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Show Record that section in 1894 and 1895 we losded two sixteen foot row boats with provisions at Bluff, and five men, of whom I was one, Went down the San Juan River with those boats to Johns Canyon. We took this trip when the river was " awful low, awful low and it must have been in July or August." On that part of the trip down to Chinle Creek it was just a case of walk, but from Chinle Creek on down we had good stretches and could ride a little ways; but with two men in one boat with a lot of provisions and three men in the other boat, we did not have enough water to do very 2319 much boating. There is a rapid at Soda Basin and another at Gy-psum Creek, because having freighted our provisions from Dolores or Thompson to bluff and then taking them by boat, we were not in a position to lose the provisions and so we had to use caution and not lose anything. In dining a boat you endeavor to walk along the shore and keep your boat out in the river. The Soda 2320 Basin Rapid is a bad rapid at certain stages of water. While I was there in the river during that period " I have waded across, I have swim across, and I have boated across, and there has been times I wouldn't cross, not with an open boat". There at Honaker Trail where the canyon is pretty steep and the river couldn't get out of its bed, I have seen it rise eight feet when there was not a cloud in the sky. After leaving the San Juan I remained at 2321 Moab until October, 1895, and there were then boats on the Colo-rado River. There was a ferry boat at Moab and I believe that the next largest boat was a sixteen foot row boat. The ferry boat was used for ferrying teams and stock across the river, and when I left there they ferried three thousand sheep across in one day. 2322 While at Moab I didn't see any boats bring in or take out mer-chandise from the town. I left the country with those sheep and did not again see the Colorado River until 1907. In 1921 I again went to the San Juan with the government party headed by Mr. Trimble. I entered the government employ at Green River, Utah, 304 |