The waters indeed come rushing down with fearful impetuosity, recalling to Powell the poem of Southey, on the Lodore he knew, hence the name.

The beginning of the gorge is at the foot of Brown's Park through what is called the Gate of Lodore, an abrupt gash in the Uinta Mountains 2000 feet deep.

In viewing this entrance the ordinary spectator is at a loss to comprehend how the stream could have begun its attack upon this precipitous ridge.

The theory that the river was there before the upheaval formed the mountain does not entirely satisfy, for it would seem in that case that the canyon walls would long ago have become much more broken down than they are.

But the walls have a strikingly fresh look, as if formed recently, compared with the time of the original upheaval.