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Show Record up and down from Honaker trail for a couple or three miles. While I was there on the river I saw other parties come down the river in boats carrying their supplies with them in their boats. Sometimes a party would pass every week or two, maybe two or three parties in a week, and then maybe for five or six months 4538 there wouldn't be any. It would depend upon the supply of miners. I have been on the river in boats and at other points than I have indicated. I have been on the San Juan and Colorado Rivers every place that is possible to get to them, I think, from Bluff to Lees Ferry. I do not mean that I have traveled on the river in boats. I have been to the rivers and crossed them in various places. At the times I was going up or down the river in boats or rafts, I never had any difficulties or particular trouble. I never got stuck on sand bars. In the district I worked there weren't any 4539 sand bars particularly at all. We were in Bluff at the time I went to Honaker trail. We went down the trail with burros. I never had a boat at Honaker trail. There was a place or two we wanted to reach but we couldn't with burros, so we built a raft and took our supplies down a ways and brought our supplies back on the same little 4541 raft. The rafting I did on the river between Gable and Bluff was in the course of working the bars. Our rafting extended over a period of six or seven miles altogether at the different points. I have crossed the river every year two or three times since I have been in that country from Bluff down to the mouth of Cottonwood Canyon, about 5 miles from the mouth of the San Juan. I 4542 have had parties along the rim of the San Juan during various years. At the times I have been able to cross the San Juan River with horses, the water has come up on their sides a little ways, the depth of the water was a little more than belly deep. I have attempted to cross the river with horses in high water to my sorrow. It swam the horses I have crossed the San Juan River every month in the year. I open 4543 my business the 15th of May and it continues sometimes to the middle of November. August, September and October are my big months. |