latest journey

journey.html

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<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 80px !important;"><em>While I am a pilgrim here</em><br><em>let Thy love my spirit cheer</em></p>

<br />

<p>In the evening, camped at the mouth of a small creek, a good supper of trout as we discuss whether to name this place Whirlpool Canyon or Craggy Canyon. We cannot decide.</p>

<p>A headlong ride, rearing and plunging with the waves. We decide to call it Whirlpool Canyon.</p>

<p>Repairing the boats, which have had hard knocks, collecting fossils. Hawkins goes off to hunt and returns with a fine, fat deer. We name the mountain after him: Mount Hawkins.</p><br />

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 16px !important;">The waters troubled with billows, white with foam. Mad waves roar.</p>

<p>Split Mountain Canyon. Two or three rapids, then a run of six or eight. Swallows clamor at our intrusion, but the waters drown out their squawking.</p><br />

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 48px !important;">Three falls in close succession.</p>


<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 160px !important;">
<em>'Tis a strait and thorny road, </em><br>
<em>and mortal spirits tire and faint </em></p>

<p>Sheering around the rocks, heading into a long chute, expecting to be dashed at any second.</p>

<p>Gently flowing past groves and natural meadows. Herds of antelopes feeding, and now and then a wolf. The Indians call this Won-sits Yu-av, Antelope Valley.</p><br />
<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 112px !important;">              
<em>It breathes in the air, it shines in the light, </em><br>
<em>it streams from the hills, it descends to the plain, </em><br>
<em>and sweetly distills in the dew and the rain </em></p>

<p>Canyon walls rising almost imperceptibly. </p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 192px !important;">We sweep around curve after curve.</p><p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 160px !important;">
<em>And still new beauties may I see, </em><br />
<em>and still increasing light</em></p>


<p>The wind annoys us much today. Piles of broken rocks, a long line of broken cliffs, stunted cedars - ugly clumps, like war clubs with spines. A region of the wildest desolation; we name it the Canyon of Desolation.</p><p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 112px !important;">
<em>Guide me through the dreadful shade</em></p>

<p>Break an oar in a rapid, then lose another. Two oars left, not enough to pull us through. The river makes a sharp turn and a reflex wave rolls the boat over. Our blankets, two guns, and a barometer are thrown out and gone. Hereafter we may sleep cold.</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 160px !important;">
<em>Though in a bare and rugged way, </em><br>
<em>through devious, lonely wilds I stray</em></p>

<p>Bad rapids. Bradley is knocked over the side; his foot catches under the seat and he is dragged, head under water. Camped on a sand beach, the wind blows a hurricane. Sand piles over us like a snow-drift.</p>

<p>Sand plains, naked and drifting, extend on either side as far as the eye can see, glaring in the midday July sun. The reflected heat produces a curious motion in the atmosphere: currents trembling and moving in many directions. It gives the impression of an unstable land.</p>

<p>Strange black bluffs. We stop for an hour or two, take a short walk up the valley. Arrowheads scattered about; flint chips in great profusion; the trails well worn.</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 112px !important;">The water is quiet, but the course tortuous.</p>

<p>At this bend of the river, the canyons look like three alcoves; we name it Trin-Alcove Bend. We climb the rocks and see the Azure Cliffs, and beyond them the Brown Cliffs, and beyond mountain peaks piled with clouds.</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 200px !important;">
<em>While I am a a pilgrim here</em></p>

<p>Six miles down the river and we're a quarter-mile from where we started. Another nine miles and we're six hundred yards from where the bend began. The men call it a bow-knot of river, so we name it Bow-Knot Bend.</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 48px !important;">
<em>A charge to keep I have, a charge to keep I have</em></p>

<p>There is an exquisite charm in our ride today. In fine spirits, we whistle, shout, discharge pistols to hear the reverberations from the cliffs. We name this Labyrinth Canyon.</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 16px !important;">We pass tower cliffs and name this stretch of the river Tower Park.</p>

<p>Region of naked rock, a smooth undulating pavement of beautiful red sandstone. The Indians call this Toom-pin Tu-weap, Rock Land. To the south a butte in the form of a fallen cross that we name the Butte of the Cross.</p>


<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 160px !important;">
   <em>While in this darksome wild I stray, </em><br>
   <em>be Thou my light, be Thou my way</em> </p>

<p>

A weird, grand region: everything is rock. Cliffs of rock, tables of rock, plateaus of rock, terraces of rock, crags of rock. No plants, no soil, no sand.</p><p>

