Then the Rocky Mountain News ran two letters, both written in June, from its former editorial employee, O. G. Howland. Finally, the Chicago Tribune printed a letter from Major Powell himself, in which he recounted how the party had come down the Green River, passed through all the canyons previously considered impassable, and camped in the Uinta Valley of Utah. Newspapers all over the country eagerly printed the good news.

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Although the expedition had traveled that far safely, much danger still lay ahead. As they made their way down the Colorado, Powell, from his vantage point on the Emma Dean’s prow, would peer ahead, wary of the sound of water rushing over a falls. Whenever he sensed danger, Powell would call to his oarsmen to pull the pilot boat over and would motion the others to do the same. Once ashore, he would climb a cliff to evaluate the degree of difficulty they would face. If the falls seemed impassable, the men would lower each boat down with ropes tied fore and aft. As laborious as this task was, it was considerably safer than letting the boats careen over the rocky falls to become caught in the current below.

For the majority of the men, only the occasional exhilaration of running the rapids relieved the monotony of endless days on the river. But to Powell, every moment was exhilarating. His diary describes in poetic detail, the colors of the rocks, the magnificence of the cliffs, and the majesty of the waterway itself.

By July 18, the men rested before undertaking the most harrowing part of the journey. The glassy granite canyon walls would soon squeeze ever closer to the turbulent river. In some areas, cliffs overhung the water, threatening to decapitate a man if his boat slid under the jagged rock. And, from here on, maps were useless; mapmakers had merely guessed at the points where rivers poured into the canyons.

The boats left the Green River on July 21, and headed down the Colorado. As they navigated the wide, deep, cocoa-colored river, they passed canyon walls that reached almost 1,500 feet in height. The rapids they had encountered so far, though they seemed fearsome at the time, were trifling by comparison. Portaging too was more dangerous; often there were no footholds, no way to line the boats down. Boats had to be unloaded and carried through boulders and talus in 120^o temperatures on some days, chilling rains on others.

But with each passing day, the scenery became more and more magnificent: Powell noted in his diary for August 9 that ‘The walls of the canyon… are of marble, of many beautiful colors, often polished by the waves, and sometimes far up the sides, where showers have washed the sands over the cliffs… ‘

A moving entry in his diary on August 13 recorded that ‘We are now ready to start on our way down the Great Unknown. Our boats, tied to a common stake, chafe each other as they are tossed by the fretful river… We have but a month’s rations remaining. The flour has been resifted through the mosquito-net sieve; the spoiled bacon has been dried and the worst of it boiled… We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls rise over the river, we known not. Ah, well! we may conjecture many things.’

Two weeks later, mutiny threatened as the bone-weary men faced mile-high cliffs, short rations, and rushing water. Powell wrote in his diary that Captain Howland sought ‘to remonstrate against my determination to proceed. He thinks that we had better abandon the river here… [H]e, his brother, and William Dunn have determined to go no farther in the boats.’

Powell spent the night thinking, recalculating the distance ahead, the amount of rations remaining, and the chances of getting through the desert if they did succeed in climbing out of the canyon. Desperately wanting to continue the expedition, he woke the others one by one to ask if they would stay or go. His brother Walter agreed to stay, as did Billy Hawkins, Andy Hall, Sumner, and Bradley. At breakfast, knowing there were some who would stay, he put the choice to the whole group. O. G. Howland and Dunn were adamant in wanting to leave. Seneca Howland tried to persuade them to stay, but finally agreed to go out with them.

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