OCR Text |
Show 14 EXPLORATION OF THE OANONS O.F THE COLORADO. Entering Flaming Gorge, we quickly run through it on a swift current, and emerge into a little park. Half a mile below, the river wheels sharply to the left, and we turned into another canon cut into tho mountain. We enter the narrow passage. On either side, tho walls rapidly increase in altitude. On the left are overhanging lodges and cliffs five hundred-n thousand-fifteen hundred feet high. On the right, the rocks are broken and ragged, and the water fills the channel from cliff to cliff. Now the river turns abruptly around a point to the right, and the waters plunge swiftly down among great rocks; and here we have our first experience with canon rapids. I stand 'up on the deck of my boat to seek a way among the wave beaten rocks. All untried as we are with such waters, the moments are filled with intense anxiety. Soon our boats reach the swift current; a stroke or two, now on this side, now on that, an4 we thread the narrow passage with exhilarating velocity, mounti- ng the high waves, whose foaming crests da h over us, and plunging into tho troughs, until we reach the quiet water below; and then comes a feeling of great relief. Our first rapid is run. Another mile, and we como into the valley again. Let me explain this canon. Where the t·iver turns to tho left above it takes a course directly into the mountain, penetrating to its very heart, th'e n wheels back upon itself, and runs out into tho valley from which it started only half a mile below the point at which it entered; so the cafion is in tho form of an elongated letter U, with the apex in the center of the mountain. We name it llorseshoe Canon. Hoon we leave the valley, and enter another short canon, very narrow at fh:st, but widening below as the cation walls increase in height. Ilore we discover the mouth of a beautiful little cre~k, coming down through its narrow water worn cleft. Just at its entrance there is a park of two or threo hundred acres, walled on every side by almost vertical cliffs, hundreds of teet in altitude, with three gateways through the walls-one up, another down the river, and a third passage through which the creek comes in. rrho river is broad, deep, and quiet, and its waters mirror towering rocks. . Kingfishers are playing about the streams, and so we adopt as names • • BEEDlVID POINT. 15 Kingfisher Crook, Kingfisher Park, and l{ingfisher Canon. At night, we camp at tho foot of this cafton. Our general course this day has been south, but here the river turns to tho east around a point which is rounded to the shape of a dome, and on its sides little cells have been carved by tho action of tho '~ater; and in the o pits, which cover the face of tho dome, hundreds of wallows have built their nests. As they flit about tho cliffs, they look like swarms of boos, giving to the whole the appearance of a colossal beehive of the old time form, and so we name it Beehive Point. Tho opposite wall is a vast amphitheater, rising in a succession of terrac. es to a height of 1,200 or 1,500 feet. Each step i built of red sandstone, with a face of naked, rod rock, and a glacis clothed with verdure. So the amphitheater seems banded red and green, and tho evening sun is playing with roseate fla hes on the rocks, with shimmering green on the cedars' spray, and iridesc nt gleams on tho dancing waves. 'rho landscape revels in the sunshine. May 31.-Vv' o start down another canon, and reach rapids made dangerous by high rocks lying in the channel; so we run a bore, and let our boats down with lines. In the afternoon we come to more dangerous rapids, and stop to examine them. I find we must do tho same work again, but, being on the wrong side of the river to obtain a foothold, must first cross over-no very easy matter in such a current, with rapids and rocks below. We take the pioneer boat "Emma Dean" over, and unload her on the bank; then she returns and takes another load. Running back and forth, she soon has half oUI· cargo over; then one of the larger boats is manned and taken across, but carried down n.lmost to the rocks iu spite of hard rowing. The other boats follow and make tho landing, and we go into camp for tho night. At tho foot of the cliff on this si<lo, thoro is a long slope covered with pines; under those we make our bods, an<l soon after sunset are seeking rest and sleep. The cliffs on either side are of rod sandstone, and stretch up toward the heavens 2,500 feet. On this side, tho long, pine clad slope is surmounted by perpendicular cliffs, with pinos on their summits. The wall on tho other side is bare rock from the water's edge up 2,000 feet, then slopes back, giving footing to pines and cedars. As the twilight de pons, the rocks grow (l:trk and somber; the threat- • |