Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries Explored in 1869, 1870, 1871, and 1872, Under the Direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

Page 014, Exploration of the Colorado River

14 EXPLORATION OF THE CANONS OF 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 the mountain. We enter the narrow passage. On either side, the walls rapidly increase in altitude. On the left are overhanging ledges and cliffs five hundred-a 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, and we thread the narrow passage with exhilarating velocity, mounting the high waves, whose foaming crests dash over us, and plunging into the 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 come into the valley again. Let me explain this canon. Where the river turns to the left above, it takes a course directly into the mountain, penetrating to its very heart, then wheels back upon itself, and runs out into the valley from which it started only half a mile below the point at which it entered; so the canon is in the form of an elongated letter U, with the apex in the center of the mountain. We name it Horseshoe Canon. Soon we leave the valley, and enter another short canon, very narrow at first, but widening below as the canon walls increase in height. Here we discover the mouth of a beautiful little creek, coming down through its narrow water worn cleft. Just at its entrance there is a park of two or three hundred acres, walled on every side by almost vertical cliffs, hundreds of feet in altitude, with three gateways through the walls-one up, another down the river, and a third passage through which the creek comes in. The river is broad, deep, and quiet, and its waters mirror towering rocks. Kingfishers are playing about the streams, and so we adopt as names