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National Geographic : 1914 Aug
Contents
EXPERIENCES IN THE GRAND CANYON Jimmie along. We were going to the same place by river. We traveled through Whirlpool and Split Mountain Canyons in two days' time, just four hours behind Jimmie. We saw him off on the stage the next day, a very happy boy, bound for the railroad, 120 miles away. We sent some of our photo graphic material along with him, know ing it was in the best of hands. Two more canyons-Desolation and Grey-had to be traversed before we reached the D. & R. G. Railroad. This is the point where Stanton and Brown, with their party, began their survey for a railway through the canyons of the Colorado. Mr. Brown and two of their companions were drowned in Marble Canyon above the Grand Canyon. Stanton, undismayed by these reverses, re-outfitted with heavier boats and com pleted the journey to the tidewater. Later it was the starting-point of the prospecting expedition composed of three men-Russell, Monnette, and Loper. Records have been kept of nine other parties who have left this place for the passage through Cataract Canyon. Three men only escaped. The others simply disappeared. LABYRINTH AND STILLWATER CANYONS Few people know that parties are taken by motor boat down the Green River to its junction with the Grand, and part way up the Grand, and then by au tomobile to the railway. We have no doubt but that some day this will become a popular way of seeing these wonderful canyons. All element of danger from rapids is removed from this 150-mile trip. Some of the scenery en route might be compared to the Garden of the Gods, but on a scale a thousand times greater and a thousand times more picturesque (see pages 151 and 154). At the junction of the Green and the Grand rivers we climbed out through a side canyon above Cataract Canyon. It was "The Land of Standing Rocks," a country split, eroded, and cragged in every conceivable manner. There was little soil and scarcely any vegetation. The weird solitude, the great silence, the grim desolation seemed to affect us here more than at any place on the trip. We could drop rocks into the crevices, and watched them disappear into the dark ness far below us. On going to the edge, 1,300 feet above the Colorado River, we would find some of the rocks overhung 50 feet or more. JUNCTION OF THE GREEN AND THE GRAND RIVERS In Cataract Canyon's 41 miles there are 45 bad rapids, and there must have been at least that many men who have attempted its passage and were never heard from- again. We know one man who did climb out after losing his boat, and who existed for weeks on cactus and herbs until he was finally discovered. He is an able-bodied man today, but has practically lost his reason. The Colorado River at this place was ten times greater than the Green in the upper canyons, and the rapids were cor respondingly more dangerous. We were surprised to find here tracks of some person who was ahead of us. That evening we caught up with the man who had made the tracks we had seen. He gave the name of Smith, ad mitted rather reluctantly that he was trapping, and did not appear greatly pleased to see us. Considering the fact that we were 150 miles from the last habitation, this struck us as being rather strange. GOING IT ALONE It was too late to go any farther that evening; so, as there was plenty of room, we camped below him and invited him over to share our evening meal. After dessert, which happened to be some pine apple which we had kept for some special occasion, he became more sociable. He, had started from Green River, Utah, one month before, he told us. He had an old, rotten boat that one good wave would knock to pieces. He had made no at tempt to run any of the twelve rapids we: had passed that day, but held his boat with a -chain and worked down in that manner. Once he had been dragged into the river, twice the boat had been upset i he was engaged in drying out his tobacco 157
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