August Colorado River History Dates

Photo of Frank Moltzen in Marble Canyon, 1956, courtesy Grand Canyon Museum Collection.

 

August Colorado River History Dates

August 1, 1916 – Julius Stone, Ellsworth Kolb, Nathan B. Stern, and John W. Shields climb out of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River. Their canvas boat and a canoe were torn to ribbons after 3½ days and twelve to fifteen miles of travel.

August 2, 1957 – Hard rock miner Robert Billingsly reaches the bat guano mine and takes a ride out on the aerial tramway. This was his 13^th day on an inner tube floating 45,000 cfs through Grand Canyon. His run included Lava Falls and was a first for that type of craft. He went up the tram with a large amount of valuables from the TWA wreckage he’d gathered up near the Little Colorado Confluence. 

August 3, 1942 – Otis “Dock” Marston, Norm Nevills, 13-year-old Bruce Wilson, and 6 others arrive at Hemenway Harbor on Lake Mead. On arrival they complete the 17^th recorded river trip through the Grand Canyon.

August 4, 1951 – Dinosaur National Monument Superintendent Jess Lombard writes Dock Marston that he’d run Whirlpool Canyon and understands “some what (sic) of the enthusiasm you regular river runners have.” Dock replies “I heard you were going to make the trip and did what I could to prevent it. Now you are infected with the Rapids Rabies and there is no known cure.”

August 5, 1963 – A group of river runners using 7-foot-long plastic Sport-yaks launch at Lee’s Ferry. They clear Grand Wash Cliffs on August 31. The flow is limited due to construction of Glen Canyon Dam and varies from 1,432 to 2,670 cubic feet per second. Progress demands numerous linings, portages, and the upper half of the canyon requires constant work with the oars as river current is not easily perceived.

August 6, 1933 – Having paddled a foldboat from Grand Lake to Grand Junction, Harold Leich is building a punt at the Gibson Lumber Yard with the intention of rowing it to Lees Ferry. his punt will become pinned between rocks in Cataract Canyon and he will swim to the abandoned hamlet of Hite. Next he will hike fifty miles overland to “civilization” at Hanksville, Utah.

August 7, 1934 – The Dusty Half-Dozen arrives at Boulder City after rowing through Grand Canyon. They travel on very low water, arriving at the take-out with three boats and seven oars. The oar consumption at fourteen probably is a record. Losing one boat along the way is not.

August 8, 1927 – The Clyde Eddy river trip arrives at Needles, California. Their diet is like that of the first Powell party and, also like Powell, the leader is not concerned.

August 9, 1955 – Dock Marston writes to Dinosaur Superintendent Jess Lombard that “The record does not confirm that knowledge of the streams is a necessity for proper and safe traversing of the rock strewn rapids.”

August 10, 1869 – The Powell expedition camped at the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers.

August 11, 1962 – Having run the Grand Canyon with Charles Russell in the winter of 1907-1908, Edwin Monett dies in San Pedro, California.

August 12, 1956 – Neal Newby sends Grand Canyon National Park a postcard stating he and a friend, Frank Moltzen, would be leaving Lees Ferry in “two or three days” by boat. Newby had heard the Park wanted to know when people were “coming down the Colorado River” and he planned to take a few weeks to make the trip.

August 13, 1940 – Both Barry Goldwater and Millie Baker note in their journals that the metal boat Ross Wheeler has Leslie Clement’s lifejacket in it.

August 14, 1940 - Conquistador Aisle’s extensive rock pounding of the Nevills boats inspired trip participant John Southworth to propose the crew should form a fraternity called Tappa Pyla Rox. The river inched along at around 2,400 cfs.

August 15, 1955 – After swimming the Colorado River through Grand Canyon in April, Bill Beer writes Dock Marston “It’s funny, I had expected the furor and ramifications of our jaunt to die down in at most a month after we finished. But here it is almost four months later, and I can’t see the end in sight as yet. It’s distinctly a pleasure to meet someone like yourself who is able to attach a proper perspective to what was at best a little foolish, but a lot of fun.”

August 16, 1957 – After his 1957 Grand Canyon river trip where the flow peaked at 124,000 cfs, Dock Marston wrote Bill Belknap “Funny thing about this high water. The oar boats didn’t seem to like it. Reilly quit. The Wright party objected to the speed. I now have to start living right since I find the 1921 flow was 200,000.”

