The trip through Glen Canyon was not an ad-venture in the normal sense of the word. There
was no physical risk involved in the boat trip that was made from Hite to Lees Ferry. Rather, it was an adventure into an awesome land where geologic turmoil and serene beauty join in close harmony, a ru~ged country that still conceals much of the history of a prehistoric Indian ex-istence, and a sometimes turbulent, sometimes placid river that twists and turns in directions prescribed by high and sheer canyon walls. It was an adYenture into the past. Except for mod-ern equipment and utensils that were taken along on the trip. it was an almost oomplete, though temporary, retreat from civilization.
The Colorado is a river of many moods. In some places it is angry and tempestuous. In others, it is cool and placid. Sometimes it races along as if on a mission. Then again it win sub-side to a lazy lapping. It can make man fear or it can soothe him with a monotonous swish. It can stir excitement and then again the deafening
roar of the water in the deep canyons will breed a. peculiar melancholia. It is unpredictable. It is beautiful.
The Glen Canyon reach of the Colorado River has rugged beauty in the canyon walls that reach 2,000 feet into the sky to forbid passage except in one direction-down the river. It has mysteri-ous beauty-of hidden canyons and passages, caves and wottos, of red sandstone spires and arches and fantastic shapes that change with the moving sun. It has beauty beyond comprehen-sion. Man cannot adequately copy or portray it. But he can absorb it. We did.
,v
e pushed our two rubber rafts in at Hite, an old mining settlement approximately 145 miles upstream from the Glen Canyon Damsite. There were ten in the party which included engineers, zoologists and botanists, a mammalogist. a photog-rapher and two expert river-runners. The red mud was knee-deep and gooey as we climbed aboard and shoved off on our trek down the river. Flash floods and cloud bursts during the previous by STAN RASMUSSEN, Regional Photographer, Region 4, Bureau of Reclamation, Salt lake City, UtahThis Canyon appropriately called "Hidden Passage" Is one of the many deep and narrow alleyways leading off the Colorado River.
week had left the river extremely muddy and the banks so soft that almost every landing was like walking off into quicksand. It was the only in-co1wenience to spoil the perfection of the ride down the Colorado.
42
The purpose of the trip was to plan a scientific DR. ANGUS M. WOODBURY, Professor Emeritus of
Zoology, University of Utah, inspecting Indian picto-graphs.
THE "MUI
study of the area to be inundated by the reservoir of the Bureau of Reclamation's Glen Canyon Dam. Many experts in the field of natural science are in the area workin#! on this project and will complete their studies before the rising waters fill the Glen Canyon. This particular group from the rniversity of rtah included Drs. '\Yoodbury, Durrant, Flov,·ers, Cottam, and Grundman. Rep-resenting the Bureau of Reclamation were engi-neers Herb Riesbol, Denver, and Don Barnett, Salt Lake City, and the author. The river run-ners were .Jack Brennan and Reed Jensen. There is much that must be learned about the reservoir area before it is flooded. These men were con-tributin#! their efforts to that end.
It required many stops each day. They were all the same. One or two of the men would take off in a zig-zag course following the tracks of rodents or muskrat or some other animal. Others would wander off in pursuit of plants and vegeta-tion that they would preserve between pieces of
,IC TEMPlE"
cardboard ,rnd cushions of news print for future ,rnalysis in the laboratory. Then another would set nbout capturing little hui-,rs ancl inseds and stufling them into small bottle:-. containing alcohol or fonnaldehvde.
Someone ,~·0111<1 spot a <·)nl{'kawalla liz1trd, which would he pursued with a long strip of rubber cut from nn innertube. Curiosity would
be the end of )fr. Lizard's freedom as the taut rubber band "ns released to whop him in the helly, stunning him long enough for the hand of
1111 ngile zoologist to clo:,;e nround him. .\ mttle-snake sleeping under a bush didn't wake up soon enough and was introduced to a white cloth bn#! as another specimen. .\nd so it went. It wns exhausting work slogging through the mud, or up the side of steep canyon walls and warily work-ing ba<'k down again, or up sloppy t'reek beds and through underbrush.
