A Visit to the Shoshone Falls

IMPROVEMENT ERA. Vol. XV. NOVEMBER, 1911 No. 1 A Visit to the Shoshone Falls. BY ALFRED LAMBOURNE. "Of antres vast and deserts idle, Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven, It was my hint to speak." — Shakespeare. "The incessant roar of head-long tumbling floods." — Burns. At the close of one August day, I stood on the bank of the Shoshone River. Under the saffron sky of the desert twilight, the scene before me was strangely impressive. The mellow- tinted waters of the deep, wide stream were seen vanishing into the murky distance. Along the river's edge were rounded tufts of willows, gently swayed by the evening wind, and here and there, huge pier-shaped masses of lava projected into the water against which the river-eddies swashed with a heavy sound. A chain of high hills, but low with distance, with one conical peak prominent above the rest, closed in the extended scene, and over the peak two blazing sparks of light gave grandeur to the sky, the golden orb of imperial Jupiter and that of white shining Venus, whilst lower down, bronze through the river mist, and so dim and small as almost to elude the sight, was the twinkle of sly-watching, thievish Mercury. I was on my way to visit the great Shoshone Falls. I had before seen other portions of the river. I had looked upon "The Snake" from where the river began at the foot of the Tyghee Pass and a bold spur of the Rockies, in the waters of Henry Lake, until it emptied into the greater Columbia. Now I was to complete my knowledge of the stream by seeing where it passed through the

4 IMPROVEMENT ERA Great Basaltic Gorge and where it formed that wonderful piece of scenery, the famed Shoshone Falls. Water is the soul of a landscape. It is the element that makes us never tire of the scenes enriched with its presence. It is the same whether it be gliding stilly in a shady woodland stream, voicing its passion in some steep, wild torrent, or at peaceful rest in some mountain-locked lake. I well remember a favorite pastime of my boyhood days — a pastime tinged with something akin to the explorer's zeal — when I loved to wander along by the side of our village water-course and to see in the rocks and bushes along its edge the scenery of some mighty river; to imagine its verdant thickets the solitude of a primeval forest; to see in the quiet slipping of the water between banks of a few feet in height, the passage of the river through rugged hills; and, in the pleasing delusions of a day dream, to convert the gentle dimples and the miniature cascades, as they played among the mossy stones at the dipping-place, into impetuous rapids and white, tumbling falls. No wonder, then, with such predilections, that I should now feel more than an ordinary pleasure in a pilgrimage to the Shoshone Falls where, in truth, one could see a powerful stream winding its way through strange and lonesome wastes, and listen to its angry voice as it swept onward over rapid and fall, deep in the confines of a bleak and craggy gorge. In my early diary I find these pages written near the sources of the Shoshone River: Sky gray with rain soon to melt away in silver clouds, leaving the sun to blaze at noon day in cloudless azure. Snake River, hurrying along in its basaltic bed — a cyclopean aqueduct. Over low foot hills are seen the Tetons, thrusting sharp peaks to heaven. "To climb up there — nay even your thought itself slides off." Next, long rolling hills with crystal streams between, with pebbly beds, and rushy banks; Shotgun River, brightest of all. In quiet pools, groups of tall, blue cranes eye us with suspicion, or stalk slowly away. Herds of antelope flee at our approach, stop, gaze with curiosity, then bound away again. The shadows point eastward as we near the fork of the Snake River, here in its youth, no dark volcanic shore, but the water flowing past piney banks, deep in grass, intensely green, and leaping trout the only thing to break its sliding mirror. Then sunset through pines, the dark