August 17, 1872 – The second Powell expedition departs Lees Ferry and by noon arrives just above where today’s Navajo Bridge is. This dinner stop allows Fred Dellenbaugh the opportunity to climb up to the rim and back.

August 18, 1889 - The New York Daily Tribune, in an article titled “In the Deadly Gorge,” noted “The boat to go down the Colorado Cañon must be sturdily built on a pattern, which experience has proved the strongest and should have three air-tight compartments; the men should wear life preservers at all places of danger; and all tools, clothing, and rations should be carried in air-tight ocean mail sacks, so that they will float.”

August 19, 1957 – On about 19,000 cfs, Neal Newby and Frank Moltzen run House Rock in one man life rafts like today’s packrafts. Newby wrote “I never thought we’d get through without turning over. Right down the middle. Frank said the waves were 12 feet high. He said at one point my boat was almost vertical as I climbed out of a trough and up the next wave.”

August 20, 1940 – To avoid complete boredom during their layover at Diamond creek, the Nevills river trip developed a glorious blaze and burned the remnants of a driller’s camp to the ground. Nevills proposed remaining longer to exploit the news possibilities of a lost party, but the deficient larder vetoed the proposition.

August 21, 1957 – Grand Canyon National Park Ranger Dan Davis writes Dock “If [Bus] Hatch tells you what a bunch of bastards we are, call Mr. Beatty, and if Hatch starts stirring up anything, write me and I’ll give you a more detailed story. Hatch is very antagonistic to the Service, here anyway, and always has been and has never cooperated in the matter of permits and has made but a feeble attempt to obey the park regulations.”

August 22, 1957 – As Newby and Moltzen paddled their tiny rafts through Marble Canyon, Newby wrote “The cliffs soared overhead. Our camp site was among some large boulders – some half the size of a house. I suppose they had fallen from the cliffs thousands of years ago. After I got in my sleeping bag I couldn’t sleep. I thought Frank was asleep. Suddenly he said, “Neal, are you awake?”. I said I was. Frank said, “Neal, what do you suppose happens down here when there’s an earthquake?”

August 23, 1923 - Two more potential dam locations were surveyed in the morning. Shortly after noon, the USGS river trip shot under the gauger’s cable and the frail suspension bridge to land at Bright Angel Creek at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The river gauger, Mr. Dudley, reported the river was running 25,000 second feet and had been 34,000 second feet a few days previously.

August 24, 1950 – Newspapers throughout the west ran worried stories when airplanes flying overhead reported that solo Glen Canyon boater and artist Florence Kibler’s raft stayed for days at one spot. River runners who knew Glen Canyon were not surprised in the least on hearing the artist’s boat remained at Aztec Canyon where the sandstone colors “were beyond belief.”

August 25, 1951 – Dick and Isabelle Griffith along with John Schlump camp at the mouth of Shinumo Creek. The trio is on a raft run from Green River, WY, to Lake Mead. At Green River, Utah, they wrote to Grand Canyon Superintendent Bryant of their plans and the Park Service mailed Art Greene a river permit for delivery to the river runners when they arrived at Lees Ferry.

August 26, 1540 - Hernando de Alarcon begins an effort to meet the main Coronado expedition, launching two small boats from Alarcon’s ship to head up the Rio Colorado current for fifteen and a half days, mostly by cordelling. They make it up the Colorado fifty-five leagues, close to the mouth of the Gila River.

August 27, 1889 - As the whistle blew for the noon hour, George F. Flavell and Ramon Montez push off from the riverbank at Green River, Wyoming. Their plan is to reach Needles, California, by the following March.

August 28, 1869 – Oramel and Seneca Howland, along with Bill Dunn, leave the Powell expedition at today’s Separation Rapid in Grand Canyon. Dock Marston admitted he would get upset where his river research uncovered damn lies “designed to hurt someone. That applies to the Powell and Dellenbaugh denunciation of the three who left at Separation.”

August 29, 1957 – Dock Marston writes to a fellow river runner “I am doing a great deal of work on the various accidents with the idea of discovering the causes. One difficulty is that operators on the River consider it smart to hide them.”

August 30, 1979 – After falling down a flight of stairs, 85-year-old Dock Marston runs his last rapid in a San Francisco hospital.

