The
Colorado River corridor encompasses 130,000 square miles of the Four
Corners states, including Utah's southeastern quarter. To date, it is still
arguably the least-tamed country remaining in the lower forty-eight states.
This land of outstanding natural beauty and ecological diversity is filled with
rugged plateaus, slot canyons, mountains, river gorges with whitewater rapids,
the Grand Canyon, and nearly every conceivable type of desert landscape.
Traces of human history in the river canyons of
the southwest go back thousands of years. Prehistoric societies left behind
artifacts as simple as spear points 10,500 years old, and as sophisticated as
the great 1,000-year-old stone villages of the Anasazi culture, along with
petroglyphs and pictographs on the canyon walls. In more recent history, Utes,
Paiutes, and Navajos moved in, and remain an important part of the modern
culture of the area.
In 1836, 33 years before Major John Wesley
Powell's famous expedition, Denis Julien, a French speaking fur trapper left,
inscriptions on the cliff wall along both the Green and Colorado Rivers in what
is now Canyonlands National Park. It is still not known for certain what
Julien's mode of transportation was, however, most historians believe he must
have traveled by boat, based upon where many of his inscriptions were found.
His last known inscription was dated 1844 and is located in what is now Arches
National Park.
American explorers pushed into the Colorado
River corridor, often in grave danger due to the weather and hostile Native
Americans. The most daring expeditions were those of
John Wesley
Powell. In 1869, John Wesley Powell (pictured above) and a crew of nine men
provided the first-ever thorough investigation of
the Green River
and
Colorado
River, including the first known passage through
Cataract
Canyon. On May 24, 1869 the expedition pushed their boats from shore in
Green River, Wyoming, and headed down
the
Green River. Although they took enough provisions for ten months, the
expedition only lasted approximately 3 months and endured incredible hardships
and dangers as they traveled down the river. Only five of the original crew
along with their Civil War hero leader emerged from the depths of the Colorado
River.
Throughout the last half of the nineteenth century, gold miners,
settlers, ranchers, missionaries, soldiers, and outlaws pushed into the
wilderness of the Colorado River corridor. The most legendary outlaw in the
area was Butch Cassidy, born Robert LeRoy Parker in Beaver, Utah in 1866. Butch
Cassidy and his Wild Bunch may have roamed all over the west rustling and
committing robberies, but Butch's home was Utah. Robbers' Roost, located in a
wild stretch of land between the Colorado, Green, and Dirty Devil Rivers was
one of several hideouts along the "Outlaw Trail," and was a favorite of
Cassidy's. Brown's Hole, along the Utah-Colorado border and near the launch
site of the
Gates of Lodore on the Green River was another temporary refuge and/or
semi-permanent Wild Bunch headquarters.
