| Show WHITE WATER MEN OF THE COLORADO stupendous walls of jasper hued sandstone channeled by a mighty river A river sinuous and treacherous as a snake which has lured men down its frothy white water rapids to their destruction and death such is the colorado major john wesley powells forceful description of the region reveals the scene which met his eyes when ho he made his first journey down the white water in 1869 and gazed upon a strange weird grand region the landscape everywhere away form the river is 3 of rock cliffs of rock t tables ables or rook plateaus or rock terraces of rock crags of rock ten thousand strangely carved forms rocks everywhere and no vegetation no soil no sand A w whole hole land of naked rock with giant forms carved on it cathedral shaped buttes towering hundreds or thousands of feet cliffs that cannot be scaled and canyon walls that shrink the river into insignificance with vast hollow domes and tall pinnacles and shafts set on the verge overhead and all highly colored buff gray red brown and chocolate never not mosa ce vered but bare and often polished shooting the rapids of the colorado cannot easily be compared with a similar feat performed along rivers in the north woods country because the incredible country which the colorado runs is so very different obstacles aces presented are many submerged boulders as big as a house wait to trip the eager boatman and the treacherous current carries him along smoothly deceiving his trusting eye utterly until he may find too late his adventure turned into inco disaster major john wesley powell made two assaults on the river the first seventy two years ago and the second in 1871 this one armed adventurer and explore neary lost his life in split rock canyon during the first trip and accidents en masse visited the journey shivwits Shiv wits indians killed three of powells men who had become discouraged and left the party much distension arose in the party during the second attempt to run the rapids for the major took this expedition tion somewhat lightly and failed to meet his men at designated places failed to send supplies and kept the men waiting in confining canyons for days while he went scouting with jacob hamlin mormon missionary to the indians nevertheless powell pioneered the course of running the rapids and contributed tri buted vivid and graphic accounts of his trips which paved the way tor for men who followed him not only in time but his course through the canyons of the colorado |