August 31, 1951 – Dick Griffith rows the first rubber raft, named Queen, through Lava Falls Raid in Grand Canyon.

Ps... Yes, this post is a challenge to see if I can find a Colorado River Basin fact for every day of June... Done! If you like this sort of stuff you will enjoy reading the 4 e-book series Dock Marston: The Colorado River Historian Volume 1 on Amazon Kindle or the hardback book at Vishnu Temple Press.

July Grand Canyon River History Dates

 

Deer Creek Falls, July 31, 1927, courtesy The Huntington Library

July Grand Canyon River History Dates

July 1, 1951 – While on a Desolation-Gray river trip, Moulty Fulmer finds a small toy duck cut out of a piece of wood. He writes on it “Degree of River Travel and Study, July 1, 1951, By Order of the River Vice President.” In all solemnity and amidst the group’s uproarious laughter, Moulty gives his friend Otis “Dock” Marston the duck degree. Dock adds it to the river files and it’s in The Huntington Library today.

July 2, 1869 – Major John Wesley Powell and the rest of the crew were at the confluence of the Bear River (today’s Yampa) and the Green River.

July 3, 1960 - Late in the day, the four Turbocraft Jet 35’s were back in the water at Hemenway Harbor to start the uprun of Grand Canyon. Jon Hamilton and Dock Marston led the way from the harbor and out across the reservoir, disappearing into the cobalt blue immensity of water and barren mountains beyond. Ninety minutes and 35 miles later, the boats arrived at Temple Bar.

July 4, 1960 - In the evening light, Jon Hamilton, Guy Mannering, and Bill Belknap climbed into Wee Red and headed into the tailwaves of Lava Falls. They played around there for a while, Jon standing and looking at the rapid as the boat was knocked about in the pulsing waves. The rapid looked huge from below. The men said nothing, then Jon suddenly turned to Guy and Bill, his face aglow in the day’s last light, and said “What a magnificent piece of water.”

July 5, 1960 - Hamilton’s first foray into the rapid with Kiwi resulted in his being thoroughly repulsed. He returned to the beach below to pump out a load of water and offload fuel cans and cases of food. The crew had no choice but to portage gear, food, and fuel around the rapid. They rigged a canvas cover over the Turbocraft with an opening just big enough for the pilot to sit at the controls. Hamilton climbed into Kiwi again and after four more attempts, topped the rapid about 11:30 a.m.

July 6, 1954 – Grand Canyon Superintendent Patraw sent a letter to Georgie White citing provision “1.59 Boats. (a) No privately owned boat, canoe, raft or other floating craft shall be placed or operated upon the waters of any park or monument without a permit from the Superintendent, who shall have authority to revoke the permit and require the immediate removal of such craft upon the failure of the permittee to comply with the terms and conditions of the permit.” The Superintendent noted it “would be advisable, on your future river trips, to submit application well in advance of your arrival on park waters, so that there will be sufficient opportunity to consider your application and to issue the necessary permit, and to avoid a technical violation of the regulation quoted above.”

July 7, 1955 – The body of Dave Jensen washes up on shore at the foot of Hermit Rapid. Jensen may have been trying to swim to Phantom Ranch from the foot of the Tanner Trail to recover his impounded dory, the Deacon’s Dilemma. (See April 6, 1950 entry)

July 8, 1949 - Bert Loper complained of pain in his chest at lunch, yet he still refused to let Wayne Nichol assist with rowing. With Nichol riding on the deck, Loper’s Grand Canyon floated well ahead of their group. Nichol suddenly shouted to Bert a serious rapid roared just ahead. Bert kicked into gear for all he was worth and tried to pull the boat across the river from right to left just above 24.5 Mile Rapid. With the river flowing about 51,000cfs, he was unable to make it, squared up to enter the rapid, then slumped in his seat. Nichol would later explain the boat began to “yaw across the current on the third trough.” A river runner himself, Nichol knew this was wrong. Alarmed, he “looked over his shoulder and shouted ‘Bert, look to your oars.’” But Loper just sat motionless.

July 9, 1954 - The first motorized bridge pontoon to run Grand Canyon clears the Grand Wash Cliffs. Chuck Bolte and Earl Eaton left Aspen in a paddle boat 6 weeks earlier and transitioned to the pontoon at Glenwood Springs.

