet above the water. Three men were waiting for us, and gave a call when we rowed in sight of their camp. One was Lauzon's brother, another was Cecil Dodd, a cowboy who looked after Bass' stock, and the breaking of his horses, the third was John Norberg, an "old timer" and an old friend as well, engaged at that time in working some asbestos and copper claims.
The granite was broken down at this point, and another small deposit of algonkian was found here. There were intrusions, faults, and displacements both in these formations and in the layers above. These fractures exposed mineral seams and deposits of copper and asbestos on both sides of the river, some of which Bass had opened up and located, waiting for the day when there would be better transportation facilities than his burros afforded.
This was not our first visit to this section. On other occasions we had descended by the Mystic Spring (or Bass) Trail, on the south side, crossed on the tramway and were taken by Bass over some of his many trails, on the north side. We had visited the asbestos claims, where the edge of a blanket formation of the rock known as serpentine, containing the asbestos, lay exposed to view, twisting around the head of narrow canyons, and under beetling cliffs. We went halfway up the north rim trail, through Shinumo and White canyons, our objective point on these trips being a narrow box canyon which contained a large boulder, rolled from the walls above, and wedged in the flume-like gorge far above our heads. This trail continues up to the top, going over the narrow neck which connects Powell's Plateau—a segregated section of thickly wooded surface several miles in extent—with the main extent of the Kaibab Plateau.
Ernest, though slightly affected with tonsillitis, was loath to leave us here. It was zero weather on top, we were told, and it looked it. The walls and peaks were white with snow. He would not have an easy trip. The drifted snow was only broken by the one party that we found at the river, and quite likely it would be very late when he arrived at the ranch. John went up with him a few miles to get a horse for the ride home the next day. Ernest took with him a few hurriedly written letters and the exposed plates. The film we were going to save was lost in the upset.
On inspecting the provisions which were packed in here we found the grocers had shipped the order short, omitting, besides other necessities, some canned baked beans, on which we depended a great deal. This meant one of two things. We would have to make a quicker run than we had planned on, or would have to get out of the canyon at one of the two places where such an exit could easily be made.
The M. P. as our motion-picture camera was called—and which was re-christened but not abbreviated by Bert, as "The Member of Parliament"—had to be cleaned before we could proceed. It took all this day, and much of the next, to get the moisture and sand out of the delicate mechanism, and have it running smoothly again. After it was once more in good condition Emery announced that he wanted to work out a few scenes of an uncompleted "movie-drama." The action was snappy. The plot was brief, but harmonized well with the setting, and the "props." Dodd, who was a big Texan, was cast for the role of horse thief and bad man in general. Bert's brother, Morris Lauzon, was the deputy sheriff, and had a star cut from the top of a tomato can to prove it. John was to be a prospector. He would need little rehearsing for this part. In addition, he had not been out where he could have the services of a barber for six months past, which was all the better. John had a kind, quiet, easy-going way that made friends for him on sight. He was not consulted about the part he was to play, but we counted on his good nature and he was cast for the part. Emery, who was cast for the part of a mining engineer, arrived on the scene in his boat, after rounding the bend above the camp, tied up and climbed out over the cliffs to view the surrounding country.
The hidden desperado, knowing that he was being hunted, stole the boat with its contents, and made his escape. The returning engineer arrived just in time to see his boat in the middle of the stream, and a levelled rifle halted him until the boat was hidden around the bend. At that moment the officer joined him, and a hurried consultation was held. Then the other boat, which had been separated from its companion, pulled into sight, and I was hailed by the men on shore. They came aboard and we gave chase. Could anything be better? The thief naturally thought he was safe, as he had not seen the second boat! After going over a few rapids, he saw a fire up in the cliffs, on the opposite side of the river. He landed, and climbed up to the camp where John was at work. John shared his camp fare with him, and directed him to a hidden trail. The pursuers, on finding the abandoned boat, quietly followed the trail, and surprised Dodd in John's camp. He was disarmed and sent across the river in the tramway, accompanied by the deputy, and was punished as he richly deserved to be.
This was the scenario. Bert handled the camera. Emery was the playwright, director, and producer. All rights reserved.