A VISIT TO THE SHOSHONE FALLS 5 trunks and foliage seen against flush of richest gold, and many voices among the boughs, bespeaking the coming of the night- wind. Camp by a hunter's cabin, a home of rough-hewn logs, with stretched skins of the antelope, the elk, and the bear. Next morning we passed across a long stretch of plashy meadow, interspersed with pools and netted with rivulets, a haunt PHOTO BY JOSEPH SHANKS BLACK'S CANYON, SHOSHONE RIVER. for all the birds who love the shallow stream or grassy plain. Then the foot of the wooded Tyghee Pass, and, as we rise, to the north and northwest, the shining waters of Henry Lake. Higher >vet, and at our left, a mammoth terraced peak, lording it over a narrow glen. At the summit of the pass, mighty hemlocks and groves of cloud-like, trembling aspens. Under their shadows springs trickle forth amid mosses and ferns, the waters beginning a long journey toward the setting sun. Westward, far away, the sun-lit curves of the Shoshone River. Let me contrast these two diary entries, made twenty years ago, with others made during August of the present year: What a struggle is life! I was astonished on seeing the moun- tain homes, those fields of grain. Never did I see a harder battle,

G IMPROVEMENT ERA one fought at odds, between the will of man and the forces of nature. Bitter is the fight where those sheaves of golden grain are gathered in those lonely spots by the river edge, or upon the lava walls. What strange sights where the Shoshone first cuts its tortuous way through the black hills to curve and twist across the great plain or valley that bears its name. Dry-farming, the words will now have in the future, for me, a different meaning. At Black's Canon, at Table Rock, at the Giant's Stairs, the squares of ripen- ing wheat could be seen in seemingly impossible places. What toil to bring about the small result ! What facing of arduous days and lonely nights, in the little hovels, that scant supply of food might be won from the high placed soil! I had seen the broad farms in the valley, but these beginnings, this struggle of poverty to wrest a sustenance from the earth — there was something about it distressing, pathetic. What a splendid view! How immense from the Canon mouth appears the Valley of the Snake! Far away, there, by the Big and Little Buttes, the forks of Shoshone meet. By those distant mountains the mingled waters then take their course. Around the valley are a thousand heights! Great hills are at one's back, upon the lower slopes of which we stand. Westward the Sawtooth Range, south, a suggestion of the gates and walls of Port Neuf, and in the north, the jagged peaks of the mighty Rockies. And all this once wild plain, coming under the dominion, yielding up its desert dreariness, unto fields and orchards and villages under the labor of man. Blackfoot, Shoshone, Bannock — once the tribes roamed here. The nomadic Indian, upon the war-path, has followed that way where we see the white puffs of steam, the wigwam has been under those trees of "The Ranch," the pony has grazed where are the fields and canals, the war-song and the war-dance have been where we see those figures busy around the modern thresher. Washakie, Chief of Chiefs, may have held council with his allies in yonder grove, or the cruel Walker have brought there his painted bands. Little of that, now, thinks the busy farmer. His thoughts are other where. Beyond the dark green of the Cedar Swales, I see the white belfry, the walls of the meeting house. Ah! there is the source of all change. The great Snake River — The Shoshone — Valley appears to be

A VISIT TO THE SHOSHONE FALLS 7 underlaid in many places, overflowed, rather, with lava. 'Flic basalt shows wherever the stream has cut its bed or found a gorge. Conical hills, pits, the craters of extinct volcanoes, are on every side. The lava flow has been immense. Tier above tier, flow above flow, we see what the volcanic activity was in the years gone by. The richness of the soil in the regions of old volcanoes is :•"> ■wfrr^a-r. PHOTO BT JOSEPH SHANK8 WHERE THE RIVER ENTERS THE VALLEY proverbial. The Snake River Valley will yet be the home of even greater agricultural wealth than now. After these digressions we will again return to an old diary and pursue our way toward the great Shoshone Falls, following the south bank of the river, and, of course, several miles to the south-, ward of where the railroad now traverses the great plain: Our road that morning led down toward the prominent hill, whose conical top made a striking landmark across the plain. In this respect the usefulness of the latter was shared by a huge, dark cedar, standing lonely on a neighboring ridge top. At times we followed along the river bank, though at others we passed over long, rolling swells of hill, whilst the river, true to its name, swept away to the northward in many a sinuous curve. In a few hours we joined the old Oregon Emigrant road, whose deeply worn ruts now serve as ditches to drain the surrounding country during the