July 10, 1951 - As he stood on the beach at President Harding Rapid, Don Harris smelled a terrible odor and soon found the body of David Quigley. The Harris Brennan group dug the partially embedded body out of the sand and buried the young man above the highwater line. The group placed a marker of driftwood with an inscription reading “Discovered by Harris-Brennan river party, body presumed to be that of Boy Scout drowned in Glen Canyon about July 1, 1951.”

July 11, 1952 – On June 22, 1952, Bill and Fern Davis headed downstream from Green River, Utah, in their tiny rubber raft. They enjoyed side hikes in Labyrinth and Stillwater canyons. The couple’s 10-foot-long raft flipped in Cataract Canyon’s Big Drop III, but they recovered and arrived at Lees Ferry on July 11, setting a twenty-day speed record at that time. They also set a record for the traverse in the shortest boat.

July 12, 1952 – 58-year-old Dock Marston and the eight-year-old child Buzzy Belknap swim Paria Rapid using an air mattress for flotation on a flow near 29,000 cfs. From that moment forward they were friends for life.

July 13, 1949 – Dock Marston writes the following to Don Harris: “Dear Don, The news tells me that you have left Bert in The Canyon. That is where he wanted to be. If the paper be correct, you are to search for his body. I hope you do not find it. This to you – I consider your acceptance of the trip with Bert to be one of the bravest things that ever happened on the River. You could not help but know the prospect of tragedy but you went along to carry out an old man’s wish. His wish is now complete. You may have regrets but you should have none. You could have done no better. Had you not gone along, Bert would have gone anyway. We have been conditioned in our world to take death hard. If there be a hereafter, Bert is now in heaven and gotten there by the route he prayed for. Cheerio, Dock

July 14, 1949 – While Camped at President Harding Rapid, Jim Rigg discovers ten gallons of gasoline cached by Dock Marston and Ed Hudson four weeks earlier. Rigg and Norm pour five gallons onto a large driftwood pile adjacent to camp and place the second five gallon can of fuel in the middle of the pile. With a single match the heap goes up with a loud whump! The fire burns so bright and for so long that some of the crew shift downriver to sleep avoiding the glare.

July 15, 1923 – Frank Dodge sat in the lobby of a Flagstaff hotel when a nattily dressed man in rompers, wool knee stockings, and two-tone oxfords, with a cane walked in. He had printed circulars telling of his accomplishments. He was a misfit in the job as a boatman, but a very pleasant one. He hardly proved the skilled oarsman that his own writings would suggest. Who would write differently? Dodge liked Freeman from that meeting to this day.

July 16, 1947 - The Nevills group camps on river left above Lava Canyon Rapid. That afternoon, they inspect the remains of Seth Tanner’s mining works, nosing out a fifty-pound case of dynamite from 1924 and blasting caps, but no fuse. Norm carries a few handfuls of dynamite sticks to a sandbar by the river, gathers driftwood, puts the caps in the dynamite, and lights the whole pile on fire. The explosion “rocked the canyon when it went off” with the “Harvey cash register in view” at Desert View. Norm thought it worked so spectacularly that he repeats his fireworks by blasting all the remaining dynamite.

July 17, 1952 – NPS Director Conrad Wirth attempts to give a speech to the Vernal City Council and Chamber of Commerce. He is shouted down for saying river running is quite safe and a great way to see the Monument. The locals pointe out the river trip is “much too expensive for the common man.” They had a point about the pricing as local guides charge $55 for one person to make a day trip, almost $600 in today’s dollars.

July 18, 1889 - The men of the ill-fated Frank Brown river trip abandon the river and hike up Paradise (South) Canyon. At lunch, a storm brings water, mud, and rocks cascading into the canyon, and the men take shelter behind a leaning rock. Near the top they find a deer trail and reach the rim at 2:00 p.m., where they see much broken pottery.

July 19, 1934 – Seven men in four boats launch from Lee’s Ferry. The river flow is so extremely low, the trip is “dusty,” even though they have the rare experience of starting on a clear, green, but unfit to drink, river. Two days later, the river water becomes cloudy. The USGS reports only 1,530 cubic feet on the 19th. The following day the flow drops to 1,450 cubic feet per second.