Not piles of boulders or heaps of fragments. A land of bare rock. Buttes as big as cathedrals, cliffs that cannot be scaled, hollow domes, amphitheaters, tall pinnacles that shrink the river to insignificance. Never lichened, never covered with moss.</p><p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 48px !important;"><em>Ah this nor pen nor tongue can show</em></p><p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 80px !important;">Bonita Bend. The Orange Cliffs. Stillwater Canyon.</p><p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 16px !important;">These streams unite in solemn depths.</p><p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 160px !important;"><em>My soul with heavenly thoughts supply</em></p><p>

Spoiled bacon and bread made f rom musty flour. Naturally we spend our dinner speaking of better fare.</p><p>

Wherever we look there is but a wilderness of rocks. The day is spent walking through strange scenes: rock forms that we do not understand.</p><p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 16px !important;"><em>O'er the gloomy hills of darkness, look, my soul! be still-and gaze</em></p><p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 48px !important;">Curious how a little obstacle becomes a great obstruction.</p><p>

Bad rapids in succession; three oars lost. Camped on the left bank with barely room to lie down.</p><p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 128px !important;">Boats leaking again.</p><p>

Difficult rapids and falls, more abrupt than any. We name this Cataract Canyon.</p><p>

And then the river is broad and swift, through a gorge, grand beyond description. Vertical cliffs reflected in the quiet water; we seem to be in the depths of the earth.</p><p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 128px !important;">
<em>Death, like a narrow sea, </em><br>
<em>divides this heavenly land from ours</em>
</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 112px !important;">How will it be in the future?</p>

<p>Great angular blocks have fallen from the walls. Among them, the water finds its way, tumbling down in chutes, whirlpools, and great waves, with rushing breakers and foam. I sit on a rock and listen to the roar.</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 160px !important;">
<em>From every stormy wind that blows, </em><br>
<em>from every swelling tide of woes, </em><br>
<em>there is a calm, a sure retreat</em>
</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 48px !important;">Caught in a whirlpool and set spinning about.</p>

<p>The canyon is narrower than any we've seen: the water fills from cliff to cliff with no place to land in case of danger. The walls overhead almost shut out the light. I stand on the deck, watching with intense anxiety.</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 48px !important;">
<em>Oh could we make our doubts remove, </em><br>
<em>those gloomy doubts that rise</em>
</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 16px !important;">But it turns out there are no obstructions or rocks or falls.</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 48px !important;">
<em>The clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy, </em><br>
<em>and shall break its blessings on your head </em></p>

<p>The fear of what might have been ahead has made a deep impression on us. We name it Narrow Canyon.</p>
<p>A cool, pleasant ride round gentle curves. Royal arches, mossy alcoves, deep glens, grottoes seemingly painted.</p>
<p>The ruins of a three-storey house, its wall of stone laid in mortar with much regularity. Flint chips, arrowheads, and pottery shards in great profusion around. Hundreds of etchings on the cliff face.</p>
<p>Curious mounds and cones, deep holes full of water. In one of them, twenty feet deep, a tree is growing - the hole so narrow I can step from the edge to a limb, and climb down this growing ladder.</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 112px !important;">
<em>There ever-lasting spring abides </em><br>
<em>and never-withering flowers </em></p>

<p>A vast chamber carved out of the rock, a little grove of box-elder and cottonwoods at the entrance; a deep, clear pool of water, bordered with verdure at one end. A thousand feet above, a narrow, winding skylight. The rock at the ceiling is hard, the rock below soft and friable - thus the great chamber was excavated by a little stream that only runs when the rain falls, so rarely, in this arid country.</p>

<p>We camp in the chamber. The rock is full of sounds as though it were an academy of music designed by an unknown architect and built by storms. We name it Music Temple.</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 48px !important;">We keep our camp, sleep another night in Music Temple.</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 200px !important;"><em>softly now the light of day<br>
fades upon my sight away</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 48px !important;">fast falls the eventide, the darkness deepens</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 112px !important;">Great Guardian of my sleeping hours <br>
thou spread'st the curtains of the night</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 200px !important;">from many an ancient river, they call us</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 16px !important;">oh where shall rest be found</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 200px !important;">watchman, tell us of the night,<br>
what its signs of promise are</p>

<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 48px !important;">bright morning star bids darkness flee</p>


<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 112px !important;">shine through the gloom <br>
<p style="margin:20px 0px 0px 48px !important;">point me to the skies!</em></p>