CHAPTER XI

WONDERS OF EROSION

Thursday, October the 19th.  We embarked again with two of our new-found friends on board as passengers for a short ride, their intention being to hunt as they walked back.  They left us at a ranch beside the San Rafael River, a small stream entering from the west.  They left some mail with us to be delivered to Mr. Wolverton, whose son we had met above.  About 20 miles below Green River we reached his home.  Judging by a number of boats—­both motor and row boats—­tied to his landing, Mr. Wolverton was an enthusiastic river-man.  After glancing over his mail, he asked how we had come and was interested when he learned that we were making a boating trip.  He was decidedly interested when he saw the boats and learned that we were going to our home in the Grand Canyon.  His first impression was that we were merely making a little pleasure trip on the quiet water.

Going carefully over the boats, he remarked that they met with his approval with one exception.  They seemed to be a little bit short for the heavy rapids of the Colorado, he thought.  He agreed that our experience in the upper rapids had been good training, but said there was no comparison in the rapids.  We would have a river ten times as great as in Lodore to contend with; and in numerous places, for short distances, the descent was as abrupt as anything we had seen on the Green.  Wolverton was personally acquainted with a number of the men who had made the river trip, and, with the one exception of Major Powell’s expeditions, had met all the parties who had successfully navigated its waters.  This not only included Galloway’s and Stone’s respective expeditions, which had made the entire trip, but included two other expeditions which began at Green River, Utah, and had gone through the canyons of the Colorado.[4] These were the Brown-Stanton expedition, which made a railroad survey through the canyons of the Colorado; and another commonly known as the Russell-Monnette expedition, two of the party making the complete trip, arriving at Needles after a voyage filled with adventure and many narrow escapes.  Mr. Wolverton remarked that every one knew of those who had navigated the entire series of canyons, but that few people knew of those who had been unsuccessful.  He knew of seven parties that had failed to get through Cataract Canyon’s forty-one miles of rapids, with their boats, most of them never being heard of again.

These unsuccessful parties were often miners or prospectors who wished to get into the comparatively flat country which began about fifty miles below the Junction of the Green and the Grand rivers.  Here lay Glen Canyon, with 150 miles of quiet water.  Nothing need be feared in this, or in the 120 miles of good boating from Green River, Utah, to the junction.  Between these two points, however, lay Cataract Canyon, beginning at the junction of the two rivers.  Judging by its unsavory record, Cataract Canyon was something to be feared.