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Show Exploring and Documenting the Hole-in-the-Rock Trail Lynn Lyman My experience with the Hole-in-the-Rock Trail started in 1940 when a trip was planned by horseback from Bluff to the Hole-in-the-Rock. We had 82 people and 143 animals - pack animals and riding horses. Charlie Redd was chairman of the committee to make the arrangements. We had several meetings together. Finally in September we met at the Natural Bridges, camped there that night, and began our trek the next morning. Of the 82 people, two had been with the original party of pioneers. They were Aunt Caroline Redd from Blanding and Charlie Walton from Monticello. Aunt Caroline was six years old when she came through the Hole-in-the-Rock. My father was on the original trip too. He was sixteen years old then, but he did not come with us on the pack trip. We were ten days on the trip. It rained almost every day. We were divided into groups, about eight to ten people in each, who would camp together. At Greenwater it rained and rained. Some of the people camped in the cliff dwelling. This one group - I think it was Charlie Redd's group - pitched camp right in the little draw where the water would come through, and in the middle of the night there was a wild scramble of women and people coming out of that tent seeking a dry place. But the rain made it more interesting and served a good purpose. It filled the water holes - the pot holes in the rocks - settled the dust, cooled the air, and made things really quite pleasant. 117 San Juan County We had one Indian with us, old Jim Mike. He was one of the guides. In keeping with the advice of the authorities to make friendly relations with the Indians, it seemed like every group took coffee for Jim Mike. We camped two nights at the Hole-in-the-Rock and had made arrangements to have a boat there to carry us across the river. We hiked up to the top of the Hole-in-the-Rock and were met by a group from Escalante on horseback. On our way coming back, after we left the Hole-in-the- Rock, the different groups took out on their own. Some of them wanted to get back sooner, while others were not in such a big hurry. The group that Aunt Caroline was with traveled faster and longer until they made camp in the dark. Aunt Caroline was wandering around in the dark - she was kind of an elderly lady at that time and could not see where she was going - and she fell off into a wash and either broke her shoulder or dislocated it. It was lucky we had a doctor in the group, but there was not much he could do for her except to deaden the pain. The group had one big husky mule. They got Aunt Caroline in the saddle on the mule with First group to retrace the Hole-in-the-Rock trail coming down Cottonwood Hill, 1940. Photograph by Lynn Lyman. 118 Exploring Hole-in-the-Rock a man behind to steady her because she was doped and could not ride by herself. My brother George and some other fellow took turns riding behind and holding her on the mule until they got her back to the cars at the foot of Clay Hill and then brought her on home. Jacob and Lucy Adams were with our camping group. Jacob was not going on the whole trip. He went with us as far as the Lake Canyon. The day we left there, Jacob saddled up his horse and took off to the north up to White Canyon to look after his cattle. That was the last time Lucy ever saw him alive. He went into White Canyon and rode out into a flash flood and was drowned. That was the end of my exploring for a number of years until the 1950s when David Miller started his research for the Hole-in-the-Rock book. Miller and his group had come to the top of the Hole-in-the-Rock from the Escalante side, hiked down to the Colorado River and crossed it with a little rubber raft, then hiked out this side as far as Cottonwood Hill before hiking back. Later that fall some of the same group made the trip as.far as the Chute. On my first jeep trip when we got over to the top of Cottonwood Hill there was an empty Kodachrome film can that contained the names of David Miller and three other men. About this time Skelly Oil Company decided to drill a well out on Nokai Dome. They built a road up Clay Hill Pass, which was the main sticker up to that time for any vehicles going beyond there. Kay Lyman had just bought a war-surplus Dodge weapons carrier. Kay and his father, Edward, and Henry Lyman, who was an old cowboy from that area that knew the country, and four or five others and I got in the weapons carrier and went up onto Nokai Dome, then headed west. There were no roads. We just started finding our way. We were about four or five miles from the Hole-in-the-Rock road. We headed west, hoping to get over to it. We made it over into Death Valley, where the old pioneer road crossed Death Valley, and camped that night. The next day we hiked to Grey Mesa and the Slick Rock Hill, then came back and 119 San Juan County camped again in the same spot. The following day we got on the old horse trail, guided by Henry Lyman. We followed it back into the Lake Canyon. Coming up over the Slick Rock following that horse trail was pretty rugged going, but we made it all right. In 1954 Dave Miller heard that we had been out there so he got in touch with us and came down. We guided him to the foot of Grey Mesa. At the Slick Rock Hill there was no possibility of getting a vehicle up there so he and the men with him hiked to the Chute and up from the river. So now they had covered the entire route. Karl Lyman was with the group. He and I spent a lot of time looking for where we could winch a jeep up onto Grey Mesa. So things rested in that way for a while until another mining company over on the Colorado River decided to build a road into the Rincon. They had to go up the Slick Rock and onto Grey Mesa and then down to the river. As soon as Clarence Rogers and I heard about their work on the road, we were afraid they would follow the old Mormon road and destroy all the work the pioneers had done. We made a special trip out there and talked to the man in charge. He was very cooperative and did not want to destroy any of the old trail. Clarence and I hiked on up the