July 20, 1938 - When the Clover Expedition reaches Phantom Ranch, Clover and Nevills hike to the South Rim. The next day, July 20, they participate in a radio broadcast with Superintendent Tillotson. Tillotson maintains command of the microphone, discouraging anyone contemplating a river trip. He ends by noting, “Mr. Nevills and his party certainly chose a most unusual and hazardous means of reaching the park and just as certainly I would not advise anyone to follow their example.”

July 21, 1950 – At 9:20 a.m. at 122.75 Mile, on the left at the head of Forster Rapid, Hudson’s Esmeralda II is sighted by the Wright-Rigg river trip. The Es rests six to ten feet above the river level and seventy feet back from the shore. On landing, the party scrambles over her seeking souvenirs, with the boatmen appropriating everything of value like hungry hogs at feeding time.

July 22, 1938 - At Horn Creek Rapid on 17,300 second feet, the watchers thought boatman Loren Bell was lost “and he sure as hell wasn’t idle.” The net result is a bent oarlock and Norm Nevills admittes he meant to have it welded. Bell demands the “two-bit rapid be called Corn Creek.” In Granite Falls, Nevills is off key through fumbling his oars in the waves he measured at twenty feet, while the holes along the right hand cliff measured five feet in diameter in his eyes. A spinning oar pins the unhappy boatman in his cockpit and cuts the skin from his knuckles, for the only recorded boating disharmony in their Grand Canyon suite.

July 23, 1955 – Frank Wright’s cataract boat Doris is pins in the fangs at 232 Mile Rapid. The boat is freed from the trap but needs repairs below. On the upside, Katie Lee plays her guitar and sings to the river runners at night as they sit around the campfire.

July 24, 1958 - Gaylord Staveley didn’t help his reputation in the summer of 1958 when he applies for an exclusive franchise to operate boat tours through Grand Canyon with both oars and power. The Park Service does not go along with the request, nor does the river community when they hear about it. Harry Aleson writes Dock that Staveley’s “effort at exclusive Dude carrying thru [sic] the Grand smacks of modern day youth, – mine, all mine – none on the platter for you. This could not happen. None of the old river boatmen would stand still for it. My father’s son would be the very last of the boatmen to consider such exclusiveness.”

July 25, 1952 - Jim Rigg and twenty-two-year-old Sue Seely climb into Jim’s Chris-Craft kit boat for a seamless run of Lava Falls Rapid. Sue is the second female to run the rapid in a motorized watercraft. Evie Mull was the first, having run the same rapid in the same boat with the same pilot two months earlier.

July 26, 1943 – 92-year-old Julius Stone dies in Santa Monica, California. Living a rags to riches life, Stone ran the Grand Canyon with three others in 1909. Dock Marston identified Stone as the 25^th person to boat from Lees Ferry through the Grand Canyon.

July 27, 1951 – Chicago river runner Bill Davis writes an account of how he organized getting the Esmeralda II back into the Colorado River at Forster Rapid in 1950. Davis includes the account in a letter to Colorado River historian Dock Marston.

July 28, 1941 - Alexander “Zee” Grant and his foldboat Escalante are at the Phantom Ranch boat beach. Zee” is most likely America’s best foldboat pilot at the time. Originally planning to tackle Grand Canyon solo, he joins up with Norm Nevills, a budding commercial river trip operator. Grant and Nevills initially agree to conduct two different river trips in Grand Canyon but travel together “for mutual convenience.” The two trips quickly became one mutually supportive group.

July 29, 1957 – Dock Marston receives a metal name plate from one of the 1909 Stone boats sent to him by Ray Cogswell. Marston writes Cogswell “Believe me I am as tickled as a child with a new toy with the receiving of the boat name plate. I am adding it to the River Archives.” That name plate is still in the Marston Collection at The Huntington Library.

July 30, 1954 – River runner Katie Lee writes to Dock Marston about canyon names. She notes “what’ ever our present day clan has named it, the Indians had another long before ours anyway.”

July 31, 1927 – The Clyde Eddy river trip stops at Deer Creek Falls. A ten-foot-high barrier of river sand blocks most of the mouth of the creek between the Falls and Colorado River.

Ps... Yes, this post is a challenge to see if I can find a Colorado River Basin fact for every day of July... Done! If you like this sort of stuff you will enjoy reading the 4 book series Dock Marston: The Colorado River Historian Volume 1 on Amazon Kindle or get the book at Vishnu Temple Press.

