Page Twenty-four 



that woiulorful natural fornuitioii first brought to general notice by 

 (.'olonel Roosevelt's visit. At one time this last season, some forty 

 tourists en route to the Bridge were housed with the \\'etherells. 



''When we set out from here, our i)arty consisted of John ^^'etherell, 

 guide; the horse wrai;gler, Albert; cook and general handy-man; a 

 Navajo Indian; Mr. and Mrs. C, JVIr. Nelson and myself. Three 

 cami)s brought us to the San Juan River at Piute Farms, the plan being 

 to ford the river west of the point where Grand Gulch meets it. The river 

 was fortunately in a hai)py mood, and after testing carefully for quick- 

 sands the crossing was made safely. Of course the only i)ack animal 

 to fail to make the opposite bank properly carried the jx^rishables, so 

 we had to dry our matches and make the best of well .soaked macaroni 

 and sugar. 



"Some sixteen camps in all wen^ made during our entire trip, and 

 we w^ere able to place on the maj) three short canyons entering into the 

 San Juan Kivcr which had heretofore been unrecorded.. In fact, en- 

 countering these delayed our reaching Grand Gulch itself, but of course 

 it simplified the work of another expedition. 



"The Gulch is very tortuous, practically doubling the distance 

 from its head to the mouth. A short run w^as made down the can.yon, 

 which showed that the caves located there had not been excavated, and 

 many colored pictographs of the Basket People were found in caves. 

 Red, yellow and green were the colors most often seen. We moved 

 slowly up the Gulch, located many caves and cliff dwellings which had 

 apparently heretofore not been reported, and reached the upper end, 

 where the early exploring was done in the seasons 1893-4 and 1894-5. 

 We w^ere able to identify caves and clifT dwellings from the early records, 

 manuscript, drawings, and photographs, some of which had been made 

 by myself. 



"Even after the unusually dry season, plenty of good water was 

 found in the canyon, some of the springs up the side canyons providing 

 water as pure as one could want. Due to the fact that there were many 

 side canyons to be explored and caves and cliff houses to be entered, 

 j)rogress was naturally slow, some twenty days being consumed before 

 we found the old original trail of which mention is made in the records. 

 When it was found, it took us two days to rebuild it. Afterward, 

 instead of climbing Elk Mountain, we went west and made a visit to 

 White Canyon with its three natural bridges. From here we went again 



