This morning, we have an exhilarating ride. The river is swift, and there
are many smooth rapids. I stand on deck, keeping careful watch ahead,
and we glide along, mile after mile, plying strokes now on the right
and then on the left, just sufficient to guide our boats past the rocks
into smooth water. At noon we emerge from Gray Canyon,
as we have named it, and camp, for dinner,
under a cottonwood tree, standing on the left bank.
Extensive sand plains extend back from the immediate river valley, as far as we can see, on either side.
These naked, drifting sands gleam brilliantly in the midday sun of July. The reflected heat from the glaring surface produces a curious motion of the atmosphere. Little currents are generated, and the whole seems to be trembling and moving about in many directions, or, failing to see that the movement is in the atmosphere, it gives the impression of an unstable land. Plains, hills, cliffs, and distant mountains seem vaguely to be floating about in a trembling, wave-rocked sea, and patches of landscape will seem
to float away, and be lost,
and then re-appear.
--John Wesley Powell journal entry for July 13, 1869
LOOKING WEST FROM HORSESHOE MESA
THOMAS MORAN: GRAND CANYON OF THE COLORADO
ELVIS SIGHTING OUTSIDE UTAH FLATS
ELVIS HAS LEFT THE CONFLUENCE
This morning, the new oars are finished, and we start once more. We pass several bad rapids, making a short portage at one, and before noon we come to a long, bad fall, where the channel is filled with rocks on the left, turning the waters to the right, where they pass under an overhanging rock. On examination, we determine to run it, keeping as close to the left-hand rocks as safety will permit, in order to avoid the overhanging cliff. The little boat runs over all right; another follows, but the men are not able to keep her near enough to the left bank, and she is carried away, by a swift chute, into great waves to the right, where she is tossed about, and Bradley is knocked over the side, but his foot catching under the seat, he is dragged along in the water, with his head down. Making great exertion, he seizes the gunwhale with his left hand, and can lift his head above water now and then. To us who are below, it seems impossible to keep the boat from going under the overhanging cliff; but Powell, for the moment, heedless of Bradley's mishap, pulls with all his power for half a dozen strokes, when the danger is past; then he seizes Bradley, and pulls him in. The men in the boat above, seeing this, land, and she is let down by lines.
Just here we emerge
from the Canyon of Desolation,
as we have named it,
into a more open country,
which extends for a distance
of nearly a mile,
when we enter another canyon,
cut through gray sandstone.
About three o'clock in the afternoon we meet with a new difficulty. The river fills the entire channel; the walls are vertical on either side from the water's edge, and a bad rapid is beset with rocks. We come to the head of it, and land on a rock in the stream; the little boat is let down to another rock below, the men of the larger boat holding to the line; the second boat is let down in the same way, and the line of the third boat is brought with them. Now, the third boat pushes out from the upper rock, and, as we have her line below, we pull in and catch her,
as she is sweeping by at the foot of the rock on which we stand.
Again the first boat is let downstream by the full length of her line, and the second boat is passed down by the first to the extent of her line, which is held by the men in the first boat; so she is two lines' length from where she started. then the third boat is let down past the second, and still down, nearly to the length of her line, so that she is fast to the second boat, and swinging down three lines' lengths, with the other two boats intervening. Held in this way, the men are able to push her into a cove, in the left wall, where she is made fast. But this leaves a man on the rock above, holding to the line of the little boat. When all is ready, he springs from the rock, clinging to the line with one hand, and swimming with the other, and we pull him in as he goes by.
As the two boats, thus loosened, drift down, the men in the cove pull us all in, as we come opposite; then we pass around to a point of rock below the cove, close to the wall, land, and make a short portage over the worst places in the rapid, and start again.
Grateful Dead: Big River...5/7/77
At night we camp on a sand beach;
the wind blows a hurricane;
the drifting sand almost blinds us;
and nowhere can we find shelter.
The wind continues to blow all night;
the sand sifts through our blankets,
and piles over us, until we are
covered as in a snowdrift.
We are glad when morning comes.
A short distance below camp we run a rapid, and, in doing so, break an oar, and then lose another, both belonging to the Emma Dean. So the pioneer boat has but two oars.
We see nothing of which oars can be made, so we conclude to run on to some point where it seems possible to climb out to the forests on the plateau, and there we will procure suitable timber from which to make new ones.