June Colorado River History Dates

 

Rod Sanderson on the flipped boat Rattlesnake below Lava Falls, June 13, 1958, courtesy The Huntington Library

June Colorado River History Dates

June 1, 1959 – A Walt Disney crew of 11 men flew into Page, Arizona, to begin preparations for the filming of “Ten Who Dared.”

June 2, 1955 - Big Ed Hudson and Ed Nichols arrive at Lees Ferry in Hudson’s motorboat after launching at Glenwood Springs, Colorado. This trip connected a 1,400-mile-long motorboat line for Big Ed from Glenwood to the Gulf of California.

June 3, 1954 – Otis “Dock” Marston arrives at Lees Ferry with three 18-foot-long aluminum hull Smith-Craft. Elwyn Blake of the 1923 USGS river trip is at the Ferry and helps launch the fleet.

June 4, 1956 – Harry Aleson and Wilson “Willie” Taylor visit at Lees Ferry, their 30-minute conversation punctuated by frequent outbursts of laughter. Willie would die of a heart attack just below President Harding Rapid two days later.

June 5, 1959 – Contractors continued digging dam foundations at the Glen Canyon Damsite.

June 6, 1950 – The Flagstaff newspaper ran an article about helicopter tours starting up at the South Rim of Grand Canyon.

June 7, 1950 – Dock Marston, Edwin J. Montgomery, and Elmer B. “Red” Carson, of the Arizona Helicopter Service at the South Rim, plan some Hance Rapid helicopter filming of Marston’s upcoming Grand Canyon river trip.

June 8, 1954 – National Park Service Chief Council Jackson Price creates the term “private boater” and writes NPS Director Worth about it.

June 9, 1869 – In Major Powell’s Report to Congress, the No Name flips on this date, losing precious supplies and much of the expedition food.  Frank Mason Brown is born in Blue Hill, Maine, on this date in 1845.

June 10, 1951 - As all the boats cleared the South Canyon beach, the Chris-Craft Chariot backed into submerged rocks and limped back ashore. The crew careened the damaged craft with a winch and nylon line, then changed the propeller and straightened the rudder.

June 11, 1954 – Marston’s 3-boat Smith-Craft motorcade runs Horn Creep Rapid on about 14,000 cfs.

June 12, 1950 – While Dock Marston prepares to launch a river trip at Lees Ferry, Frank Wright and Jim Rigg row in, completing a Glen canyon run. Wright and Rigg admit to Marston that Norm Nevills ignited a Marston fuel cache at President Harding Rapid in 1949.

June 13, 1956 – Joe Desloge flips the Smith-Craft Rattlesnake in Lava Falls, the first record of a boat flip in that rapid. After the flip Rod was asked when he knew the “boat was going over what did you think and what did you say?” Rod grinned his slow smile and said, “What I thought I’ll keep to myself but what I said, was ‘Goodness gracious, what’s going on here’?” During the rest of the trip, someone would say “Oops Vulcan” and the others would burst out laughing.

June 14, 1869 – The Powell expedition camps just above Triplet Falls.

June 15, 1958 - Just before departure from Boat Beach near Phantom Ranch, Dock Marston discovers the coffee, bacon, and butter are still on the rim at the Babbitt’s General Store. Replacements are found at the Ranch and the trip departs on a dropping flood of 61,300 cfs. The group stops for the night at what Dock describes as a “perfect camp,” a large sandy camp with a harbor for the boats known today as Bass Camp.

June 16, 1957 – The Marston river trip camps at today’s Hotauta Camp. The river is at 105,000 cfs and falling from its peak of 124,000 cfs just four days earlier.

June 17, 1943 - Harry Aleson pilots the 16-foot Up Lake, a Thompson Brothers outboard pine skiff with a fifty-two-inch beam, up the Colorado River in Grand Canyon. The 22½-hp Evinrude outboard motor gets him to the foot of Diamond Creek Rapid and no further.

June 18, 1869 - The Kitty received more repair, and a run at “almost railroad speed” for five miles per Bradley, and six miles per Sumner, took the Powell expedition to the mouth of the Bear River, which is now generally known as the Yampa.

