EXPERIENCES IN THE GRAND CANYON 



167 



ACROBATIC PHOTOGRAPHY 



Drawing close to the Edith, I heard a 

 strangled call, and saw that he was hang- 

 ing to the boat. A life-preserver was 

 floating ahead of him and he was calling 

 to me to save it. In a moment I was at 

 his side and was pulling him into the De- 

 fiance. Then we caught the upturned 

 boat just as we were carried into the 

 next rapid, the rapid which had proved 

 to be the last for Brown. 



There was no time to turn the boat 

 upright, so we held to the rope to save 

 her as she dragged us on and on into 

 the darkness. It was a hard pull, but I 

 made it, and kept clear of the overhang- 

 ing rocks under which the current ran. 

 But the Edith, filled with water, kept 

 us from making the landing, and a mile 

 of swift water was passed before we 

 pulled into an eddy and tied the boats 

 to a boulder. 



The lower end of Marble Canyon held 

 many curious grottos ; in places the 

 walls were honey-combed with caves. 

 Some of these caves made excellent 

 camping places, for the flood waters had 

 been into them and had deposited a level 

 floor of sand. Driftwood was piled up 

 at the mouth of one of them, and a spring 

 of water bubbled from the rocks not far 

 distant. Although ilr was early in the 

 afternoon, we could not resist this invi- 

 tation to camp, for it was snowing on the 

 heights above and a cold wind blew up 

 the canyon. The only disturbing ele- 

 ment at this place was the roar of an- 

 other rapid just below. 



When lying in our beds the noise 

 made by the water was terrific, and we 

 would imagine we heard all sorts of im- 

 possible things, such as crying children, 

 women screaming, and the shrieking of 

 the wind. On rising up in our beds it 

 would once more be the roaring of the 

 rapid. We could plainly hear the roll- 

 ing of rocks as they turned over and 

 thumped against one another. 



The walls of Marble Canyon fell 

 sheer for hundreds of feet in many 

 places, the gorges at these points being 

 very narrow (see pages 163, 164, 166). 

 In one place we recorded a high-water 

 mark 107 feet above the low water on 

 which we vvere traveling. 



IN the; GRAND CANYON — the; signaIv firi; 



One week after leaving Lee's Eerry we 

 were at the Hance Rapid in the Grand 

 Canyon. This was the beginning of the 

 abrupt and violent rapids of the granite 

 gorge. This rapid was run in safety, but 

 not without some exciting experiences. 

 Then came a series of rapids which dif- 

 fered from those we had found above. 

 The rapids we had been traversing were 

 usually caused by the debris from side 

 canyons, which dammed the stream and 

 transformed what might have been a 

 good, swift stream with a continuous drop 

 to a succession of mill ponds and cata- 

 racts. In most cases in the low water the 

 deposit made a shore on which we could 

 land and inspect the rapid from below. 



But the rapids in the granite gorge 

 were different. They were not caused 

 by any great deposit of rock, but rather 

 seemed to be formed by a single narrow 

 dike or ledge, rising from the bottom. 

 The rapids dropped almost like a dam, 

 then tailed out in long lines of interfer- 

 ence waves. Had it not been so cold, 

 this style would have been more to our 

 fancy. The descent was abrupt, but care- 

 ful handling of the boat took us past 

 every danger. There was little chance to 

 make a portage in any of those rapids 

 had we desired to do so, which we did 

 not. 



We gave them but a glance, then 

 rowed into them. One had a fall little 

 short of 35 feet. The next was even 

 more abrupt, and dropped about 30 feet. 

 We paused only to bail out after each 

 rapid, then pulled on again. 



In five hours we had dropped 178 

 feet. We never paused in our rowing 

 until we anchored under the tramway, 

 and prepared to go up Bright Angel 

 Creek and build our signal fire. When 

 our last letter was sent out we had told 

 them to begin to look for us about the 

 fourteenth of November; it was now 

 the sixteenth. We had some doubts if 

 the fire would be seen on top, for storm- 

 clouds filled the canyon ; but now and 

 then a rift appeared, and we hoped they 

 saw the light. 



Rag-ged and tired, but happy, we 

 climbed the trail the next day to meet 

 with a reception that repaid us for all 



