One bold Ute who attempted to shorten his trail by means of the river, shortened it to the Happy Hunting Grounds immediately, and there was nothing in his fate to inspire emulation.
The years then wore on and the Colorado remained unknown through its canyon division.

Ives had come up to near the mouth of the Virgin from the Gulf of California in 1858, and the portion above Flaming Gorge, from the foot of Green River Valley, was fairly well known, with the Union Pacific Railway finally bridging it in Wyoming.

One James White was picked up (1867) at a point below the mouth of the Virgin in an exhausted state, and it was assumed that he had made a large part of the terrible voyage on a raft, but this was not the case, and the Colorado River Canyons still waited for a conqueror.

He came in 1869 in the person of John Wesley Powell, a late Major[1] in the Civil War, whose scientific studies had led him to the then territory of Colorado where his mind became fired with the intention of exploring the canyons.

The idea was carried out, and the river was descended from the Union Pacific Railway crossing to the mouth of the Virgin, and two of the men went on to the sea.