Some Of The Men Have Discovered Ruins (8/11/1869)

Miles Davis: Pharoah's Dance

We remain at this point today for the purpose of determining the latitude and longitude, measuring the height of the walls, drying our rations, and repairing our boats.
I walk down the gorge to the left at the foot of the cliff, climb to a bench, and discover a trail deeply worn in the rock. Where it crosses the side gulches, in some places, steps have been cut. I can see no evidence of its having been traveled for a long time. It was doubtless a path used by the people who inhabited this country anterior to the present Indian races--the people who built communal houses, of which mention has been made.

I return to camp about three o'clock, and find that some of the men have discovered ruins, and many fragments of pottery; also, etchings and hieroglyphs on the rocks.
We find tonight, on comparing the readings of the barometers, that the walls are about three thousand feet high--more than half a mile--an altitude difficult to appreciate from a mere statement of fact. The ascent is made, not by a slope such as is usually found in climbing a mountain, but is much more abrupt--often vertical for many hundreds of feet--so that the impression is that we are at great depths. We look up to see but a little patch of sky.
--John Wesley Powell
journal entry for August 11, 1869

granite rapid
kids don't try this at home (tanner rapid)
powell plateau with serpentine rapid
zoroaster temple / brahma temple
elvis and elvira above hance rapid