ids had been good training, but said there
was no comparison in the rapids. We would have a river ten times as
great as in Lodore to contend with; and in numerous places, for short
distances, the descent was as abrupt as anything we had seen on the
Green. Wolverton was personally acquainted with a number of the men
who had made the river trip, and, with the one exception of Major
Powell's expeditions, had met all the parties who had successfully
navigated its waters. This not only included Galloway's and Stone's
respective expeditions, which had made the entire trip, but included
two other expeditions which began at Green River, Utah, and had gone
through the canyons of the Colorado.[4] These were the Brown-Stanton
expedition, which made a railroad survey through the canyons of the
Colorado; and another commonly known as the Russell-Monnette
expedition, two of the party making the complete trip, arriving at
Needles after a voyage filled with adventure and many narrow escapes.
Mr. Wolverton remarked that every one knew of those who had navigated
the entire series of canyons, but that few people knew of those who
had been unsuccessful. He knew of seven parties that had failed to get
through Cataract Canyon's forty-one miles of rapids, with their boats,
most of them never being heard of again.

These unsuccessful parties were often miners or prospectors who wished
to get into the comparatively flat country which began about fifty
miles below the Junction of the Green and the Grand rivers. Here lay
Glen Canyon, with 150 miles of quiet water. Nothing need be feared in
this, or in the 120 miles of good boating from Green River, Utah, to
the junction. Between these two points, however, lay Cataract Canyon,
beginning at the junction of the two rivers. Judging by its unsavory
record, Cataract Canyon was something to be feared.

Among these parties who had made short trips on the river was one
composed of two men. Phil Foote was a gambler, stage robber, and bad
man in general. He had broken out of jail in Salt Lake City and,
accompanied by another of similar character, stole a boat at Green
River, Utah, and proceeded down the river. Soon after entering
Cataract Canyon, they lost their boat and provisions. Finding a tent
which had been washed down the river, they tore it into strips and
constructed a raft out driftwood, tying the logs together with the
strips of canvas. Days of hardship followed, and starvation stared
them in th