8 IMPROVEMENT ERA rainy and thawing seasons. We passed a couple of old cabins, tenantless and crumbling to pieces, and these, again, brought out our Jehu's powers of narration. I shall long remember one of the thrilling stories that he told. It was a party of emigrants, sur- prised by the Indians while encamped in a rocky hollow. One side of this hollow opened on the river side, and when, after a stubborn defense, the party felt that their end was approaching, one of their number wrote an account of their tragic fate, sealed the manuscript in a bottle, and cast it into the river. Many, many years afterward it was found. The river, which must then have been in flood, had cast it high upon a bank, and once the bottle opened, the yellow, old manuscript delivered its mournful tale. We made our first halt at noon time, of course, by the side of a dry torrent bed — the channel of one of those impetuous streams that live their fierce life in the stormy months, to fail in the summer heats. A spring, however, seeped at the foot of a crumbling bank, with just water enough to form a clear, shallow pool, ere it was drunk up again among the dry, hot sand and pebbles. Here, in the shade of hawthorne clumps, our lunch of cold meats, aided by a pot of fragrant tea, was dispatched with a relish not often enjoyed. Our journey resumed, in a couple of hours, we again neared the river, this time where it enters between the high walls of its basaltic canon. Anywhere along the edge of this deep gorge the scene is as bleak, forbidding, and as savagely desolate, as the most misan- thropic mind could desire to see. From the spot where we first looked down, was a typical view of it all. On either hand was a long perspective of vast, rocky walls, flat-topped and sable, and over their rim was the desert plain, where the heat haze, lying in the straw-colored swails, trembled and winked like distant lakes of water. Away to the north, vaporously remote, a chain of mountains formed a saw-tooth edge along the horizon. Looking upon the scene, how I longed for the power to describe it. Placed in a crevice close to our feet, and piled around with stones, was a tall, slender rod, with a bit of bright-colored rag fluttering atop. This is here known technically as a guide, and marks the head of some hazardous trail. In the past had we searched with a field-glass along the river edge, among the boulders and along the sand-bars, we might have descried the human inhabitants of the inhospitable place — toiling, enduring all for the sake of the precious dust. Descending from where we stood, the

A VISIT TO THE SHOSHONE FALLS 9 sides of the canon formed two great terraces and slopes — a sweep- ing semicircle, duplicated on the opposite side. On one of the upper slopes was a huge block of basalt, surely weighing not less than a thousand tons, the space it had once occupied showing as a room-like opening in the wall above. But it was the river itself that was the wonder of the scene- PHOTO BY NEWCOMB IN THE BASALTIC GORGE, SHOSHONE, ON SNAKE RIVER Through the vast amphitheatre, just described, it flowed in a still deeper and narrow bed. As it entered the amphitheatre from between the walls to the east, it needed but the slightest effort of the imagination to change the dull-green water, spotted and burred as it was with foam, into the gliding back of a monster python. Toward the west it was closed in again between two perpendicular heights, one wearisome to the eye with endless repetitions of masonry-like forms, and the other mantled in an azure shadow. Through this opeuing the sun, now hung low in the heavens, darted his yellow light, and every whirling rapid of the stream, chafing between its narrow confines, flashed back again the burning rays. So this Fafnir of rivers rolled on before us, mile after mile