Everything worked beautifully. The film did not get balled up in the cogs, as sometimes happened. The light was good. Belasco himself could not have improved on the stage-setting. The trail led over the wildest, and most picturesque places imaginable. Dodd made a splendid desperado, and acted as if he had done nothing but steal horses and dodge the officers all his life. A pile of driftwood fifty feet high and with a tunnel underneath made a splendid hiding place for him while the first boat was being tied. Being a cowpuncher, it may be that he did not handle the oars as well as an experienced riverman, but any rapid could be used for an insert. The deputy, though youthful, was determined and never lost sight of the trail. The engineer acted his part well and registered surprise and anger, when he found how he had been tricked. John, who had returned, humoured us, and dug nuggets of gold out of limestone rocks, where no one would have thought of looking for them. The fact that the tramway scene was made before any of the others did not matter. We could play our last act first if we wanted to. All we had to do was to cut the film and fasten it on to the end. Emery was justly proud of his first efforts as a producer. We were sorry this film had not been sent out with Ernest.
This thrilling drama will not be released in the near future. One day later we found that a drop of water had worked into the lens cell at the last upset. This fogged the lens. We focussed with a scale and had overlooked the lens when cleaning the camera. Nothing but a very faint outline showed on the film. We had all the film we needed for a week after this, for kindling our fires.
In recording our various mishaps and upsets in these pages, it may seem to the reader as if I have given undue prominence to the part I took in them. If so, it has not been from choice, but because they happened in that way. No doubt a great deal of my trouble was due to carelessness. After I had learned to row my boat fairly well I sometimes took chances that proved to be anything but advisable, depending a good deal on luck, and luck was not always with me. My brother was less hasty in making his decisions, and was more careful in his movements, with the result that his boat had few marks of any kind, and he had been more fortunate than I with the rapids.
It is my duty to record another adventure at this point, in which we all three shared, each in a different manner. This time I am going to give my brother's record of the happenings that overtook us about four o'clock in the afternoon of December the 24th, less than three hours after we left our friends at the Bass Trail with "best wishes for a Merry Christmas," and had received instructions from John "to keep our feet dry"
My brother's account follows:
"The fourth rapid below the Bass Trail was bad, but after looking it over we decided it could be run. We had taken chances in rapids that looked worse and came through unharmed; if we were successful here, it would be over in a few minutes, and forgotten an hour later. So we each made the attempt."
"Lauzon had gone near the lower end of the rapid, taking the left shore, for a sixty-foot wall with a sloping bench on top rose sheer out of the water on the right. The only shore on the right was close to the head of the rapid, a small deposit or bank of earth and rock. The inner gorge here was about nine hundred feet deep."
"Ellsworth went first, taking the left-hand side. I picked out a course on the right as being the least dangerous; but I was scarcely started when I found myself on a nest of jagged rocks, with violent water all about me, and with other rocks, some of them submerged, below me. I climbed out on the rocks and held the boat."
"If the others could land below the rapid and climb back, they might get a rope to me and pull me off the rocks far enough to give me a new start, but they could not pull the boat in to shore through the rough water. A person thinks quickly under such circumstances, I had it all figured out as soon as I was on the rocks. The greatest trouble would be to hold the boat if she broke loose."
"Then I saw that theDefiancewas in trouble. She caught in a reverse whirl in the very middle of the pounding rapid, bouncing back and forth like a great rubber ball. Finally she filled with the splashing water, sank low, and the water pouring over the rock caught the edge of the twelve-hundred pound boat and turned her over as if she were a toy; my brother was holding to the gunwale when she turned. Still she was held in the whirl, jumping as violently as ever, then turned upright again and was forced out. Ellsworth had disappeared, but came up nearly a hundred feet below, struggling to keep on top but going down with every breaking wave. When the quieter water was reached, he did not seem to have strength enough to swim out, but floated, motionless, in a standing position, his head kept up by the life-preservers. The next rapid was not over fifty yards below. If he was to be saved it must be done instantly."
