The Gate of Lodore 
251 
and weight was to be avoided. At times some of the men 
amused themselves by diving under the boats, swimming 
around and ahead of them, or surprised a coyote on the bank 
with a rifle-shot, and otherwise enjoyed the relaxation we 
had well earned by our toil in Red Canyon. The river was 
smooth and deep and about six hundred to eight hundred feet 
wide. At the very foot of the valley we made a camp under 
the shadow of that magnificent and unrivalled portal, the Gate 
of Lodore, which had been visible to us for many miles; the 
The Heart of Lodore. 
Photograph by E. O. Beaman, U. S. Colo. Riv. Exp. 
dark cleft two thousand feet high, through which the river 
cuts into the heart of the mountains, appearing as solemn and 
mysterious as the pathway to another world. From an emin¬ 
ence we could peer into its depths for some distance, and there 
was no sign of a rapid, but we were not deceived, having posted 
ourselves by extracts from Jack Sumner’s diary, whose de¬ 
scription of “how the waters come down at Lodore’’ was 
contained in the frequent repetition of the words, “a hell of 
foam.’’ Lodore, indeed, is almost one continuous rapid for 
the whole twenty miles of its length, and the passage through 