Slick Rock and built a bunch of little monuments along the way. When we came back we told them we had marked a good place for them to go. They just followed our monuments right to the top of Grey Mesa. If there are any complaints about the engineering of that part of the road, it is Clarence's fault. As soon as they finished their road up there, a group of about seventeen people from Monticello and Blanding got jeeps and went out. I was not with them. They went on Grey Mesa and over to the top of Cottonwood Hill. They came back, told about it, and I got the bug again. The next spring we gathered a group together and went out to the top of Cottonwood Hill, then down the hill. No one had been down the hill in a jeep before. We looked over Cottonwood Hill pretty thoroughly and I finally decided that I could take a 120 Exploring Hole-in-the-Rock Jeep going up the Chute, Hole-in-the-Rock trail. Photograph by Lynn Lyman. jeep down. I knew I could take it down, and I thought I could get it back up. We took my jeep down, and soon came to the sand hill where it drops off into the bottom of Cottonwood Canyon. The road was blown over with sand, which forced us to turn around and come back. The next time out we were a little better organized, and we took more jeeps. We went prepared with shovels and equipment to shovel the road down the sand hill. We got to the bottom of Cottonwood Canyon, taking five jeeps all the way down Cottonwood Canyon overlooking the river opposite the Hole-in-the-Rock. Once we had fifteen jeeps and thirty-seven people and took five jeeps down the sand hill. We left one at the top of Cottonwood Hill and one at the top of the sand hill where we had a long cable to hook the jeeps together to help pull the others over the bad territory. We had found we could go all the way to the river. We retraced that trip several times, including the steep part of Cottonwood Hill where Platte 121 San Juan County Lyman had an accident in 1880. About a month after they got into Bluff, Platte Lyman and my father went back over the road and up the Hole-in-the-Rock to Escalante for a thousand pounds of flour they had left on the way in. When they got back to Cottonwood Hill in order to get footing for the horses they hooked them out on the end of the wagon tongue where they could get up on better ground to work. The wagon broke loose from the team and rolled back down the hill, scattering flour and everything all over the side hill. The next day they spent the whole day gathering the remains together and repairing the wagon. Then they came on to the Lake Canyon. It was a beautiful lake - Lake Pagahrit - about a half-mile long and quarter-mile wide. There was feed for the horses, and so they decided to lay over a day or two to let the horses recuperate. While they were waiting they hiked down to the Colorado River at the mouth of Lake Canyon, hiked up the river to where Hall's Crossing is now. Uncle Platte said in his diary they thought that would be a much better place to cross the river than the Hole-in-the-Rock. I do not know if they made any recommendations to that effect when they got back, but the next year they did move up and establish a crossing there. I was asked if any wagons ever went back up mrough the Hole-in-the-Rock. My father and Uncle Platte went up through there. Platte Lyman, in his journal, says when they got to the bottom of the Hole-in-the-Rock there were three other wagons waiting to go on up the Hole-in-the-Rock. I do not know where David Miller got his information, but he said the route was an established route and used for years for traveling both ways until they moved up to Hall's Crossing. I do not think it was used very extensively. I have to disagree with Miller on that. My father told once how many times they had to rest their horses, going up that hill. They had to rest the teams over two hundred times. A few years ago David Lavender, a noted author who has written a good many books, came to our home and wanted 122 Exploring Hole-in-the-Rock Jeep encountering difficulties going up the Chute, Hole-in-the- Rock trail. Photograph by Lynn Lyman. to know how he could get out to the Hole-in-the-Rock. I could not go with him. He and another young fellow were in a Dodge Suburban four-wheel drive. I described the road to him the best way I could. They took off and got to Lake Canyon where they found Keith Rogers. They got Keith to go with them and went over as far as the Chute and then hiked down to the top of Cottonwood Hill and back. They did not dare take the Dodge Suburban across the Chute. In June 1962 we planned a real trip. We took thirty jeeps and 110 people to the top of Cottonwood Hill where we camped. Two people came in by helicopter; they were camped over on the top of the Hole-in-the-Rock doing some kind of survey work. I do not know what brought them over, whether they saw some of our fires or what. They came flying over and started to land right in the middle of our camp. You know how much wind a helicopter blows out. It started blowing bedrolls in every direction. They could see what was happening so they went back up, moved over a distance, then set down and came over to visit with us. 123 San Juan County I will not try to tell about all the trips I made out there. I cannot even remember them all. In 1962 a Boy Scout troop from Blanding went out. They took a wooden box with a tin cover and put a book in it. Until that time the only record of people who had been there, and there were very few, were those who left their names in the little Kodachrome film can. On the next trip we had 110 people including David Lavender and his wife and David Miller and his wife. David Lavender copied all the names that were in the Kodachrome can. It is a good thing he did because some vandals came along and tore off the box that was bolted down to the rock, took the lid off, and left the book out in the weather. My wife and I gathered up what was left of it and brought it in, thinking there might be a little information in it. You can see some of the names. Kent and Fern Frosts' names are in there quite often where they took parties out. I have been out with the BLM a number