[The Romance of the Colorado River by Frederick S. Dellenbaugh]@TWC D-Link book
The Romance of the Colorado River

CHAPTER VIII
24/33

These men could not have been Ashley and a companion, for several reasons: one cited above; another that the Mormons had not yet settled at Salt Lake in Ashley's day; and a third, that Ashley was a wealthy and distinguished man, and would not have required pecuniary help.

The disaster recorded by the bake-oven, etc., must then have occurred after 1847, the year the Mormons went into the Salt Lake Valley.

Possibly it may have been the party mentioned by Farnham in 1839, though this would not be true if the men found Mormons at Salt Lake.

An old mountaineer, named Baker, once told Powell of a party of men starting down the river and named Ashley as one, and this story, which referred undoubtedly to the real Ashley party, became confused with some other wherein the survivors probably did strike for Salt Lake and were helped by the Mormons.* At any rate, the rapids which had wrecked the earlier party and swallowed up the No-Name were appropriately called Disaster Falls.
*Should any reader have knowledge of the men who were wrecked in Lodore between the time of Ashley and Powell, the author would be glad to hear of it.
The river descends throughout Lodore with great rapidity and every day brought with it hard work and narrow escapes.

Sometimes the danger was of a novel and unexpected character, as on June 16th, when the dry willows around camp caught fire.


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