Grateful Dead: Dark Star~~Morning Dew...Long Beach, CA. 12/15/72
Sing in me, Muse,
and through me
tell the story
of that man
skilled in all ways
of contending,
the wanderer,
harried for years on end,
after he plundered
the stronghold
on the proud height of Troy.
He saw the townlands
and learned the minds
of many distant men,
and weathered many
bitter nights and days
in his deep heart at sea,
while he fought only
to save his life,
to bring his shipmates home.
--Homer The Odyssey
12/26/79...(2nd set and encores)
We drop down two miles this morning, and go into camp again.
There is a low willow-covered strip of land along the walls on the east.
Across this we walk, to explore an alcove which we see from the river.
On entering, we find a little grove of box-elder and cottonwood trees;
and, turning to the right, we find ourselves in a vast chamber,
carved out of the rock. At the upper end
there is a clear, deep pool of water, bordered with verdure.
Standing by the side of this, we can see the grove at the entrance.
The chamber is more than two hundred feet high, five hundred feet long,
and two hundred feet wide. Through the ceiling, and on through the rocks
for a thousand feet above, there is a narrow winding skylight;
and this is all carved out by a little stream, which only runs
during the few showers that fall now and then in this arid country.
The waters from the bare rocks of the canyon,
gathering rapidly into a small channel, have eroded a deep side canyon,
through which they run, until they fall into the smaller end of this chamber.
The rock at the ceiling is hard, the rock below, very soft and friable;
and having cut through the upper harder portion down into the lower and softer, the stream has washed out these friable sandstones;
and thus the chamber has been excavated.
Here we bring our camp.
When Old Shady
sings us a song at night,
we are pleased to find
that this hollow
in the rock is filled
with sweet sounds.
It was doubtless made
for an academy of music
by its storm-born architect;
so we name it Music Temple.
--John Wesley Powell journal entry for August 1, 1869
We have a cool, pleasant ride today through this part of the canyon. The walls are steadily increasing in altitude, the curves are gentle, and often the river sweeps in an arc of vertical wall, smooth and unbroken; and then by a curve that is variegated by royal arches, mossy alcoves, deep beautiful glens and painted grottoes.
--John Wesley Powell journal entry for July 31, 1869
We make good progress today,
as the water, though smooth,
is swift. Sometimes the canyon walls are vertical to the top. Sometimes, they are vertical below, and have a mound-shaped slope above it. In other places, the slope with its mounds,
comes down to the water's edge.
Still proceeding on our way,
we find the orange sandstone
is cut in two by a group of firm, calcareous strata, and the lower bed is underlaid by soft, gypsiferous shales. Sometimes, the upper homogenous bed is a smooth, vertical wall, but usually it is carved with mounds, with gently meandering valley lines.
The lower bed, yielding to gravity, as the softer shales below work out into the river, breaks into angular surfaces, often having a columnar appearance. One could almost imagine that the walls had
been carved with a purpose,
to represent giant
architectual forms.
In the deep recesses of the walls, we find springs,
with mosses and ferns
on the moistened sandstone.
--John Wesley Powell journal entry for July 30, 1869
Marcia Griffiths: Dreamland / Dub in Dreamland
Bunny Wailer: Dreamland / Dreamland Dub
WESTWARD VIEW FROM OUTSIDE HORN CANYON (2)
OUTSIDE HANCE CANYON LOOKING EAST (2)
POIN'DEXTER PANORAMA
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
My boat was finally washed to shore after drifting for several days, and I was delirious from exposure and lack of food or water. I was discovered by a wandering tribe of Bozos who later told me that I had been heard to repeat "On the left hand it goes North and on the right hand South" continually while they nursed me back to health which took some weeks.