But there were <'Ompensations. "\Yhen the boats had been turned into thl' hanks for the Inst time MAY 1958
CIOSSING OF THE FATHEIS. At this point In 1776 Fathers Silvestre Valez de Escalante and Francisco Dominguez carved steps in the Navajo sandstone lo aid th,ir horses In the descent to the Colorado liver.
bed Jensen of Salt lake City is shown al the top of the steps.
lifter the day·s nm, it wasn't long until tht- aroma of coffee wo~1ld wnft thron!!h the balmy night air :rnd mngnetically pull the party <'lose to the roar-in~ campfire. The stew and dut<·h-oYen hi&•uits
IEED JENSEN and JACK IIENNAN, river runners, wolk-lng up lull Frog CrHk in about a foot of mud.
r
Then, too, there were the signs left by Major
were as tasty as steak and gravy. Then in the
light of the full harvest moon there was the con-viviality which attends every campfire. And when the talk was done, there ca.me sleep that was deep and satisfying.
J
John '\Yesley Powell. This one-armed ex-artillery .,
The next day would begin with a renewed vigor as the party set out to learn more of this fabulous canyon. History had been here. It was written on the canyon walls.
There are the steps tluit had been cut in the sandstone by the small party lead by Fathers
Escalante and Dominguez in 1776 to assist their animals to the bottom of the canyon. They were returning to Santa Fe, X. Mex., after an unsuc-('essful attempt to find a direct route to the
Pre-sidio of :Monterey in California..
And there is a. gaping cleft high on the canyon rim where courageous )formons had blasted an access for their wagons and sent them rumbling in a perilous deS('ent down the ('anyon to the
Colo-rado River. Today, this is known as the ''Hole-in-the-Rock." They crossed the river and headed on
into southeastern Utah to found a. new settlement near what is now Bluff, Utah.
officer had led two expeditions (1869-72) dmm the
river-the first expedition for 1,000 miles through
many seething, boiling rapids, from Green River,
'\Yyo., to the mouth of the Virgin River. '\Yhen
Powell made his trips the Colorndo was virtually unknown except for Indian legend and fabulous stories that had been told by the Spanish after they discovered the Colorado in 1540. Some of his men had carved their names into the walls at the "Musi(' Temple," an enormous cave that was so named by Powell because of the tinkling rever-berations that were set off when his men threw rocks into the pool of water inside.
There a.re signs that a.re much older. These are picture writings and stone houses that hang high
in crevices on the ('anyon walls. The archeologists and anthropologists are studying the remaining evidenees of the prehistoric people who inhabited this now barren region. They are discovering dwelling sites of the ")foki Indians'' and already
have collected samples of clothing and implements
A company of Mormon pioneers with 13 wagons crossed the Colorado River at this point on their way to settle in southeastern Utah near present community of Bluff, Utah. Twenty-six of the 13 wagons were driven down through the "Hole" and ferried across the river on the first day, January 26, 1110. The road and this crossing were used for one year as the main wagon route to south-eastern Utah, and many wagons went both ways through the "Hole-In-the-Rock." This cleft in the canyon wall-the "Hole-in-the-Rock"-will not be flooded by the Glen Canyon Reservoir.
DI. STEl'HEN DUHANT, mammaloglst, displays a 1trlped-whlp snake he captu,.d during the trip.
and remains of farm products that were a part of early man's existence.
But there are new signs too, where modern man has been working. They are the scars at the Glen Canyon Damsite where drill crews haYe left their mark, and in the huge holes near the bottom where the water of the Colorado River will be
diverted from its channel so that a huge concrete dam can be constructed.
A large and beautiful lake will soon fill the
area that we traveled on our ride down the river. The advent of clear, placid blue reservoir water into the Glen Canyon will present great
recrea-tional opportunities. Places now practically, if not completely, unknown and inaccessible will be reached by the smooth reservoir waters. And
overland routes will be opened to the resenoir
shore at many suitable locations.
The Xational Park Service is working on plans for reereationnl development of the 186-mile long reservoir. Some day--or rather some year-soon, citizens from all parts of the Nation will come to the Glen Canyon and its new reservoir to re-create themselves both spiritually and physically.
Our final landing at Lees Ferry was at muddy as our launching had been at Hite. But it went unnoticed. "Te were happy. \Ye had spent ll week viewing and exploring one of the multitude of cnnyon areas in the Colorado river basin. ""e
had been pri,·ileged to dehe a little into the MAY 1958
past. \Ve had seen the splendor of the Glen Canyon of the Colorado River, soon to be made available to all. It has whetted our appetite for further exploration of the deep and almost in-accessible canyons of the basin.
