op the trail was
filled with drifts. The walls were white with snow down to the
plateau, 3200 feet below; something unusual, as it seldom descends as
snow lower than two thousand feet, but turns to rain. But a week of
cold, cloudy weather, accompanied by hard winds, had driven all warmth
from the canyon, allowing this snow to descend lower than usual. Under
such conditions the damp cold in the canyon, while not registered on
the thermometer as low as that on top, is more penetrating. Very
little sun reaches the bottom of the inner gorge in December and
January. It is usually a few degrees colder than the inner plateau
above it, which is open, and does get some sun. These were the
conditions when we returned to our boats December the 19th, 1911, and
found a thin covering of ice on small pools near the river.

Our party was enlarged by the addition of two men who were anxious for
some river experience. One was our younger brother, Ernest. We agreed
to take him as far as the Bass Trail, twenty-five miles below, where
he could get out on top and return to our home. The other was a young
man named Bert Lauzon, who wanted to make the entire trip, and we were
glad to have him. Lauzon, although but 24 years old, had been a quartz
miner and mining engineer for some years. Coming from the mountains of
Colorado, he had travelled over most of the Western states, and a
considerable part of Mexico, in his expeditions. There was no question
in our minds about Lauzon. He was the man we needed.

To offset the weight of an extra man for each boat, our supplies were
cut to the minimum, arrangements having been made with W.W. Bass--the
proprietor of the Bass Camps and of the Mystic Springs Trail--to have
some provisions packed in over his trail. What provisions we took
ourselves were packed down on two mules, and anything we could spare
from our boats was packed out on the same animals. As we were about
ready to leave a friendly miner said: "You can't hook fish in the
Colorado in the winter, they won't bite nohow. You'd better take a
couple of sticks of my giant-powder along. That will help you get 'em,
and it may keep you from starving." Under the circumstances it seemed
like a wise precaution and we took his giant-powder, as he had
suggested.

The river had fallen two feet below the stage on which we quit a month
before. A scale of foot-marks on a rock wall rising from the river
showed that the water twenty-seven feet deep at that spo