"I pried the boat loose, jumped in as she swung clear, and pulled with all my might, headed toward the centre of the river. I was almost clear when I was drawn over a dip, bow first, and struck a glancing blow against another rock I had never seen. There was a crash, and the boards broke like egg-shells. It was all done in a few moments. TheEdithwas a wreck, I did not know how bad. My brother had disappeared. Lauzon was frantically climbing over some large boulders trying to reach the head of the next rapid, where the boat was held in an eddy. My boat was not upset, but the waves were surging through a great hole in her side. She was drawn into an eddy, close to the base of the wall, where I could tie up and climb out. It seemed folly to try the lower end with my filled boat. Climbing to the top of the rock, I could see half a mile down the canyon, but my brother was nowhere to be seen and I had no idea that he had escaped. I was returning to my wrecked boat when Bert waved his arms, and pointed to the head of the rapid. Going back once more, I saw him directly below me at the base of the sheer rock, in an opening where the wall receded. He had crawled out twenty feet above the next rapid. Returning to my wrecked boat, I was soon beside him. He was exhausted with his struggle in the icy waves; his outer garments were frozen. I soon procured blankets from my bed, removed the wet clothes, and wrapped him up. Lauzon, true to our expectations of what he would do when the test came, swam out and rescued theDefiancebefore she was carried over the next rapid. He was inexperienced at the oars and had less than two hours practice after he had joined us. It was a tense moment when he started across, above the rapid. But he made it! Landing with a big grin, he exclaimed, 'Young fellows, business is picking up!' then added, 'And we're losing lots of good pictures!'"
"These experiences were our Christmas presents that year.They were not done up in small packages."
"We repaired the boat on Christmas day. Three smashed side ribs were replaced with mesquite, which we found growing on the walls. The hole was patched with boards from the loose bottom. This was painted; canvas was tacked over that and painted also, and a sheet of tin or galvanized iron went over it all. This completed the repair and theEdithwas as seaworthy as before."
This is Emery's account of the "Christmas Rapid."
I will add that the freezing temperature of the water and the struggle for breath in the breaking waves left me exhausted and at the mercy of the river. An eddy drew me out of the centre of the stream when I had given up all hope of any escape from the next rapid. I had seen my brother on the rock below the head of the rapid and knew there was no hope from him. As I was being drawn back into the current, close to the end of the sheer wall on the right, my feet struck bottom on some débris washed down from the cliff. I made three efforts to stand but fell each time, and finally crawled out on my hands and knees. I had the peculiar sensation of seeing a rain-storm descending before my eyes, although I knew no such thing existed; every fibre in my body ached and continued to do so for days afterward; and the moment I would close my eyes to sleep I would see mountainous waves about me and would feel myself being whirled head over heels just as I was in that rapid; but this rapid, strange to say, while exceedingly rough and swift, did not contain any waves that we would have considered large up to this time. In other words, it depended on the circumstances whether it was bad or not. When standing on the shore, picking a channel, it appeared to be a moderately bad rapid, in which a person, aided with life-preservers, should have little difficulty in keeping on top, at least half the time. After my battle, in which, as far as personal effort went, I had lost, and after my providential escape, that one rapid appeared to be the largest of the entire series.
It is difficult to describe the rapids with the foot-rule standard, and give an idea of their power. One unfamiliar with "white water" usually associates a twelve-foot descent or a ten-foot wave with a similar wave on the ocean. There is no comparison. The waters of the ocean rise and fall, the waves travel, the water itself, except in breakers, is comparatively still. In bad rapids the water is whirled through at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, in some cases much swifter; the surface is broken by streams shooting up from every submerged rock; the weight of the river is behind it, and the waves, instead of tumbling forward, quite as often break upstream. Such waves, less than six feet high, are often dangers to be shunned. After being overturned in them we learned their tremendous power, a power we would never have associated with any water, before such an experience, short of a waterfall.
