Labyrinth Canyon

Whenever we are floating, with our cell phones and car keys, overtaken by parties of yuppies with the latest in high tech gear, I can't help but think about JWP. He launched from Green River, Wyoming in 1869 with nothing but the shirt on his back and no hope of help from AirMed. By the time he reached the mouth of the Virgin River, he had been given up for dead. He had been on the river for months and had not tasted a single burger from Ray's Tavern or ridden for a mile in a Subaru. Yet, despite the seeming hardship, he did it all again in 1871.

Sometimes I wish I could go back and do the trip the way he did it, but I have to admit that when the Chev started on Sunday morning and hauled us two thousand feet to the top of Horsethief Canyon, I was glad we didn't have to walk. I guess I'm as soft as anyone. In fact, it was luxury the whole way. We had brats on the breach near Dellenbaugh's Butte, curry across the river from June's Bottom, ravioli at Spring Canyon Point, and home-made chili at Cottonwood Bottom.

And the weather . . . sparkling from start to finish. Which is not how Major Powell and the boys found it in 1871. For them, it was cold and wet. They strung tarps upon oars and built bonfires to warm up. But, really, I need to let Dellenbaugh tell the story of Labyrinth Canyon. He does it better than I ever could, and gives you a feel for it that is unsurpassed.

"No sooner had I arrived at the camp than the sky which was leaden and low began to drop its burden upon us. Packing up could not be done till the rain slackened, and we sheltered ourselves as well as we could. As we waited a deep roaring sound from not far off presently fell on our ears and we were puzzled to explain it till an examination showed a recently dry gulch filled with a muddy torrent which leaped the low cliff into the river, a sullen cascade. The San Rafael, too, was a booming flood. We packed the boats as soon as we could and ran down about two miles and a half to where the first boat was. Cliffs bordered the river again, 50 to 100 feet high, then 200 or 300, and we saw we were in the beginning of the next canyon called from its winding course, Labyrinth. Over these straight walls hundreds of beautiful cascades born of the rain were plunging into the river. They were of all sizes, all heights, and almost all colours, chocolate, amber, and red predominating. The rocky walls, mainly of a low purplish-red tint, were cut into by the river till the outside curves of the bends were perpendicular and sometimes slightly more than perpendicular, so that some of the cascades fell clear without a break. The acres of bare rock composing the surface of the land on both sides collected the rain as does the roof of a house, and the rills and rivulets rapidly uniting soon formed veritable floods of considerable proportions seeking the bosom of the river. This seemed the most fantastic region we had yet encountered. Buttes, pinnacles, turrets, spires, castles, gulches, alcoves, canyons and canyons, all hewn, 'as the years of eternity roll' out of the verdureless labyrinth of solid rock, made us feel more than ever a sense of intruding into a forbidden realm, and having permanently parted from the world we formerly knew."

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