Mukoontuweap Canyon, North Fork of the Virgen. Mukoontuweap Canyon, North Fork of the Virgen. Ten miles long, 3500 feet deep. Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Geol. Survey.
Looking down the Canyon de Chelly, a Tributary of the San Juan and Containing many Cliff Houses. Looking down the Canyon de Chelly, a Tributary of the San Juan and Containing many Cliff Houses. Photograph by BEN WITTICK.
On March 25th the preliminary party, consisting of F. M. Brown, F. C. Kendrick, chief engineer, and T. P. Rigney, assistant engineer, left Denver for Grand Junction, a station on the Rio Grande Western (near the C of Colorado, State name on map, p. 51), and the next morning set the first stake for the new railway which was to cost the president so dear. Then they bought a boat from the ferryman, and after repairing it laid in a supply of rations, engaged some men, and ran a half-mile down Grand River. Brown then left to go East in order to perfect his arrangements for this attempt to survey a railway route through the dangerous canyons. The boat party continued down Grand River to the head of the canyon, twenty-four miles, and then more slowly descended over rougher water, averaging five or six miles a day. At a distance of forty-three miles from the start the rapids grew very bad, and at one place they were forced to make a portage for twelve miles. At the end of one hundred miles they came to the little Mormon settlement of Moab. From here to the Junction of the Grand and Green was a distance of sixty miles, and the water was the same as it is just above the Junction, in the canyons of the Green, Stillwater, and Labyrinth, that is, comparatively smooth and offering no obstacles except a rather swift current. Nowhere had the cliffs risen above one thousand feet, and the river had an average fall of five feet to the mile. This was the first party on record to navigate, for any considerable distance, the canyons of Grand River. From the Junction they proceeded up the Green, towing the boat, desiring to reach the Rio Grande Western Railway crossing, one hundred and twenty miles away. By this time their rations were much diminished and they allowed themselves each day only one-half the ordinary amount, at the same time going on up the river as fast as possible, yet at the end of about eight days, when still thirty miles from their destination, they were reduced to their last meal. Fortunately they then arrived at the cabin of some cattlemen, Wheeler Brothers, who, discovering their plight, put their own ample larder, with true Western hospitality, at the surveyors’ disposal. Thus opportunely fortified and refreshed, the men reached the railway crossing the following night.