DISASTER FALLS ASHLEY'S CREEK. 27 
As Ashley and his party were wrecked here, and as we have lost one 
of our boats at the same place, we adopt the name Disaster Falls for the 
scene of so much peril and loss. 
Though some of his companions were drowned, Ashley and one other 
survived the wreck, climbed the canon wall, and found their way across the 
Wasatch Mountains to Salt Lake City, living chiefly on berries, as they 
wandered through an unknown and difficult country. When they arrived 
at Salt Lake, they were almost destitute of clothing, and nearly starved. 
The Mormon people gave them food and clothing, and employed them to 
work on the foundation of the Temple, .until they had earned sufficient to 
enable them to leave the country. Of their subsequent history, I have no 
knowledge. It is possible they returned to the scene of the disaster, as a 
little creek entering the river below is known as Ashley's Creek, and it is 
reported that he built a cabin and trapped on this river for one or two 
winters ; but this may have been before the disaster. 
June 13. Still rocks, rapids, and portages. 
We camp to-night at the foot of the left wall on a little patch of flood- 
plain covered with a dense growth of box-elders, stopping early in order to 
spread the clothing and rations to dry. Everything is wet and spoiling. 
June 1 4. Rowland and I climb the wall, on the west side of the canon, 
to an altitude of 2,000 feet. Standing above, and looking to the west, we 
discover a large park, five or six miles wide and twenty or thirty long. The 
cliff we have climbed forms a wall between the canon and the park, for it 
is 800 feet, down the western side, to the valley. A creek comes winding 
down, 1,200 feet above the river, and, entering the intervening wall by a 
canon, it plunges down, more than a thousand feet, by a broken cascade, 
into the river below. 
June 15. To-day, while we make another portage, a peak, standing 
on the east wall, is climbed by two of the men, and found to be 2,700 feet 
above the river. On the east side of the canon, a vast amphitheater has been 
cut, with massive buttresses, and deep, dark alcoves, in which grow beautiful 
mosses and delicate ferns, while springs burst out from the further recesses, 
and wind, in silver threads, over floors of sand rock. Here we have three 
falls in close succession. At the first, the water is compressed into a very 
