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Show Record stepping into deep water very suddenly. The first time we passed the mouth of the San Juan was in the middle of October, 1871. That river, like the Colorado, was very low at that time and I should say that it was not more than twenty or thirty feet, as I recollect it. On my second trip the river was exceedingly high, the water extending from wall to wall, with a terrific current. The San Juan was backed up more or less by the Colorado, which was 1538 also quite high. This second trip was about July 1, 1872. On my first trip we had no difficulty at the Crossing of the Fathers, which is made possible by a long shoal which the Navajos and Utes took advantage of and would follow down when the water was not too high. The Indians had marked it. We avoided the shoal because we could see right where it was. From there down to the mouth of the Paria River, now called Lee's Ferry, we encountered no diffi- 1539 culty. The Crossing of the Fathers was known by that name before 1541 we made our trip, Escalante having crossed there in 1776. At the Crossing of the Fathers we obtained supplies that had been brought there by Hamblin overland by pack mule. We went from Lee's Ferry to Kanab by pack mule and horseback, the animals having been 1542 brought there for our use by prearrangement. We cached the boats for the winter and went out across the Kaibab to Kanab, which then consisted of a fort with a stockade, a one- story log house, a school house, and probably eight or ten houses outside of the Fort. Between the mouth of the Green River and Lee's Ferry, we encountered no boats and no other people except two prospectors 1546 at the Crossing of the Fathers. Later we went from Kanab to the 1547 mouth of the Dirty Devil and brought down a boat we had left there. 1548 We arrived there some time in June, 1872. It is a terrible country around what is now Escalante and was then very difficult to traverse. It is a little less than one hundred miles from Kanab to Lee's Ferry, and it must be one hundred and fifty miles or two hundred miles the way you have to go from Kanab to the Dirty Devil. 203 |
