Five uneventful days were spent in Labyrinth and Stillwater canyons, through which the Green peacefully completed its rather violent descent.  In the upper end we usually found rough water in the canyons and quiet water in the open sections.  Here at least were two canyons, varying from 300 feet at their beginning to 1300 in depth, both without a rapid.  The first of these was Labyrinth Canyon, so named from its elaborately winding course as well as its wonderful intricate system of dry, lateral canyons, and its reproduction in rock of architectural forms, castles, arches, and grottos; even animals and people were represented in every varying form.

Our Sunday camp was beside what might be called a serpentine curve or series of loops in the river.  This was at the centre of what is known as the Double Bow Knot, three rounded loops, very symmetrical in form, with an almost circular formation of flat-topped rock, a mile or more in diameter in the centre of each loop.  A narrow neck of rock connects these formations to the main mesa, all being on the same level, about 700 feet above the river.  The upper half of the rock walls was sheer; below was a steep boulder-covered slope.  The centre formation is the largest and most perfect, being nearly two miles in diameter and almost round; so much so, that a very few minutes are necessary to climb over the narrow neck which connects this formation to the mesa.  It took 45 minutes of hard rowing on a good current to take us around this one loop.  The neck is being rapidly eroded, two hundred feet having disappeared from the top, and at some distant day will doubtless disappear entirely, making a short cut for the river, and will leave a rounded island of rock standing seven hundred feet above the river.  A bird’s-eye view of the three loops would compare well in shape to the little mechanical contrivance known as the “eye” in the combination of “hook and eye.”  All women and many men will get a clear idea the shape of the Double Bow Knot from this comparison.

We recorded an interesting experiment with the thermometer at this camp, showing a great variety of temperatures, unbelievable almost to one who knows nothing of conditions in these semi-arid plateaus.  A little ice had formed the night before.  Under a clear sky the next day at noon, our thermometer recorded 54 degrees in the shade, but ran up to 102 degrees in the sun.  At the same time the water in the river was 52 degrees Far.  The effect of being deluged in ice-cold waves, then running into deep sunless canyons with a cold wind sweeping down from the snow on top, can be easier imagined than described.  This is what we could expect to meet later.

The colouring of the rocks varied greatly in many localities, a light red predominating.  In some places the red rock was capped by a gray, flint-like limestone; in others this had disappeared, but underneath the red were regular strata of various-coloured rocks, pink, brown, light yellow, even blue and green being found in two or three sections.