Doc Watson / Bill Monroe: The Banks of the Ohio
We soon
approach another rapid.
Standing on deck,
I think it can be run,
and on we go.
Coming nearer,
I see that at the foot
it has a short turn to the left,
where the waves pile up
against the cliff.
Here we try to land,
but quickly discover that,
being in swift water,
above the fall,
we cannot reach shore,
crippled, as we are,
by the loss of two oars.
So the bow of the boat
is turned downstream.
We shoot by a big rock.
A reflex wave rolls over our little boat and fills her. I see the place is dangerous, and quickly signal to the other boats to land where they can. This is scarcely completed when another wave rolls our boat over, and I am thrown some distance into the water. I soon find that swimming is very easy, and I cannot sink. It is only necessary to ply strokes sufficient to keep my head out of the water, though now and then, when a breaker rolls over me, I close my mouth, and am carried through it. The boat is drifting ahead of me twenty or thirty feet, and when the great waves are passed, I overtake it, and find Sumner and Dunn clinging to her. As soon as we reach quiet water, we all swim to one side, and turn her over. In doing this, Dunn loses his hold and goes under. When he comes up, he is caught by Sumner and pulled to the boat. In the meantime we have drifted downstream some distance, and see another rapid below. How bad it may be we cannot tell, so we swim toward shore, pulling our boat with us with all the vigor possible, but are carried down much faster than distance to shore is gained. At last we reach a huge pile of driftwood. our rolls of blanket, two guns and a barometer were in the open compartment of the boat, and, when it went over, these were thrown out. The guns and barometer are lost, but I succeeded in catching one of the rolls of blankets, as it drifted by, when we were swimming to shore. The other two are lost, and sometimes hereafter we may sleep cold.
A huge fire is built on the bank, our clothing is spread to dry, and then from the drift logs we select one from which we think oars can be made. The remainder of the day is spent in sawing them out.
--John Wesley Powell journal entry for July 11, 1869
Anouar Brahem Quartet: The Astounding Eyes of Rita
We enter a canyon today with low, red walls. A short distance below its head we discover the ruins of an old building on the left wall. There is a narrow plain between the river and the left wall just here, and on the brink of a rock two hundred feet high stands an old house. Its walls are of stone, laid in mortar, with much regularity. It was probably built three stories high; the lower story is yet almost intact; the second is much broken down, and scarcely anything is left of the third. Great quantities of flint chips are found on the rocks nearby, and many arrowheads, some perfect, others broken.
Fragments of pottery are strewn about in great profusion. On the face of the cliff, under the building, and along down the river for two or three hundred yards, there are many etchings. Two hours are given to the examination of these interesting ruins, then we run down fifteen miles farther, and discover another group. The principal building was situated on the summit of a hill. A part of the walls are standing, to the height of eight or ten feet, and the mortar yet remains in some places. The house was in the shape of an L, with five rooms on the angle, and two in each extension. In the space in the angle there is a deep excavation.
From what we know of the people in the province of Tusayan, who are, doubtless, of the same race as the former inhabitants of these ruins, we conclude that this was a kiva,
or underground chamber, in which their religious ceremonies were performed.
We leave these ruins, and run down two or three miles, and go into camp about mid-afternoon. And now I climb the wall and go into the back country for a walk.
The sandstone through which the canyon is cut is red and homogenous, being the same as that through which Labyrinth Canyon runs. The smooth, naked rock stretches out on either side of the river for many miles, but curiously carved mounds and cones
are scattered everywhere, and deep holes are worn out. Many of these pockets are filled with water. In one of these holes, or wells, twenty feet deep, I find a tree growing. The excavation is so narrow that I can step from its brink to a limb on the tree, and descend to the bottom of the well down a growing ladder. Many of these pockets are potholes, being found in the course of little rills, or brooks, that run during the rains which occasionally fall in this region; and often a few harder rocks, which evidently assisted in their excavation, can be found in their bottoms. Others, which are shallower, are not so easily explained. Perhaps they are found where softer spots
existed in the sandstone, places that yielded more readily to atmospheric degradation, and where the loose sands were carried away by the winds.