of times helping to spot the trail and mark it. I have been out with Kent Powell and some of the Utah State Historical Society staff a number of times. It was quite interesting having these writers with us. In June 1966 we made our last trip, with a question mark, to Hole-in-the-Rock. I think we have made that last trip about ten times since then. I do not know how many more we will make. Not very many, I think. I made it again this spring with Kent Powell and some of his friends from the Historical Society. We have explored every chance we got. But there are some mistakes. I have been out with BLM personnel a number of times trying to establish where the pioneer road went. It is a hard thing to do. You can take a jeep through the country and after one good wind storm you can not tell where the jeep has been. That is the way it was with this road. But if you know a point here and a point over there, you naturally select the best way to get between those two points. That is what we have been doing. Those people - the original settlers - knew what they were doing. They were picking out the best roads. You might doubt that, considering they chose to come across this way 124 Exploring Holein-the-Rock instead of going another way, but I think there was a purpose in that. I talked to Jay Redd in Monticello, and he agreed with me that this was a mission. These men were called here for a specific purpose. I think they were divinely guided in what they were doing, and I think the Lord directed them across this way for a purpose. Jay says if they had gone on around the other way and landed in Moab with those streams coming down out of the mountain and a lot more land available than there is in Bluff, they would have stopped right there and would not have come any farther. Kumen Jones says that if they had got through to here in six weeks, like they intended when they started, instead of taking six months, they would not have stopped in Bluff. They would have probably gone on to somewhere else. But when they got to Bluff their wagons were worn out, their teams were worn out, and the people were tired of fighting the terrain. They could see enough land there to get a foothold, so they stopped in Bluff. They did not even get up to Montezuma Creek which was their intended destination. There was not enough land in Bluff for everyone in the party. Bluff is one town that was bigger the day it was settled than it ever was after that. The Holyoaks went up the San Juan River almost to Shiprock, New Mexico, where they established a little town called Holyoak. Other people went over to the San Luis Valley and other points farther east. At the top of Clay Hill, where the road starts down, there is a big boulder with an inscription on it, "Make Peace with God." I do not know who wrote it or anything about it but it is there and you can see it today. At the top of San Juan Hill, engraved on the cliff there, is an inscription, "We thank thee Oh God." I do not know if the pioneers did that or somebody else trying to help history. There is room for argument about the section of road from Long Flat down through Snow Flat. The way it is marked on the map follows south along the present road toward Mexican Hat then makes a right angle turn to the east toward Snow Flat. The pioneer road, however, is toward the 125 San Juan County north and east. It follows in a southeasterly direction from Long Flat to where it intersects the present road to Snow Flat. There is also some confusion where the present road goes around the head of Death Valley. The old pioneer road went straight across Death Valley to the dam across Lake Canyon. We know the pioneers crossed on that dam. While we were there in the spring with the group from the State Historical Society we were talking about that. Somebody said, "Why did they choose this place to cross instead of some other place?" Melvin Smith, director of the Society, said, "Well it's a damn sight better place than any other place to cross." Which is true. In some places you can follow the old road straight to Castle Wash. You cannot see any road, but if you were at a given place and had to get to another you would pick the best way. That is what you have to do when you are looking for the old road. We have had many people out on our trips. It is a rough trip. You bounce over those roads for two or three days and you are pretty well beat when you get back to civilization. Many people say, "Well I'm glad I went but I don't want to go again." In about three weeks they call me to ask, "When are you planning another trip to Hole-in-the-Rock? Let me know when you go again." That's the way it is. It gets to you. Editor's note: The following unsolicited comment about the involvement of Lynn and Hazel Lyman in guiding groups over the Hole-in-the-Rock Trail was made by Gene Blick-enstaff following Mr. Lyman's comments in Blanding on September 8, 1982. "It was my privilege to be out there with Lynn and Hazel on several of these trips and I think Lynn is due some more recognition. He is the authority on this side of the river on the Hole-in-the-Rock. He is due credit for searching out the exact trail. Some of it is still in question. I know that Lynn and his wife spent lots of hours helping people that were out there. There were the jeeps; on some of these big trips there were jeeps that never should have left 126 Exploring Hole-in-the-Rock Lynn Lyman walking along Hole-in-the-Rock trail up San Juan Hill, 1980. Photograph by Allan Kent Powell. 127 San Juan County Blanding. It is a tough trip - that is where they separate the men from the boys. If the equipment breaks down out there, it is a long ways from the parts house; but Lynn took extra parts. He was thoughtful. He was the commander-in-chief on every trip I ever went on, and he was not seeking glory for himself but he just wanted to make sure that everybody was comfortable, that everybody was fed, and that they were not left out some place broke down and could not get back to camp. It was a privilege to me and to everybody else that went on one of those jeep trips. We owe a debt of gratitude to Lynn and Hazel. They are great people." 128 |
