The locality he reached was very dry, and they were obliged to go each night a long distance back from the brink to procure water.
For this reason, Cardenas gave up trying to follow the canyon, and returned again, by way of Tusayan, to Cibola, passing on the way a waterfall, which possibly was in the Havasupai (Cataract) Canyon.
Castaneda, the chief chronicler of the Coronado expedition, says the river Cardenas found was the Tizon, "much nearer its source than where Melchior Diaz crossed it," thus showing that its identity was well surmised, if not understood, at that time.

Nothing, however, was known of its upper course; at least there is no evidence of any such knowledge, though the natives had doubtless given the Spaniards some information regarding it.

The special record of the Cardenas expedition was kept by one Pedro de Sotomayor, but it has apparently never been seen in modern times.

It is probably in the archives of Spain or Mexico, and its discovery would throw needed light on the location of Tusayan and the course Cardenas followed.*** The distance of this whole region from a convenient base of supplies, and its repellent character, prevented further operations at this period, and when these explorers traced their disappointed way homeward, the Colorado was not seen again by white men for over half a century; and it was more than two hundred years before European eyes again looked upon the Grand Canyon.
* "A las barrancas del rio que puestos a el bado [lado ?] de ellas parecia al otro bordo que auia mas de tres o quatro leguas por el ayre."-- Castaneda, in Winship's monograph.

Fourteenth Ann.Rep.