We had an uncomfortable experience because of the excessive heat and aridity.

I learned several things about mountaineering that I never forgot, one of which was to always thoroughly note and mark a place where anything is left to be picked up on a return, for, leaving our haversack under a cedar it eluded all search till the next day, and meanwhile we were compelled to go to the river two or three miles away for water.

We had a rubber poncho and a blanket.

Using the rubber for a mattress and the blanket for a covering we passed the night, starting early for the mountains, where at last we found our food bag.

After eating a biscuit we went back to the river and made tea and toasted some beef on the end of a ramrod, when we struck for the main camp, arriving at dinner-time.
The Gate of Lodore seemed naturally the beginning of a new stage in our voyage to which we turned with some anxiety, for it was in the gorge now before us that on the first trip a boat had been irretrievably smashed.
We were now 130 miles by river from the Union Pacific Railway crossing, and in this distance we had descended 700 feet in altitude, more than 400 feet of it in Red Canyon.