Begum.al Photographer Stan Rasmu.~8en, u•ho took a).l photoN in tM<f article, accompanied a group of rniversity of rtah scientists making a biological reconnaissance of the Colorado River from Hite, utah, to the Glen Canyon Damsite, 15 miles upstream from Lee Ferry, Ariz. This arti-cJe presents his description of the boat trip and his
reactions to this beautiful and placid 145-mile reach of the Colorado which was appropriately
· named "Glen Canyon'' by :\faj .• John ,vesley Powe11 in 1869.
ott. WOODBURY displaying two chuckwalla lizards he caught in the reservoir area behind Glen Canyon Dam site.
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THE FEDERAL CIVIL SERVICE
"'-._ \ I /J:
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OF SERVICE TO A M ~
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1883 1958r ' /
75th Anniversary of Civil Service Act
Over 10,000 civil servants in the employ of the Bureau of Reclumation in the 17 ·western States are joining other civil service workers in observ-ance of the 75th Anniver::;ary of the Civil Service
Act recently proclaimed by President Dwight D.
Eisenhower.
Many of these employees work closely with water users living on 1:H-,000 Reclamntion forms which encompass 7,600,000 acres constituting 77 Federal irrigation projects throughout the West. They cooperate with the water users in develop-ing their fnrms and giviui them technical uid which insures better crop returns and a better livelihood. They are also extensively engaged in the field of engineering building dnms, canals,
laterals, tunnels, etc., all it part of new
Reclama-tion projects under construcReclama-tion.
All of the Bureau's top administrators, includ-ing the Commissioner, Assistant C'ommissioners, Regional Diredors, and Division Chiefs, are career civil service employees.
The Bureau of Reclamation is primarily con-cerned with the development of land and water resources in the arid and semiarid areas.
President Eisenhower in proclaiming the 75th Anniversary of the Civil Service Act stated, in part, ""' "' "' That the anniversary is an appro-priate time to salute the Civil Service of the United States and to increase public knowledge and understanding of its importanC'e in our sys-tem of self-government."
The Civil Service Act, signed into law on
Jan-uary 16, 1883, has stood for 75 years as the
corner-stone of the ~\merican civil service system. It
established the framework for a. personnel system under which today over 2,000,000 employees work
for the American people. In general, our earliest
Presidents ma.de appointments to public office OH
the basis of qualifications. But for approximately a half century prior to 1883, the slogan "To the victor belong the spoils'' was the accepted prin-ciple in filling Government jobs. The spoils sys-tem reached such proportions that in 1841 when William Henry Harrison took office as President 30,000 to 40,000 office seekers swarmed into the capital city to claim the 23,700 jobs that made up the Federal executive service of that day.
The remedial climax to this situation came with the passage of the Civil Service Act which pro-vided for the appointment of qualified workers to conduct the business of the Government in an
orderly continuing manner. #
COOPERATION IN CANAL SAFETY
Assistant Secretary of the Interior Fred G. Aandahl recently announced that a cooperative safety campaign with the American National Red Cross has been launched to prevent drownings in canals and re~ervoirs on Western Reclamation projects. General Alfred M. Gruenther, president of the Red Cross, has pledged the full support of his great organization to Secretary Aand~hl a~d Reclamation Commissioner W. A. Dexheimer m
this program. It is intended to be an educational
water safety campaign primarily directed toward conditions which now prevail in Western States where many reservoirs and canals have been constructed.
Mr. Richard L. Brown, Assistant Director,
Safety Services, Water Safety Division of the
X ational Red Cross and Mr. Ottis Peterson, As-sistant to the Commissioner-Information, of the Bureau of Reclamation have been developing de-tails for executing the program.
A pilot program will be undertaken during 1958
to be confined to Reclamation areas within the
Bureau's Regional offices in Boise, Idaho,
Sacra-mento, Calif., Boulder City, Nev., and Salt Lake
City, Utah.
Messrs. William Blau and Ralph E. Carlson of
the San Francisco Regional office of the Red Cross
will work directly with Reclamation officials in
these four Regions. The geographical sphere of
this Red Cross Office is confined to the area west
of the Continental Divide.
Conllnu ... on pa90 50
