The dark red rocks near the bottom were covered with a light
blue-tinted stratum of limestone, similar to the fallen rocks found in
the rapid above. In one land-slide, evidently struck with some rolling
rock, lay the body of a small deer. We saw many mountain sheep tracks,
but failed to see the sheep. Many dead fish, their gills filled with
the slimy mud from the recent rise, floated past us, or lay half
buried in the mud. These things were noticed as we went about our
duties, for we were too weary to do any exploring.
The next morning, Monday, October the 2d saw us making arrangements
for the final run that would take us out of Lodore Canyon. No doubt it
was a beautiful and a wonderful place, but none of us seemed sorry to
leave it behind. For ten days we had not had a single day entirely
free from rain, and instead of having a chance to run rapids, it
seemed as if we had spent an entire week in carrying our loads, or in
lining our boats through the canyon. The canyon walls lost much of
their precipitous character as we neared the end of the canyon.
A short run took us over the few rapids that remained, and at a turn
ahead we saw a 300-foot ridge, brilliantly tinted in many
colours,--light and golden yellows, orange and red, purple and
lavender,--and composed of numberless wafer-like layers of rock,
uptilted, so that the broken ends looked like the spines of a gigantic
fish's back. A sharp turn to the left soon brought us to the end of
this ridge, close to the bottom of a smooth, sheer wall.
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