Powell’s river expeditions, 1869 and 1871–72

Powell’s river expeditions

1869 and 1871–72, down the Green and the Colorado. Tap a number or a moment.

Route on today’s channels; river miles from Green River, Wyoming, are estimates.

Powell and nine men pushed off in four wooden boats: the Emma Dean, Maid of the Cañon, No Name and Kitty Clyde’s Sister. The boats, instruments and ten months of food came by the Union Pacific, finished just two weeks before. Below them, hundreds of miles of canyon no one had mapped.^1,2,3
River mile 0 · day 1
Powell went first in the light Emma Dean to look over each rapid, then signalled the others with a flag. Oramel Howland, on the No Name, did not see the signal in time; the current carried the boat over the falls they named Disaster Falls and broke it apart. The three men aboard were saved, but the boat and a share of the supplies were gone. Days later a campfire spread and burned more of their gear.^4,5,3
River mile 150
Near the Uinta River they walked to the Ute agency for supplies. Frank Goodman, who lost everything on the No Name, left the party here. After this no one outside knew where they were for eight weeks.^5,3
Reported drowned
Back east, newspapers had printed that the whole party had drowned. A man named John Risdon claimed to be the only survivor. It was a hoax.⁵
River mile 261
They reached the meeting of the Green and the Grand (the Colorado above here). The flour had gone musty from soakings; they sifted it through mosquito netting to get the lumps out, leaving about 600 pounds.^6,7
River mile 507 · day 54 · 10 days without news
After the rapids of Cataract Canyon, a quiet stretch of carved walls and alcoves. Powell named Music Temple and Glen Canyon. Most of it now lies under Lake Powell.⁸
River mile 641 · day 70 · 26 days without news
Powell stopped to fix his latitude and longitude, then started into the Grand Canyon with what food was left.^9,8
We have but a month’s rations remaining. The flour has been resifted through the mosquito-net sieve; the spoiled bacon has been dried, and the worst of it boiled; the few pounds of dried apples have been spread in the sun, and reshrunken to their normal bulk. The sugar has all melted, and gone on its way down the river. But we have a large sack of coffee.Powell, August 13, 1869⁸
River mile 783 · day 82 · 38 days without news
Facing a rapid that looked unrunnable, Oramel and Seneca Howland and William Dunn chose to climb out and walk to the Mormon settlements, about 75 miles north. Here the river fell 18 to 20 feet over boulders washed in from a side canyon; George Bradley called it “the darkest day of the trip.” Powell left the Emma Dean behind in case the three changed their minds. The others took the rapid and came through. The three were never seen again.^11,12,9,5,3
What happened to them
Powell later wrote that Shivwits Paiutes killed them, mistaking them for miners; that is what Jacob Hamblin was told. Some historians doubt it and point to Mormon settlers who may have taken them for federal agents looking into the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Billy Hawkins, one of the six who stayed, later said Powell’s account wrongly made the three look like cowards. No one knows for certain.^10,11,5
River mile 960 · day 97 · 53 days without news
Two days later the six who stayed, in two boats, reached the mouth of the Virgin River: 99 days after Green River.^13,6,3
River mile 1,049 · day 99
Powell set out again from the same place, this time to map and photograph the canyons, with three boats (the Emma Dean, Nellie Powell and Cañonita). The young artist Frederick Dellenbaugh came along.^14,15,16
River mile 0 · day 1
At the mouth of the Paria they cached the boats and supplies and went overland to Kanab for the winter. In a tent there, the survey drew the first map of the Grand Canyon country.^16,17
River mile 723
In August 1872 the party picked up the boats and started down the Grand Canyon, short on supplies.¹⁶
River mile 723
With the river high and the boats nearly impossible to control, Powell called a halt at Kanab Creek. The men walked out to Kanab; the second river trip ended here.^18,16
River mile 863

The boats

Side views, lengths to scale (illustration). Lengths and build from Powell’s report and the sources below; heights are drawn, not measured.

Wooden rowboats: three 21-foot round-bottomed Whitehalls of oak, built in Chicago, and the light 16-foot Emma Dean of pine. Bulkheads split each boat into three compartments; the decked ends held food, ammunition, tools and instruments and kept them drier, and the open middle held the oarsmen.^5,19,20,21

The fourth boat is made of pine, very light, but sixteen feet in length, with a sharp cut-water, and every way built for fast rowing, and divided into compartments as the others.Powell, on the Emma Dean⁸

The Emma Dean below a rapid at the head of Hell's Half Mile, Canyon of Lodore, 1871, with Jones, Hillers and Dellenbaugh aboard.Powell Survey, 1871. U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · source

Powell's boat in the Grand Canyon, 1872, with his armchair lashed on.Powell Survey (John K. Hillers). U.S. National Archives, public domain · source

In 1872 Powell, who had lost his right arm in the war, rode the Emma Dean in an armchair lashed to the deck, with two life preservers tied to it.^22,23

Running the rapids

There is a descent of, perhaps, seventy-five or eighty feet in a third of a mile, and the rushing waters break into great waves on the rocks, and lash themselves into a mad, white foam.Powell, entering the Grand Canyon, August 1869^24,8

Look first. The Emma Dean went ahead to look at each rapid; Powell signalled the others with a flag.⁴
Run it backwards. The oarsmen sat with their backs to the rapid and pulled hard, so they could not see what was coming; a steersman at the stern steered with a long oar.²⁵
Or don’t run it. At the worst rapids they lined the boats down on ropes from the shore, or unloaded and carried the boats and cargo around.^25,20

Below Ashley Falls in Red Canyon, 1871, after the men carried the boats and their loads around the falls.Powell Survey (E. O. Beaman), 1871. U.S. National Archives, public domain · source

Later boatmen turned the method around. Nathaniel Galloway, a trapper, rowed stern-first facing the rapid in light flat-bottomed boats, and in 1909 the Galloway-Stone trip ran most rapids instead of lining them; Norman Nevills later called it “facing your danger.”^26,25,27

How this works · sources

The route follows the Green and Colorado as traced by the USGS (NHD), including the old channels now under Flaming Gorge, Lake Powell and Lake Mead. River miles and “days without news” are counted from the dates and the traced route, so they are estimates. Some dates differ between sources by a day; where they do, only the month is given.

Southwest River Watch · Terms