Through The Grand Canyon From Wyoming to pdf

Through The Grand Canyon From Wyoming to

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Description of the Book:

Ellsworth Kolb’s epochal account of his and brother Emery’s, 1911 river expedition down the Green and Colorado Rivers and through the Grand Canyon, from Green River, Wyoming to Needles, California and for Ellsworth, the Gulf of California, Mexico. The impetus originally was to recreate John Wesley Powell’s epic 1869 river expedition through the Colorado River and canyonlands and return with a photographic record. True, it would be noteworthy, as they would be only the 8th team to attempt such a major undertaking. But the brothers would have major handicaps to dog their attempt. Their enterprise, at it’s peak of manpower, contained only 3 men and most of the time it only comprised Ellsworth and Emery. They had two specially built river boats, but each one weighed 500 lbs, making any portages done by the two or three men time consuming and exhaustive. Besides the staples of a major expedition; food, tools, etc, they carried a huge collection of cameras, glass photographic plates, glass bottled photographic chemicals, a portable dark room, and a full size, hand-cranked, motion picture camera.

It was hoped, that besides photographing Powell’s trail, they would be able to bring the canyonland’s grandeur to the public from the cutting edge lens of moving pictures. A technology never before seen in the canyonlands. But the cameras, the chemicals, the delicate movie camera, they were all to operate in the most difficult and unpredictable of environments. There were no assurances that such delicate apparatus could even survive the rages of white water that existed within the canyon’s river recesses. But, by far, the biggest handicap the Kolb’s faced, they had little river rafting experience and no white water rapids experience. The novice boatmen were going to travel from Wyoming to California, forging through 365 major white water rapids and bump across hundreds of additional rough water patches in two 500 lbs boats filled with glass, chemicals, and delicate apparatus. The chances of completing the enterprise seemed so remote, let alone, even the chance that a photograph or a thread of motion picture would survive.

Yet the Kolb’s got the boats, bought the cameras, outfitted the expedition with every intention of success. When later asked why they had such optimism, in 1912, Ellsworth answered, “We could not hope to add anything of importance to the already existing scientific or topographic knowledge of the canyons. “And merely, to come out alive at the other end, did not make a strong appeal to our vanity. “We were going there as scenic photographers in love with their work, who were determined to reproduce the marvels of the Colorado River’s canyons, as far as we could do it. “This nevertheless, was out secret hope, hardly admitted to our most intimate friends – that we could bring out a record of the Colorado, as it is, a living thing – armed as it was with teeth ready to crush and devour.” Well, they surely came out the other end of the River.

But did the ‘teeth’ of the Colorado crush and devour their hopes? Were they able to overcome the River’s mighty hurdles and bring some success out with them

• Creator/s: Ellsworth L. Kolb
• Date: 9/1/1920
• Year: 1920
• Book Topics/Themes: Adventure, Grand Canyon, Colorado River, Exploration, History, Gand Canyon

An excerpt captured from the PDF book