June 19, 1960 – Four jetboats departed Lees Ferry on June 18. On the 19^th, they place 180-gallons of fuel in the vegetation behind the beach at President Harding Rapid. The group got along well and the evening consisted of much singing, including Throw Out The Lifeline.

June 20, 1938 - At 7:10 a.m., 9:00 a.m. according to Dr. Elzada Clover, the pith-helmeted party departed from Green River, Utah, on a moderate flow gauged at 17,400 cubic feet per second, but estimated by Norm Nevills to be 35,000 cfs.

June 21, 1960 - On the recommendation of Dock Marston and Bill Austin, Margie Mannering and Buzz Belknap hike to Phantom Ranch to join the jet boat trip. All the while, Dock eyes the river gauge as it slowly drops below 38,000 cfs.

June 22, 1854 - In October, 1852, the side-wheel steamer Uncle Sam was unloaded from a sailing vessel and assembled at the head of the Sea of Cortez. She was sixty-five feet long and had twelve to sixteen feet of beam, with a depth of 3½-feet amidships drawing twenty-two inches. The boat was powered with a 20 to 25-hp locomotive-type boiler. Her crew struggled for fifteen days with the deficient power and unfamiliar river to get her to Yuma on the morning of December 3, 1852, with thirty-five tons of freight. She sank at Ankrim’s Ferry below Yuma on June 22, 1854.

June 23, 1960 - After scouting Vulcan Rapid (Lava Falls), Dock Marston and Bill Austin climbed into Big Red. What happened next is still debated to this day but it appeared that Austin entered too fast and at a spot that set the big cathedral hull up for a ski-jump run. Dock judged the craft’s speed at close to 50 miles per hour and estimates put it 10 to 25 feet in the air. Anticipating the rough landing to come, Dock crouched into a low ski position with Bill at the wheel standing next to him. The boat hit the water hard then started a turn toward the left. Dock assumed Austin wanted to do a U-turn at the bottom of the rapid and began looking for rocks ahead when he heard Bill calmly say “You better take over Dock, I have a compound fracture.” Dock looked over to see Bill Austin “sitting on the deck with a shin bone sticking out of the front of his leg.”

June 24, 1960 - The early morning stillness shattered into a loud roar as a Kaman twin rotor turboshaft engine powered HH-43 Huskie flew low over the camp and landed on today’s Tequila Beach. After loading Bill Austin on the ship, Phil Smith climbed in too. The chopper lifted the two men out of the Canyon and took them to the Grand Canyon Hospital at the South Rim.

June 25, 1950 – The Bureau of Reclamation strings a 3,726-foot-long tramway from the rim of Grand Canyon to the top of the Redwall Limestone at the Marble Canyon Damsite. They claim it is the longest tramway in the world.

June 26, 1939 – Don Harris meets Bill Gibson and Chester Klevin as they alight from the train at Green River, Utah, at 3:15 a.m. The men load their boats onto a truck and drive to the mouth of North Wash on the Colorado River, arriving at 9:30 p.m. the same day. They rowed into Glen Canyon early the next morning, visiting Music Temple, Rainbow Bridge, and Crossing of the Fathers, before meeting Bert Loper at 24.5 Mile on the night of July 2.

June 27, 1889 - the Brown expedition splits up. Five men continue the slow line survey of Glen Canyon, while Reynolds and the members of an advance party headed for Lee’s Ferry to start the “eye survey” into Marble and Grand canyons. This advance group consisted of Brown, Stanton, Hislop, Gibson, Richards, Hansbrough, Nims, and the new man, McDonald.

June 28, 1882 On this date Seymour Sylvester Dubendorff is born. Dubendorff struggled with his father, Charles Wesley, and a brother, Edward Arthur, to make a good living and care for their mother, Mahala Oliva, who was crippled from having been “… blowed away in a cyclone in Kansas.”

June 29, 1906 - Congress passed an Act to protect wildlife in a Forest Preserve, creating the Grand Canyon National Forest Game Preserve.

June 30, 1956 - Two commercial airliners collided over the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers, killing all 128 passengers and crew aboard.

Ps... Yes, this post is a challenge to see if I can find a Colorado River Basin fact for every day of June... Done! If you like this sort of stuff you will enjoy reading the 4 e-book series Dock Marston: The Colorado River Historian Volume 1 on Amazon Kindle or the hardback book at Vishnu Temple Press.