Just before sundown, I attempt to climb a rounded eminence, from which, I hope to obtain a good outlook on the surrounding country. It is formed of smooth mounds, piled one above another. Up these I climb, winding here and there, to find a practicable way, until near the summit they become too steep for me to proceed. I search about, a few minutes, for a more easy way, when I am surprised at finding a stairway, evidently cut into the rock by hands.
At one place, where there is a
vertical wall of ten or twelve feet, I find an old, ricketty ladder. It may be that this was a watchtower of that ancient people whose home we have found in ruins. On many of
the tributaries of the Colorado
I have heretofore examined
their deserted dwellings. Those that show evidences of being built during the latter part of their occupation of the country are, usually, placed on the most inaccesible cliffs. Sometimes, the mouths of caves have been walled across, and there are many other evidences to show their anxiety to secure defensible positions. Probably the nomadic tribes were sweeping down upon them, and they resorted to these cliffs and canyons for safety. It is not unreasonable to suppose that this orange mound was used as a watchtower. Here I stand, where these now lost people stood centuries ago, and look over this strange country.
I gaze off to great mountains in the northwest which are slowly covered by the night until they are lost, and then I return to camp. It is no easy task to find my way down the wall in the darkness, and I clamber about until it is nearly midnight before I arrive.
--John Wesley Powell journal entry for July 29, 1869
After dinner, we pass through a region of the wildest desolation. The canyon is very torturous, the river very rapid, and many lateral canyons enter on either side. These usually have their branches, so that the region is cut into a wilderness of gray and brown cliffs. In several places, these lateral canyons are only separated from each other by narrow walls, often hundreds of feet high, but so narrow in places that where softer rocks are found below, they have crumbled away, and left holes in the wall, forming passages from one canyon into another. These we often call natural bridges; but they were never intended to span streams. They had better, perhaps,
be called side doors between canyon chambers.
Herb Ellis Trio: The Shadow of Your Smile
The walls are almost without vegetation; a few dwarf bushes are seen here and there, clinging to the rocks, and cedars grow from the crevices---not like the cedars of a land refreshed with rains, great cones bedecked with spray, but ugly clumps, like war clubs, beset with spines. We are minded
to call this the Canyon of Desolation.
The wind annoys us much today.
The water, rough by reason of the rapids,
is made more so by head gales.
Wherever a great face of rock
has a southern exposure,
the rarified air rises,
and the wind rushes in below,
either up or down the canyon,
or both, causing local currents.
Just at sunset we run a bad rapid,
and camp at its foot.
--John Wesley Powell journal entry for July 8, 1869
We find quiet water today,
the river sweeping in great
and beautiful curves,
the canyon walls steadily
increasing in altitude.
The escarpments formed by
the cut edges of the rock
are often vertical,
sometimes terraced,
and in some places
the treads of the terraces
are sloping.
In these quiet curves
vast amphitheaters
are formed,
now in vertical rocks,
now in steps...
--John Wesley Powell journal entry for July 7, 1869
Whichever day it was,
it was a gently day
---mild, magical
and innocent
with great sailing
of white cloud
serene and impregnable
in the high sky,
moving along like
kingly swans on quiet water.
The sun was in
the neighborhood also,
distributing his enchantment
unobtrusively, coloring
the sides of things
that were unalive
and livening the hearts
of living things.
--Flann O'Brien
Bruce Springsteen: 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)
If the words life, liberty,
and the pursuit
of happiness
don't include
the right
to experiment
with your own
consciousness,
then the Declaration
of Independence
isn't worth the hemp
it was written on.
--Terence McKenna
ELVIS SIGHTING WITH BRAHMA AND ZOROASTER TEMPLE
POWELL PLATEAU FROM SERPENTINE RAPID
SOMEWHERE SOUTH OF BIG SUR
LIGHTNING WITH MEERKAT FROM HEAD LIKE AN ORANGE
>And what joy, think ye,
did they feel
after the exceedingly long
and troublous ascent?
---After scrambling,
pulling, pushing, lifting,
gasping, looking, hoping,
despairing, climbing,
holding on, falling off,
trying, puffing, loosing,
gathering, talking,
stepping, grumbling,
anathematizing, scraping,
hacking, bumping, jogging,
overturning, hunting, standing,
---for know ye,
by these methods alone
are the most divine mysteries
of the Quest revealed?