There is a certain amount of danger in the canyons,—plenty of it. Still, in most cases, with care and forethought, much of it can be avoided. We think we are safe in saying that half of the parties who have attempted a passage through these canyons have met with fatalities. Most of these have occurred in Cataract Canyon, not because it is any worse than other sections,—certainly no worse than the Grand Canyon,—but because it is easily entered from the quiet, alluring water of the lower Green River. Without a doubt each successful expedition is responsible in a way for others' attempts. In nearly every instance the unfortunate ones have underestimated the danger, and have attempted the passage with inadequate boats, such as Smith had for instance, undecked and without air chambers. Both of these are imperative for safety.
We had the benefit of the experiences of others. In addition, our years of work in the canyons had robbed them of their imaginary dangers, and—while we trust that we are not entirely without imagination—much of their weirdness and glamour with which they are inseparable to the idealist and the impressionist. Each of these upsets could have been avoided by a portage had we desired to make one, but success in other rapids made us a little reckless and ready to take a chance.
Beyond getting our flour wet on the outside, we suffered very little loss to our cargo. We placed the two flour sacks beside the fires each evening, until the wet flour dried to a crust. We continued to use out of the centre of the sacks as though nothing had ever happened.
Bert and I each had a little cough the next morning, but it disappeared by noon. Beyond that, we suffered no great inconvenience from our enforced bath. Sleeping in the open, with plenty of healthful exercise, kept us physically fit.
The cold air and the cold water did not seem to bother the others, but I could not get comfortably warm during this cold snap. Added to this, it took me some time to get over my scare, and I could see all kinds of danger, in rapids, where Emery could see none. I insisted on untying the photographic cases from the boats, and carrying them around a number of rapids before we ran them. It is hardly necessary to say that no upset occurred in these rapids.
Then came a cold day, with a raw wind sweeping up the river. A coating of ice covered the boats and the oars. We had turned directly to the north along the base of Powell's plateau, and were nearing the end of a second granite gorge, with violent rapids and jagged rocks. Emery made the remark that he had not had a swim for some time. In a half-hour we came to a rapid with two twelve-foot waves in the centre of the stream, with a projecting point above that would have to be passed, before we could pull out of the swift-running centre. Emery got his swim there. I was just behind and was more fortunate. I never saw anything more quickly done. Before the boat was fully overturned he swung an oar, so that it stuck out at an angle from the side of the boat, and used the oar for a step; an instant later he had cut the oar loose, and steered toward the shore. Bert threw him a rope from the shore, and he was pulled in. He was wearing a thin rubber coat fitting tightly about his wrists, tied about his neck, and belted at the waist. This protected him so thoroughly that he was only wet from the waist down.
If we were a little inclined to be proud of our record above Bright Angel we had forgotten all about it by this time. We were scarcely more than sixty miles from home and had experienced three upsets and a smashed boat, all in one week.
Just at the end of the second granite section we made our first portage since leaving Bright Angel. Bert and I worked on the boats, while Emery cooked the evening meal.
Hot rice soup, flavoured with a can of prepared meat, was easily and quickly prepared, and formed one of the usual dishes at these meals. It contained a lot of nutriment, and the rice took up but little space in the boats. Sometimes the meat was omitted, and raisins were substituted. Prepared baked beans were a staple dish, but were not in our supply on this last part of the trip. We often made "hot cakes" twice a day; an excuse for eating a great deal of butter and honey, or syrup. None of these things were luxuries. They were the best foodstuff we could carry. We seemed to crave sweet stuff, and used quantities of sugar. We could carry eggs, when packed in sawdust, without trouble but did not carry many. We had little meat; what we had was bacon, and prepared meats of the lunch variety. Cheese was our main substitute for meat. It was easily carried and kept well. Dried peaches or apricots were on the bill for nearly every meal, each day's allowance being cooked the evening before. We tried several condensed or emergency foods, but discarded them all but one, for various reasons. The exception was Erbeswurst, a patent dried soup preparation. Other prepared soups were carried also. I must not forget the morning cereal. It was Cream of Wheat, easily prepared; eaten—not served, perhaps devoured would be a better word—with sugar and condensed cream, as long as it lasted, then with butter. Any remainder from breakfast was fried for other meals. Each evening, we would make some baking-powder biscuit in a frying-pan. A Dutch oven is better, but had too much weight. The appellation for such bread is "flapjack" or "dough-god." When I did the baking they were fearfully and wonderfully made. Cocoa, which was nourishing, often took the place of coffee. In fact our systems craved just what was most needed to build up muscle and create heat. We found it was useless to try to catch fish after the weather became cold. The fish would not bite.
