Let the trees
be consulted
before you take
any action.
Every time
you breathe in
thank a tree.
Let tree roots
crack parking lots at
the world bank headquarters.
Let loggers be druids
specially trained
and rewarded
to sacrifice trees
at auspicious times.
Let carpenters
be master artisans.
Let lumber be treasured
like gold.
Let chainsaws be played
like saxophones.
Let soldiers on maneuvers
plant trees.
Give police and criminals
a shovel and
a thousand seedlings.
Let businessmen
carry pocketfuls
of acorns.
Let newlyweds
honeymoon in the woods.
Walk don’t drive.
Stop reading newspapers.
Stop writing poetry.
Squat under a tree
and tell stories.
The canyon is wider today.
The walls rise to a vertical height
of nearly three thousand feet.
In many places the river runs under a cliff,
in great curves, forming amphitheaters, half-dome shaped.
Though the river is rapid,
we meet with
no serious obstructions,
and run twenty miles.
It is curious
how anxious we are
to make up our reckoning
every time we stop,
now that our diet
is confined to
plenty of coffee,
very little spoiled flour,
and very few dried apples.
It has come to be
a race for a dinner.
Still, we make
such fine progress,
all hands are in good cheer,
but not a moment
of daylight is lost.
--John Wesley Powell journal entry for August 24, 1869
Our way today is
again through marble walls.
Now and then, we pass,
for a short distance,
through patches of granite,
like hills thrust up
into the limestone.
At one of these places
we have to make another portage,
and, taking advantage
of the delay,
I go up a little stream,
to the north,
wading it all the way,
sometimes having to plunge
in to my neck.
In other places
I am compelled to swim across
little basins that have been
excavated at the foot
of the falls.
Along its course are many cascades and springs
gushing out from the rock on either side.
Sometimes a cottonwood tree grows over the water.
I come to one beautiful fall of more than one hundred and fifty feet,
and climb around it to the right on the broken rocks.
Still going up, I find the canyon narrowing very much,
being but fifteen or twenty feet wide.
yet the walls rise on either side
many hundreds of feet, perhaps thousands,
I can hardly tell.
In some places the stream
has not excavated its channel
down vertically
through the rocks,
but has cut obliquely
so that one wall
overhangs the other.
In other places it is
cut vertically above
and obliquely below,
or obliquely above
and vertically below,
so that it is impossible
to see out overhead.
But I can go no farther.
The time which I estimated
it would take to make
the portage has almost expired,
and I must start back
on a round trot,
wading in the creek
where I must,
and plunging through basins,
and find the men waiting for me,
and away we go on the river.
Just after lunch
we pass a stream on the right
which leaps into the Colorado
by a direct fall of more than
a hundred feet,
forming a beautiful cascade.
There is a bed
of very hard rock above,
thirty or forty feet in thickness,
and much softer beds below.
The hard beds above
project many yards
beyond the softer,
which are washed out,
forming a deep cave
behind the fall,
and the stream pours through
a narrow crevice above
into a deep pool below.
Around on the rocks,
in the cave-like chamber,
are set beautiful ferns
with delicate fronds
and enameled stalks.
The little frondlets have
their points turned down,
to form spore cases.
It has very much the appearance
of the Maiden's Hair fern,
but is much larger.
The delicate foliage
covers the rocks
all about the fountain,
and gives the chamber
great beauty.
But we have little time
to spend in admiration,
so on we go.
We make fine progress
this afternoon,
carried along
by a swift river,
and shoot over the rapids,
finding no serious obstructions.
The canyon walls, for two thousand five hundred or three thousand feet, are very regular, rising almost perpendicularly, but here and there set with narrow steps, and occasionally we can see above the broad terrace to distant cliffs.
We camp tonight in a marble cave, and find, at looking at our reckoning, that we have run twenty-two miles.