10 IMPROVEMENT ERA to the west, but changed from its earthy hues into dazzling tints of molten metal. By sunset of the same day we arrived at the head of a ravine which commanded a view of the Lesser, or as some people choose to call them, the Twin, Falls. As I do not wish to weary the reader with descriptions of falling water, I shall dismiss these falls with a few words. The latter title is far more preferable for them; not only is it appropriate, but it does not deter from the grandeur of the scene by suggesting the nearness of one still more so. The river is divided by a bastion of rock crested with stunted cedars, and the velocity with which the water shoots past this obstruction forbids the thought that human foot has yet trod its summit. As we toiled back up the ravine, a solemn hallway I should call it, we were startled when near the top by the sound of that sharp, dry rattle that tells so clearly the presence of a dangerous foe. Beyond this there was nothing to annoy us. Never did I spend a more perfect night of rest than on the edge of that deep-sunk river. In the coolness that followed the set of sun, there was absolute peace and quiet — a quiet unbroken by even the trill of a cricket. Nay, one sound there was, but so faint and hollow that it aided rather than broke the silence, and yet it made our pulses beat more quickly and the blood tingle in our cheeks, for what could it be but the distant voice of the great falls! I must confess to a feeling of strong disappointment when, on the fourth day after we had quitted the ferry, we stood on a lofty ridge commanding a general view of Shoshone Falls. Being seen from such a height puts them to a test that would try even the vast bulk of Niagara. There was something detrimental, too, in the time of day, for a first sight. The noon-day light diffused all over the scene, made the poverty of color in the surroundings most painfully apparent; every bit of detail stared out, to the utter destruction of all sense of space. The height of the lava wall, whose base is laved by the waters, and whose top towers so far above the lip of the falls, makes it all but impossible to form a just estimate of the height of the falls themselves. By comparison only can we judge of size, and there seemed at first no object by which we could gauge them. When I obtained a key to the colossal scale of objects in that colorless chasm, then I began to appreciate their height and size. With closer acquaintance I was led, first to admire, then almost to revere.

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12 IMPROVEMENT ERA There is no need to mar whatever I may be able to say in praise of this majestic fall of water, by a recital of our climbings from point to point, or to tell the incidents around, or for how many days the smoke arose from our camp fire on the ridge. It would be my pride could I but recall in this description something of the spell that grew upon me day by day; but Nature, always a SHOSHONE FROM THE NORTHERN BANK. master hand in the ease and grace of her accomplished work, puts to shame a feeble and halting attempt to reproduce her impress- ions. I am glad to have seen the Shoshone Falls before the changes in their surroundings, sure to come with the flood of visitors; before the introduction has taken place, of objects at variance with their severe and simple grandeur. Winding down from the ridge, a precipitous little footpath leads to an alcove, a narrow strip of sand placed midway between the feet of the lesser falls above the main fall, and the giant's final leap. This sandy bar resembles a bit of rocky sea-coast. The porphyry cliffs, on either hand, are worn into cave-like open- ings into which the water fiercely beats during the freshets of spring and early summer. How vast the volume of water which burst over these stupendous ledges must be at that particular time of the year, can be imagined from the fact that the river rises nine feet above its general level, and that the roar of the tortured waters may be heard at a distance of many miles. From the first peep of sun above the level wall-tops to the

A VISIT TO THE SHOSHONE FALLS 18 east, to its sinking behind the western hills, a vivid, double rainbow plays and trembles on the rising mists. Under its morning arch may be seen a view of the several rocky islands, the canon below the falls, and a gleam of the fallen river. As the sun climbs toward the zenith so the bow, gradually sinking in proportion, touches in succession, with iridescence, the russet foliage of the topmost cedars, the clay-gray rocks of the islands, first the top and then their base, and at last, quivering along the verge of the falls, turns the leaping wave-crest into tongues of up-lapping fire. Above the falls, set like a guardian keep, is a square-shaped mountain of lava; at its feet the river pauses calm and deep. We crossed and re-crossed the stream there in a little skiff. The danger, which is considerable, is not sensed at first, and, indeed, there is no need for uneasiness where caution is used. Our boat- man was both cool and cautious, shunning the slightest chance of accident, and measuring every stroke. He pulled well up stream and dropped down again on the opposite side into the shelter of a protruding bank. Only the tops of the islands are visible thus THE EAGLE NEST ROCK, EDGE OF SHOSHONE. from mid-stream, with a wreath or two of mist rising from behind them. But the gathering strength of the current as it nears the edge and then vanishes into the deep and awful void beyond, warns how utterly past control of man would be the boat once carried within its reach. A complete transformation takes place in the appearance of