When I returned to my senses,
I found all the Bozos of the tribe wandering about repeating "On the left hand it goes North and on the right hand South" over and over and looking rather blissful. Anxious not to mislead them (for at the time I didn't know this was an impossibility) I immediately informed them that "in between it may go straight down". No sooner had the words left my mouth than they all prostrated themselves before me, desiring me to become their king. Refusing this post, they immediately elected me a saint and began pressing me for teachings which would elucidate the notion which they found so marvelous and accepted the true story as an elaborately cloaked metaphor, of which judgement nothing would dissuade them.
--Robert Hunter
We run a short distance this morning, and go into camp,
to make oars and repair boats
and barometers. The walls of the canyon have been steadily increasing in altitude to this point, and now they are more than two thousand feet high. In many places, they are vertical from the water's edge; in others, there is
a talus between the river and the foot of the cliffs, and they are often broken down by side canyons. It is probable that the river is nearly as low now as it is ever found. High water mark can be observed forty, fifty, sixty, or a hundred feet above its present stage. Sometimes logs and driftwood are seen wedged into the crevice overhead, where floods have carried them.
About ten o'clock, Bradley, Howland, Hall, and myself start up a side canyon to the east.
We soon come to pools of water; then to a brook, which is lost in the sands below; and passing up the brook, we find the canyon narrows, the walls close in, are often overhanging, and at last we find ourselves in a vast amphitheater, with a pool of deep, clear, cold water on the bottom. At first, our way seems cut off; but we soon discover a little shelf, along which we climb, and, passing beyond the pool, walk a hundred yards or more, turn to the right, and find ourselves in another dome-shaped amphitheater. There is a winding cleft at the top, reaching out to the country above,
nearly two thousand feet overhead. The rounded, basin-shaped bottom is filled with water to the foot of the walls. There is no shelf by which we can pass around the foot. If we swim across, we meet with a face of rock hundreds of feet high, over which a little rill glides, and it will be impossible to climb.
So we can go no farther up this canyon. then we turn back, and examine the walls on either side carefully, to discover, if possible, some way of climbing out. In this search every man takes his own course, and we are scattered.
I almost abandon the idea of getting out, and am engaged in searching for fossils, when I discover, on the north, a broken place, up which it may be possible
for me to climb.
The way, for a distance, is up a slide of rocks; then up an irregular amphitheater, on points that form steps and give hand-hold, and then I reach a little shelf, along which i walk, and discover a vertical fissure, parallel to the face of the wall, and reaching to a higher shelf. This fissure is narrow, and I try to climb up to the bench, which is about forty feet overhead. I have a barometer on my back, which rather impedes my climbing. The walls of the fissure are of smooth limestone offering neither foot- nor hand-hold. So I support myself by pressing my back against one wall and my knees against the other, and, in this way, lift my body, in a shuffling manner, a few inches at a time, until I have, perhaps, made twenty-five feet of the distance, when the crevice widens a little, and I cannot press my knees against rocks in front with sufficient power to give me support in lifting my body, and I try to go back. This I cannot do without falling. So I struggle along sidewise, farther into the crevice, where it narrows. But by this time my muscles are exhausted, and I cannot climb longer; so I move still a little farther into the crevice, where it is so narrow and wedging that I can lie in it, and there I rest.
Five or ten minutes of this relief, and up once more I go, and reach the bench above. On this I can walk for a quarter of a mile, till I come to a place where the wall is again broken down, so that I can climb up still farther, and in an hour I reach the summit. I hang up my barometer, to give it a few minutes time to settle, and occupy myself in collecting resin from the pinon pines, which are found in great abundance. One of the principal objects in making this climb was to get this resin, for the purpose of smearing our boats; but I have with me no means of carrying it down. The day is very hot, and my coat was left in camp, so I have no linings to tear out. Then it occurs to me to cut off the sleeve of my shirt, tie it up at one end, and in this little sack I collect about a gallon of pitch. After taking observations for altitude, I wander back on the rock, for an hour or two, when suddenly I notice that a storm is coming from the south. I seek a shelter in the rocks; but when the storm bursts, it comes down as a flood from the heavens, not with gentle drops at first, slowly increasing in quantity, but as if suddenly poured out. I am thoroughly drenched, and almost washed away.It lasts not more than half an hour, when the clouds sweep by to the north, and I have sunshine again.
