A Canyon Voyage

The Narrative of the Second Powell Expedition down the Green-Colorado
River from Wyoming, and the Explorations on
Land, in the Years 1871 and 1872

By

Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

Artist and Assistant Topographer of the Expedition

"Come on, sir; here's the place. Stand still. How fearful
And dizzy 't is to cast one's eyes so low!"
King Lear.

With Fifty Illustrations

G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1908

Copyright, 1908

by

FREDERICK S. DELLENBAUGH


The Knickerbocker Press, New York

TO

H. O. D.

MY COMPANION

ON THE

VOYAGE OF LIFE.

PREFACE

This volume presents the narrative, from my point of view, of an important government expedition of nearly forty years ago: an expedition which, strangely enough, never before has been fully treated. In fact in all these years it never has been written about by any one besides myself, barring a few letters in 1871 from Clement Powell, through his brother, to the Chicago Tribune, and an extremely brief mention by Major Powell, its organiser and leader, in a pamphlet entitled Report of Explorations in 1873 of the Colorado of the West and its Tributaries (Government Printing Office, 1874). In my history, The Romance of the Colorado River, of which this is practically volume two, I gave a synopsis, and in several other places I have written in condensed form concerning it; but the present work for the first time gives the full story.

In 1869, Major Powell made his famous first descent of the Green-Colorado River from the Union Pacific Railway in Wyoming to the mouth of the Virgin River in Nevada, a feat of exploration unsurpassed, perhaps unequalled, on this continent. Several of the upper canyons had been before penetrated, but a vague mystery hung over even these, and there was no recorded, or even oral, knowledge on the subject when Powell turned his attention to it. There was a tale that a man named James White had previously descended through the great canyons, but Mr. Robert Brewster Stanton has thoroughly investigated this and definitely proven it to be incorrect. Powell's first expedition was designed as an exploration to cover ten months, part of which was to be in winter quarters; circumstances reduced the time to three. It was also more or less of a private venture with which the Government of the United States had nothing to do. It became necessary to supplement it then by a second expedition, herein described, which Congress supported, with, of course, Major Powell in charge, and nominally under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution, of which Professor Henry was then Secretary and Professor Baird his able coadjutor, the latter taking the deeper interest in this venture. Powell reported through the Smithsonian; that was about all there was in the way of control.

The material collected by this expedition was utilised in preparing the well-known report by Major Powell, Exploration of the Colorado River of the West, 1869-1872, the second party having continued the work inaugurated by the first and enlarged upon it, but receiving no credit in that or any other government publication.

As pointed out in the text of this work, a vast portion of the basin of the Colorado was a complete blank on the maps until our party accomplished its end; even some of the most general features were before that not understood. No canyon above the Virgin had been recorded topographically, and the physiography was unknown. The record of the first expedition is one of heroic daring, and it demonstrated that the river could be descended throughout in boats, but unforeseen obstacles prevented the acquisition of scientific data which ours was specially planned to secure in the light of the former developments. The map, the hypsometric and hydrographic data, the geologic sections and geologic data, the photographs, ethnography, and indeed about all the first information concerning the drainage area in question were the results of the labours of the second expedition. Owing, perhaps, to Major Powell's considering our work merely in the line of routine survey, no special record, as mentioned above, was ever made of the second expedition. We inherited from the first a plat of the river itself down to the mouth of the Paria, which, according to Professor Thompson, was fairly good, but we did not rely on it; from the mouth of the Paria to Catastrophe Rapid, the point below Diamond Creek where the Howlands and Dunn separated from the boat party, a plat that was broken in places. This was approximately correct as far as Kanab Canyon, though not so good as above the Paria. From the Kanab Canyon, where we ended our work with the boats, to the mouth of the Virgin we received fragments of the course owing to the mistake made in dividing the notes at the time of the separation; a division decided on because each group thought the other doomed to destruction. Thus Howland took out with him parts of both copies which were destroyed by the Shewits when they killed the men. After Howland's departure, the Major ran in the course to the mouth of the Virgin. Professor Thompson was confident that our plat of the course, which is the basis of all maps to-day, is accurate from the Union Pacific Railway in Wyoming to Catastrophe Rapid, for though we left the river at the Kanab Canyon, we were able by our previous and subsequent work on land to verify the data of the first party and to fill in the blanks, but he felt ready to accept corrections below Catastrophe Rapid to the Virgin.

For a list of the canyons, height of walls, etc., I must refer to the appendix in my previous volume. While two names cover the canyon from the Paria to the Grand Wash, the gorge is practically one with a total length of 283 miles. I have not tried to give geological data for these are easily obtainable in the reports of Powell, Dutton, Gilbert, Walcott, and others, and I lacked space to introduce them properly. In fact I have endeavored to avoid a mere perfunctory record, full of data well stated elsewhere. While trying to give our daily experiences and actual camp life in a readable way, I have adhered to accuracy of statement. I believe that any one who wishes to do so can use this book as a guide for navigating the river as far as Kanab Canyon. I have not relied on memory but have kept for continual reference at my elbow not only my own careful diary of the journey, but also the manuscript diary of Professor Thompson, and a typewritten