14 IMPROVEMENT ERA the falls and their surroundings when viewed from the northern side. A worn and ragged look characterizes most of the scenes. The islands seem lower and are eaten into cavities, and crouch over the falls' brink in grotesque forms. But the rush of the water is superbly grand. Some of the lesser falls are here brought nearer to us, and such is their individual beauty, that, set apart by them- ABOVE SHOSHONE FALLS. selves, either one would receive unstinted admiration. One in particular is exquisite with forms of delicately molded water. Filmy threads of gossamer lightness speed down its dark rock where, intersecting, they break into crumpled foam, and then, sweeping over a trailing curve, fall in clouds of softest tulle. Yet even this bit of by-play in the water seems here out of place. To me it seems contrary to the genius of the scene, in opposition to its stern sublimity. For a similar reason I do not repent my failure to visit several minor attractions of a fanciful nature, though in this I may be the loser, for often those delicate trimmings enhance the grandeur of noble objects, as do those parasite plants which sometimes grow and bear their tiny blossoms in the bark-crevices of centennial oaks. There is one view of the place, however, surpassing all others in its extent and interest — at once the most bold and comprehen- sive. Until I had looked upon it I had been a stranger to the full grandeur of the Shoshone Falls. This view is from a rounded knoll to the southwest. There is an open space on the summit of the

A VISIT TO THE SHOSHONE FALLS 15 knoll, save for a few trim junipers, with their blue-firred berries, standing stiffly here and there among the dry bunch-grass, and over a fore-ground of rocks and cedars you can look full into the mad face of the mighty torrent as it comes pouring over the ledges in wondrous forms of beauty and terror. There you can see the water beating itself into foam-dust adown the shelves; falling clear from top to base in arrowy points; flinging out sudden jets, and in gushes breaking over obstructing rocks; whilst in frenzied paleness the greater masses rush down with stern and awful roar. There you can see the group of rocky islands above the great fall, the lesser falls between, and the river's treacherous sleep in the shadow of the black keep. Far below your feet the waters in the basin surge to and fro. There Iris weaves bright here seven- SHOSHONE RIVER BELOW THE GREAT FALLS tinted bow, standing where the tumult is wildest, and the shattered foam leaps through the cloud of spray in showers of snow-white rockets. This knoll became my favorite haunt — the end of each day's stroll. I spent my parting hour there, when the sun had lost its fierceness and ere long would sink from sight behind the flat-topped

16 IMPROVEMENT ERA bluffs. The buzzards, that all day long had perched upon the columnar piles of rocks, had wheeled their flight overhead in ever- widening circles, or, with wings aslant, drifted up past the face of the falls, were then betaking themselves to rest, settling in a dusky cloud upon the withered branches of a gnarled old cedar. Another moment and the sun would set. The cedars threw fantastic images along the ground; the cliffs above were purple- barred with shadows. It was time to go. Why wait to see that cold-gray pallor rising from amid the foam, and quenching, inch by inch, the rosy light! It was too awful — too like the pallor that creeps across the face of the dying. Better that vision of the im- petuous waters, when all suffused with glowing light, they poured over the brink, as though changed to precious wine,and when even the walls of blackened stone above grew red, as if the old volcanic fire began to burn once more in every pore. So will I remember the waters ever falling, glorious with light, ere night approaching, with cold, invisible hand, drew thick and close the folds of misty curtain. Our last camp-fire had sunk to a few smoldering embers. Silence rested upon the desert, save for the sounds coming out of _ that darkening chasm, which in vain the eye tried to pierce, or to define the misty wavings in its depths, as of dim white robes. Lifted on the wind, coming from the far-off sea, the voice of the falls grew louder in the quiet night. Under its spell, solemn yet soothing, my thoughts sped forth, lifted to still greater seas — the seas of space — where the planets roll in their never-ceasing rounds. Calmly from the blue vault the stars looked down at the mighty chasm, as they looked when its line was first traced; and through the unnumbered years, while it grew deep and deeper still, as they may look upon it, in ages yet to come, when that solemn vision of the poet shall be realized — when all life shall have passed from this globe, and the course of the human race shall have been run. PHOTO BY SHANKS LOOKING INTO THE GORGE