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1. In the Beginning
- Utah State University Press
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1 In the Beginning FOR MOST OF ITS COURSE THROUGH THE CANYON COUNTRY, THE COLORADO River is entrenched between high walls that not only preclude a crossing but deny access to its banks. Even more of a natural barrier than the river are the rugged flanks of its drainage-nearly six hundred miles of sandy wasteland, incised gorges, sheer-walled mesas, and precipitous rimrockthat limited penetration as well as settlement. As in no other landscape, the eroded nature of the country added a third dimension to the obvious difficulties that restricted travel. Until the middle of the twentieth century, this severe topography constituted the least-known area of comparable size in the entire United States. Routes traversing this inhospitable region and its nearly inaccessible river existed, but crossings depended on low-water fords or infrequent freezing of the stream in quiet places that were accessible. Even at the lowest flows, few places on the Colorado could be forded and sudden rises were common. The exacting conditions of access to both banks and to a place where the river was fordable limited the number of possible crossing sites, and most of these were merely seldom-trod tracks used annually by small parties of Indians on trading, hunting, or raiding forays. Near the center of the canyonlands, an ancient but not easily accessible pathway of migration and trade, known in historic times as the Ute Trail, crossed the Colorado at a low-water ford called the Ute Crossing. Both were misnomers, because centuries before Paiutes appeared on the scene, the route was used by Pueblo peoples and, before that, the Basket Makers. Forty miles downstream, however , was a potential crossing place for wagons in northern Arizona less than ten airline miles from the Utah border. Here, at the very heart of the rough country, where one great river canyon ends and another begins, is the single place that offers access to the river at each bank and egress both north and south. In time, the crossing became known as Lee's Ferry. Associated with this river crossing, so closely as to be identified with it, is a long tributary that heads on the eastern slopes of the Paunsaugunt Plateau called the Pahreah River. The tributary seldom flows enough to deserve the designation of "river"; Pahreah, appropriately enough, means "muddy water" in Paiute. This canyon drains more than fifteen hundred I 2 Lee's Ferry square miles before emptying into the Colorado where the Vermilion and Echo Cliffs form an indented corner into the mouth of Glen Canyon. Most of the time the Pahreah appears as a small creek meandering between alluvium flats, but on occasion heavy floods pour down to fill the canyon with a stinking, viscid torrent nearly as much solid as fluid. The Pahreah periodically renews the topsoil of its lower reaches, yet it has been a constant threat to any man-made improvements. Its water is mineral-laden and chemically hard but has a perennial flow for irrigation of fields and orchards in the upper reaches and near the Colorado River. About twenty miles of the middle canyon is an entrenched gorge with few places for entry or exit. The mouth of the tributary offers some protection from the windy sweep of the main canyon, and it is this place that was to flourish as a green oasis in a desert of sand and rock. This was the hub of human activity connected with the crossing, and a radius of one mile would encompass most of the important sites and future developments. It was only with the appearance of the wheeled vehicle that the Ute foot-and-horse trail was shown to be inadequate, while the downstream site offered advantages to more sophisticated forms of travel. With the advance of Anglo civilization the foot trail of antiquity fell into disuse and today has been obliterated and nearly forgotten. On the other hand, the ferry crossing has undergone one metamorphosis after another, and its latest revitalization suggests a long, future career. The first known Caucasians to view the potential ferry site and the ancient ford were members of a little band of peregrinating Spanish friars and soldiers who were lost, disheartened, and doggedly hunting a reputed ford that would allow their return to New Mexico. Coming from what is now southwestern Utah, the Spaniards were seeking a crossing of the large river they called EI Rio Grande de los Cosninos. The Dominguez-Escalante Expedition arrived here on the afternoon of...