In the meantime, I have discovered a better way of getting down, and I start for camp, making the greatest haste possible. On reaching
the bottom of the side canyon,
I find a thousand streams rolling down the cliffs on every side, carrying with them red sand; and these all unite in the canyon below, in one great stream of red mud.
Traveling as fast as I can run,
I soon reach the foot of the stream, for the rain did not reach the lower end of the canyon, and the water is running down a dry bed of sand; and although it comes in waves, several feet high and fifteen or twenty feet in width, the sands soak it up, and it is lost. But wave follows wave, and rolls along, and is swallowed up; and still the floods come on from above. I find that I
can travel faster than the stream; so I hasten to camp, and tell the men there is a river coming down the canyon. We carry our camp equipage hastily from the bank, to where we think it will be above the water.
Then we stand by, and see the river roll on to join the Colorado.
Great quantities of gypsum are found at the bottom of the gorge;
so we name it Gypsum Canyon.
--John Wesley Powell journal entry for July 26, 1869
We examine the rapids below. Large rocks have fallen from the walls--great, angular blocks, which have rolled down the talus, and are strewn along the channel. We are compelled to make three portages in succession, the distance being less than three-fourths of a mile, with a fall of seventy-five feet. Among these rocks, in chutes, whirlpools, and great waves, with rushing breakers and foam, the water finds its way, still tumbling down. We stop for the night, only three-fourths of a mile below the last camp. A very hard day's work has been done, and at evening I sit on a rock by the edge of the river, to look at the water, and listen to its roar. Hours ago, deep shadows had settled into the canyon as the sun passed behind the cliffs. Now, doubtless, the sun has gone down, for we can see no glint of light on the crags above. Darkness is coming on. The waves are rolling, with crests of foam so white they seem almost to give a light of their own. Nearby, a chute of water strikes the foot of a great block of limestone, fifty feet high, and the waters pile up against it, and roll back. Where there are sunken rocks, the water heaps up in mounds, or even in cones. At a point where rocks come very near the surface, the water forms a chute above, strikes, and is shot up ten or fifteen feet, and piles back in gentle curves, as in a fountain; and on the river tumbles and rolls.
--John Wesley Powell journal entry for July 24, 1869
On starting,
we come at once
to difficult rapids
and falls, that,
in many places,
are more abrupt
than in any
of the canyons
through which
we have passed.
From morning until noon,
the course of the river
is to the west.
The scenery is grand,
with rapids and falls below,
and walls above,
beset with crags
and pinnacles.
Just at noon
we wheel again
to the south,
and go into camp for dinner.
While the cook
is preparing it,
Bradley, Sumner
and myself
go into a side canyon
that comes in at this point.
We enter through
a very narrow passage,
having to wade along
the course of
a little stream
until a cascade
interrupts our progress.
Then we climb to the right,
for a hundred feet,
until we reach
a little shelf,
along which we pass,
walking with great care,
for it is narrow,
until we pass
around the fall.
Here the gorge widens into a spacious, sky-roofed chamber. In the farther end is a beautiful grove of cottonwoods, and between us and the cottonwoods the little stream widens out into three clear lakelets, with bottoms of smooth rock. Beyond the cottonwoods the brook tumbles in a series of white, shining cascades, from heights that seem immeasurable. Turning around, we can look through the cleft through which we came, and see the river, with towering walls beyond. What a chamber for a resting place is this! hewn from the solid rock; the heavens for a ceiling; cascade fountains within; a grove in the conservatory, clear lakelets for a refreshing bath, and an outlook through the doorway on a raging river, with cliffs and mountains beyond.
Our way, after dinner, is through a gorge, grand beyond description. The walls are nearly vertical; the river broad and swift, but free from rocks and falls. At this great depth, the river rolls in solemn majesty...
--John Wesley Powell journal entry for July 23, 1869