--John Wesley Powell journal entry for August 23, 1869
SCORPION RIDGE
CRYSTAL RAPID
ROYAL ARCH CREEK AT ELVES CHASM (2)
BIGHORN SKULL, SLATE CANYON
CHEYAVA FALLS
WOTANS THRONE AND VISHNU TEMPLE DISTANT
We start early this morning, cheered by the prospect of
a fine day, and encouraged, also, by the good run made yesterday. A quarter of a mile below camp the river turns abruptly to the left, and between camp and that point is very swift, running down in a long, broken chute, and piling up against the foot of the cliff, where it turns to the left. We try to pull across,
so as to go down on the other side, but the waters are swift, and it seems impossible for us to escape the rock below;
but, in pulling across, the bow
of the boat is turned to the farther shore, so that we are swept broadside down, and are prevented, by the rebounding waters, from striking against the wall. There we toss about for a few seconds in these billows, and are carried past the danger. Below, the river turns again to the right, the canyon is very narrow, and we see in advance but a short distance. The water, too, is very swift, and there is no landing place. From around this curve there comes a mad roar, and down we are carried, with a dizzying velocity,
to the head of another rapid. On either side, high over our heads, there are overhanging granite walls, and the sharp bends cut off our view, so that a few minutes will carry us into unknown waters. Away we go, on one long, winding chute. I stand on deck, supporting myself with a strap, fastened on either side to the gunwhale, and the boat glides rapidly, where the water is smooth, or, striking a wave, she leaps and bounds like a thing of life, and we have
a wild, exhilarating ride for ten miles, which we make in less than an hour. The excitement is so great that we forget the danger, until we hear the roar of a great fall below; then we back on our oars, and are carried slowly toward its head, and succeed in landing just above, and find that we have to make another portage. At this we are engaged until sometime after dinner.
Just here we run out of granite!
Ten miles in less than half a day, and limestone walls below. Good cheer returns; we forget the storms, and gloom, and cloud-covered canyons, and the black granite, and the raging river, and push our boats from shore in great glee.
Though we are out of the granite, the river is still swift, and we wheel about a point again to the right, and turn, so as to head back in the direction from which we come, and see the granite again, with its narrow gorge and black crags; but we meet with no more great falls, or rapids. Still, we run cautiously, and stop, from time to time, to examine some places which look bad. Yet, we make ten miles this afternoon; twenty miles, in all, today.
--John Wesley Powell journal entry for August 21, 1869
Rain again this morning. Still we are in our granite prison, and the time is occupied until noon in making a long, bad portage.
After lunch, in running a rapid, the pioneer boat is upset by a wave. We are some distance in advance of the larger boats, the river is rough and swift, and we are unable to land, but cling to the boat, and are carried downstream over another rapid. The men in the boats above see our trouble, but they are caught in whirlpools, and are spinning about in eddies. It seems a long time before they come to our relief. At last they do come. Our boat is turned right side up and bailed out. The oars, which fortunately have floated along in company with us, are gathered up, and on we go, without even landing.
Soon after the accident the clouds break away, and we have sunshine again.
Soon we find a little beach, with just enough room to land. Here we camp, but there is no wood. Across the river, and a little way above, we see some driftwood lodged in the rocks. So we bring two boatloads over, build a huge fire, and spread everything to dry. It is the first cheerful night we have had for a week; a warm, drying fire in the midst of the camp, and a few bright stars in our porch of heavens overhead.
--John Wesley Powell journal entry for August 19, 1869
The day is employed
in making portages,
and we advance
but two miles
on our journey.
Still it rains.
While the men
are at work
making portages,
I climb up the granite
to its summit,
and go away back over
the rust-colored sandstones
and greenish-yellow shales,
to the foot
of the marble wall.
I climb so high
that the men and boats
are lost in the black depths below,
and the dashing river is a rippling brook;
and still there is more canyon above than below.
All about me are interesting geological records.
The book is open, and I can read as I run.
All about me are grand views, for the clouds are playing again in the gorges. But somehow I think of the nine days rations, and the bad river, and the lesson of the rocks, and the glory of the scene is but half seen.
I push on to an angle, where I hope to get a view of the country beyond, to see, if possible, what the prospect may be of our soon running through this plateau, or at least meeting with some geological change that will let us out of the granite. But arriving at the point, I can see only a labyrinth of deep gorges.
--John Wesley Powell journal entry for August 18, 1869
Our rations are still spoiling; the bacon is so injured that we are compelled to throw it away. By an accident, this morning, the saleratus is lost overboard. We have now only musty flour sufficient for ten days, a few dried apples, but plenty of coffee. We must make all haste possible. If we meet with difficulties, as we have done in the canyon above, we may be compelled to give up the expedition, and try to reach the Mormon settlements to the north. Our hopes are that the worst places are passed, but our barometers are all so much injured as to be useless, so we have lost our reckoning in altitude, and know not how much descent the river has yet to make.The stream is still wild and rapid, and rolls through a narrow channel.
