202 
The Colorado River 
rapids which had wrecked the earlier party and swallowed up 
the No-Name were appropriately called Disaster Falls. 
The river descends throughout Lodore with great rapidity 
and every day brought with it hard work and narrow escapes. 
Sometimes the danger was of a novel and unexpected charac¬ 
ter, as on June i6th, when the dry willows around camp 
caught fire. Powell had started for a climb of investigation 
and looking down on the camp he perceived a sudden tre¬ 
mendous activity without being able for some moments to dis¬ 
cover the cause. So rapidly did the fire spread that there was 
no escape except by the boats. Some had their clothing 
burned and their hair singed, while Bradley even had his ears 
scorched. The cook in his haste stumbled with his arms full 
of culinary utensils, and the load disappeared beneath the 
waters, ever on the alert to swallow up man, boat, or beast. 
Just below the camp was a rapid and, casting off, they were 
forced to run this without stopping to examine it. No harm 
was done to the boats, and they landed at the first opportu¬ 
nity. When the fire had burned out they went back along the 
rocks to pick up what had been left behind and was uncon¬ 
sumed. On the same day, as the men were in the act of 
lowering a boat by lines, she broke away and started on an in¬ 
dependent run. Fortunately, she soon became entangled in an 
eddy, where she halted long enough to permit them to hurry 
down the small boat and recapture her. Sometimes the chan¬ 
nel was beset with innumerable great rocks, amidst which the 
river seethed and boiled in a manner sufficient to terrify any 
boatmen, but, luckily, they were able to work their way cau¬ 
tiously along, and without further disaster they came, on the 
17th of June, to a place where the walls broke away and they 
emerged into a beautiful park-like widening of the canyon with 
bounding cliffs only about 600 feet high near the river. After 
the continuous cliffs of from 2000 to 2500 feet this place 
seemed like open country. Once more they camped in a quiet 
place at the mouth of a river entering through a deep canyon 
on the left or east side. It was the Yampa, sometimes called 
Bear River. After a side trip of several hours up this canyon 
they started again on the descent and, skirting the smooth per- 
