Show san juan utah by albert IL lynian lyman 20 nobody is going to portray all the extremely interesting phases of life in this colony which had been planted as a lightning rod on the san juan to contain or to deflect the war flashes which had been emanating from this remote region for thirty years it was not a world where men could enjoy numberless advantages through ready exchange with many other men a world where public and private barter gives every man more or less purchasing access to the skill and industry of the multitude it was i a world where they had to meet situations in the raw and handle an endless array of emergencies oy main strength and awkwardness contriving methods never heard of before they had chad left supplies at Es calante ca lantei flour and other things which they expected to bring when they had found a way for and made a road they never once dreamed that no such way would be found and no such road ever built but road or no road the material from various points of utah piled up and waiting at escalante had to be brought to bluff and they had no other way than to go with their pony teams and get it that meant hole in the rock in reverse driving up where it had been perilously difficult and dan berous to come down it occurs to us that what we happened to say about this on the second of march 1950 is is what should have been reversed reversed to say right here as follows we are going on a trip we have turned back the hands of the clock to the spring g of 1880 and we are going from bluff to escalante for a load of flour a thousand pounds of it a four horse load a really big load for two pony teams to wangle over a broken region where roads were unknown it is the of april just a little more than three weeks since the weary company came to a halt on the san juan river and decided to begin a settlement at the mouth of cottonwood wash they are short of food having been all winter on the road and the original platte D lyman is going back for flour left at escalante he has ben delayed hunting his horses but now he has found them has all four of them hitched to an old shutler wagon and is starting off to the west over the sandhills sand hills iUs with 3 of his young brothers he makes a big drive the first day covering seventeen miles for he has to toil up into the valley of the cross its box canyon and then wind a long along down the east side of comb reef and down san juan hill to the mouth of comb wash and drag up through its heavy sand to camp at navajo spring in a week with his empty wagons he has reached the colorado river at hole in the rock and after making the crossing in a little row boat he takes half a day to pull to the top of the hole two miles from the river bank they carry their bedding their grub box and all the rest of their plunder up by hand leaving ncr nothing thing but a neck yoke in the wagon the team strains and tugs tuga and slips and falls and makes seventy two pulls before staggering out on top trembling with exertion and lathering with sweat in another week with their empty wagon and their four horse team these lyman brothers have riched reached escalante and loaded up their precious flour then platte lyman and his brother walter G a youth of 18 head back for bluff their passage down hole in the rock is hair raising calling not only for breaks and rough locks and au all their available skill in driving but for all the faith and courage they can muster having reached the river bank in one piece they take their whole outfit to pieces and row it across in the small boat swim their horses to the east side assemble everything and load up harness the string of pony horses and pull up UD a short dugway |