We make but slow progress, often landing against a wall, and climbing around some point, where we can see the river below. Although very anxious to advance, we are determined to run with great caution, lest, by another accident, we lose all our supplies. How precious this little flour has become! We divide it among the boats, and carefully store it away, so that it can be lost only by the loss of the boat itself. We make ten miles and a half, and camp among the rocks on the right. We have had rain, from time to time, all day, and have been thoroughly drenched and chilled. But between showers the sun shines with great power, and the mercury in our thermometer stands at 115 degrees, so that we have rapid changes from great extremes, which are very disagreeable.
It is especially cold in the rain tonight. The little canvas we have is rotten and useless; the rubber ponchos, with which we started from Green River City, have all been lost. More than half the party is without hats, and not one of us has an entire suit of clothes. We have not a blanket apiece. So we gather driftwood, and build a fire; but after supper, the rain, coming down in torrents, extinguishes it, and we sit up all night, on the rocks, shivering, and are more exhausted by the night's discomfort than by the day's toil.
--John Wesley Powell journal entry for August 17, 1869
(85th day of the voyage)
Gillian Welch / David Rawlings: Brokedown Palace...12/5/24
We must dry our rations again today and make oars. The Colorado is never a clear stream, but for the past three or four days it has been raining much of the time, and the floods which are poured over the walls have brought down great quantities of mud, making it exceedingly turbid now. The little affluent which we have discovered here is a clear, beautiful creek, or river, as it would be termed in this western country, where streams are not abundant. We have named one stream, away above, the "Dirty Devil," and, as this is in beautiful contrast to that, we conclude to name it "Bright Angel."
Early in the morning the whole party starts up to explore the Bright Angel River with the special purpose of seeking timber from which to make oars. A couple of miles above, we find a large pine log which has been floated down from the plateau, probably from an altitude of six thousand feet, but not many miles back. On its way it must have passed over many cataracts and falls for it bears scars in evidence of the rough usage which it has received. The men roll it on skids, and the work of sawing oars is commenced. This stream heads back away, under a line of abrupt cliffs, that terminates the plateau, and tumbles down more than four thousand feet in the first mile or two of its course. It then runs through a deep, narrow canyon until it reaches the river.
Late in the afternoon I return, and go up a little gulch just above this creek about two hundred yards from camp. I discover the ruins of two or three old houses, which were originally of stone, laid in mortar. Only the foundations are left, but irregular blocks, of which the houses were constructed, lie scattered about. In one room I find an old mealing stone, deeply worn, as if it had been much used. A great deal of pottery is strewn around, and old trails, which in some places are deeply worn into the rocks, are seen.
--John Wesley Powell journal entry for August 16, 1869
And now we go on through this solemn mysterious way. The river is very deep, the canyon very narrow, and still obstructed, so that there is no steady flow of the stream; but the waters wheel, and roll, and boil, and we are scarcely able to determine where we can go. Now, the boat is carried to the right, perhaps close to the wall; again, she is shot into the stream, and perhaps is dragged over to the other side, where, caught in a whirlpool, she spins about. We can neither land nor run as we please. The boats are entirely unmanageable; no order in their running can be maintained; now one, now another, is ahead, each crew laboring for its own preservation. In such a place we come to another rapid. Two of the boats run it perforce. One succeeds in landing, but there is no foothold by which to make a portage, and she is pushed out again into the stream. The next minute a great reflex wave fills the open compartment; she is water-logged, and drifts unmanageable. Breaker after breaker rolls over her, and one capsizes her. The men are thrown out; but they cling to the boat, and she drifts down some distance, alongside of us, and we are able to catch her. She is soon bailed out, and the men are aboard once more; but the oars are lost, so a pair from the Emma Dean is spared. Then for two miles we find smooth water.
Clouds are playing in the canyon today. Sometimes they roll down in great masses, filling the gorge with gloom; sometimes they hang above, from wall to wall, and cover the canyon with a roof of impending storm; and we can peer long distances up and down this canyon corridoe, with its cloud roof overhead, its walls of black granite, and its river bright with the sheen of broken waters. Then, a gust of wind sweeps down a side gulch, and, making a rift in the clouds, reveals a blue heavens, and a stream of sunlight pours in. Then, the clouds drift away into the distance, and hang around crags, and peaks, and pinnacles, and towers, and walls, and cover them with a mantle, that lifts from time to time, and sets them all in sharp relief. then, baby clouds creep out of side canyons, glide around points, and creep back again into more distant gorges. Then, clouds, set in strata, cross the canyon, with intervening vista views, to cliffs and rocks beyond. The clouds are children of the heavens, and when they play among the rocks, they lift them to the region above.
--John Wesley Powell journal entry for August 15, 1869
