In Stillwater Canyon the walls ran up to 1300 feet in height, a narrow canyon, with precipitous sides.  Occasionally we could see great columns of rock standing on top of the mesa.  Late one evening we saw some small cliff dwellings several hundred feet above the river, and a few crude ladders leaning against the cliff below the dwellings.  A suitable camp could not be made here, or we would have stopped to examine them.  The shores were slippery with mud and quicksands, and there was no fire-wood in sight.  From here to the end of the canyons we would have to depend almost entirely on the drift-piles for fire-wood.

A landing was finally made where a section of a cliff had toppled from above, affording a solid footing leading up to the higher bank.  We judged from our maps that we were within a very few miles of the Colorado River.  Here some footprints and signs of an old boat landing, apparently about a week old, were seen in the sand.  This surprised us somewhat, as we had heard of no one coming down ahead of us.

CHAPTER XII

COULD WE SUCCEED?

An hour or two at the oars the next morning sufficed to bring us to the junction of the Green and the Grand rivers.  We tied up our boats, and prepared to climb out on top, as we had a desire to see the view from above.  A mile back on the Green we had noticed a sort of canyon or slope breaking down on the west side, affording a chance to reach the top.  Loading ourselves with a light lunch, a full canteen, and our smaller cameras, we returned to this point and proceeded to climb out.  Powell’s second expedition had climbed out at this same place; Wolverton had also mentioned the fact that he had been out; so we were quite sure of a successful attempt before we made the climb.

The walk close to the river, over rocks and along narrow ledges, was hard work; the climb out was even more so.  The contour maps which we carried credited these walls with 1300 feet height.  If we had any doubt concerning the accuracy of this, it disappeared before we finally reached the top.  What we saw, however, was worth all the discomfort we had undergone.  Close the top, three branches of dry, rock-bottomed gullies carved from a gritty, homogeneous sandstone, spread out from the slope we had been climbing.  These were less precipitous.  Taking the extreme left-hand gully, we found the climb to the top much easier.  At the very end we found an irregular hole a few feet in diameter not a cave, but an opening left between some immense rocks, touching at the top, seemingly rolled together.

Gazing down through this opening, we were amazed to find that we were directly above the Colorado itself.  It was so confusing at first that we had to climb to the very top to see which river it was, I contending that it was the Green, until satisfied that I was mistaken.  The view from the top was overwhelming, and words can hardly describe what we saw, or how we were affected by it.