On the upper end of our journey we carried no tobacco, as it happened that Jimmy as well as ourselves were not tobacco users. There were no alcoholic stimulants. When Bert joined us, a small flask, for medicinal purposes only, was taken along. The whiskey was scarcely touched at this time. Bert enjoyed a pipe after his meals, but continued to keep good-natured even when his tobacco got wet, so tobacco was not absolutely necessary to him.
Uninteresting and unromantic these things may be, but they were most important to us. We were only sorry the supply was not larger. While we never stinted ourselves, or cut the allowance of food, the amount was growing smaller every day, and it was not a question any more whether we would go out or not, to get provisions, to "rustle" as Bert called it, but where we would go out. We might go up Cataract Creek or Ha Va Su Creek, as it is sometimes called. We had been to the mouth of this canyon on foot, so there would be no danger of missing it. The Ha Va Supai Indians, about two hundred in number, lived in this lateral canyon about seven or eight miles from the river. An agent and a farmer lived with them, and might be able to sell us some provisions; if not, it would be fifty miles back to our home. The trail was much more direct than the river. The great drawback to this course was the fact that Ha Va Su Canyon, sheer-walled, deep, and narrow, contained a number of waterfalls, one of them about 175 feet high. The precipice over which it fell was nothing but a mineral deposit from the water, building higher every year. Formerly this was impassable, until some miners, after enlarging a sloping cave, had cut a winding stairway in it, which allowed a descent to be made to the bottom of the fall. A recent storm had remodelled all the falls in Cataract Creek Canyon, cutting out the travertine in some places, piling it up in others. A great mass of cottonwood trees were also mixed with the débris. The village, too, had been washed away and was then being rebuilt. We had been told that the tunnel was filled up, and as far as we knew no one had been to the river since the flood.
The other outlet was Diamond Creek Canyon, much farther down the river. We would decide when we got to Ha Va Su just what we would do.
Tapeets Creek, one mile below our camp,—a stream which has masqueraded under the title of Thunder River, and about which there has been considerable speculation,—proved to be a stream a little smaller than Bright Angel Creek, flowing through a narrow slot in the rocks, and did not fall sheer into the river, as has been reported. Perhaps a small cascade known as Surprise Falls which we passed the next day has been confused with Tapeets Creek. This stream corkscrews down through a narrow crevice and falls about two hundred feet, close to the river's edge. We are told that the upper end of Tapeets Creek is similar to this, but on a much larger scale.
Just opposite this fall a big mountain-sheep jumped from under an overhanging ledge close to the water, and stared curiously at us, as though he wondered what strange things those were coming down with the current. It is doubtful if he ever saw a human being before. This sight sent us scrambling in our cases for cameras and firearms; and it was not the game laws, but a rusted trigger on the six-shooter instead, that saved the sheep. He finally took alarm and scampered away over the rocks, and we had no mutton stew that night.
We had one night of heavy rain, and morning revealed a little snow within three hundred feet of the river, while a heavy white blanket covered the upper cliffs. It continued to snow on top, and rained on us nearly all this day. Emery took this opportunity to get the drop of moisture out of the lens, and put the camera in such shape that we could proceed with our picture making. A short run was made after this work was completed.
The camp we were just leaving was about three miles above Kanab Canyon. The granite was behind us, disappearing with a steep descent much as it had emerged at the Hance Trail. There was also a small deposit of algonkian. This too had been passed, and we were back in the limestone and sandstone walls similar to the lower end of Marble Canyon. While the formations were the same, the canyon differed. The layers were thicker, the red sandstone and the marble walls were equally sheer; there was no plateau between. What plateau this canyon contained lay on top of the red sandstone. Few peaks rose above this. The canyon had completed its northern run and was turning back again to the west-southwest with a great sweep or circle. Less than an hour's work brought us to Kanab Canyon.