DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

HUBERT WORK, Secretary

UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

GEORGE OTIS SMITH, Director

Water-Supply Paper 538

THE SAN JUAN CANYON

SOUTHEASTERN UTAH

A GEOGRAPHIC AND HYDROGRAPHIC RECONNAISSANCE

BY

HUGH D. MISER

h PUBLIC

WASHINGTON

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1924
ADDITIONAL COPIES

OF THIS PUBLICATION MAT BE PROCURED FKOM

THE SUPERINTENDENT OF DOCUMENTS

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON, D. C.

AT

30 CENTS PER COPY
CONTENTS

Page

Location-_________________________________ 1

Present and previous explorations________,________ 1

Acknowledgments ________________________________ 4

Suggestions to overland travelers____________________ 4

Geography _ _____ _ _______ _ _ _ 6

Surface features _________________________,____ &

Bluff to Chinle Creek______________________ _ 7

Chinle Creek to Cedar Point__________________-_ 8

Cedar Point to Clay Hill Crossing__________________ 9

Clay Hill Crossing to Piute Farms__________________ 11

Piute Farms to mouth of river____________ _ _ __ 11

Climate____________________________________ 16

Precipitation and temperature___________________ 16

Wind_*._______________________________1_ 17

Soil_______________________________________ 18

Flora_______________________________________ 18

Animals __________________________________ 20

Mineral resources ______________________________ 21

Inhabitants_______________________________j._ 22

Irrigation and agriculture_________________________ 24

Archeology. ___________________________________ 25

Roads and trails ______________________________ 26

Geology_______________________________________ 33

General features ___ ______________ ________ 38

Sedimentary formations__________________________ 83

Goodridge formation__________________________ 33

Snpai (?) formation________________________ 35

Coconino sandstone__________________________ 35

Moenkopi formation__________________________ 36

Shinarump conglomerate_______________________ 37

Chinle formation____________________________ 37

Wingate sandstone___________________________ 38

Todflto (?) formation_________________________ 38

Navajo sandstone___________________________ 38

Other rocks of Jurassic age________ _ _________ 39

McElmo formation ______ __________ _________ 39

Terrace gravel _ _ 39

Recent stream deposits________________________ 40

Structure______________,_____,____________ 40

San Juan River and tributary streams____________________ 41

General features______________ _ _ 41

Discharge measurements of San Juan River___ ___ _ _ 42

Fall of San Juan River __ _ _ 47

Character of channel of San Juan River_________________ 48-
IV CONTENTS

San Juan River and tributary streams Continued. tPage

Rapids of San Juan River__________________________ 50

Waves on San Juan River_________________________ 52

Floods in San Juan Canyon_________________________ 55

Silt in San Juan River____________________________ 56

Canyon fill along San Juan River_____________________ 58

General features____________________________ 58

Sources of canyon fill_________________________.. 59

Character, transportation, and deposition of canyon fill_____ 60

Places where canyon fill is absent or thin______________ 64

Depth of canyon fill__________________________ 67

Driftwood along San Juan River_____________________ 71

Springs and tributary streams_______________________ 71

Water supplies ____________________________ 77

Index_________________________________________ 79

ILLUSTRATIONS

Page

PLATE I. A, Bluff, Utah, in valley of San Juan River, looking southwest; 

B, Entrance to San Juan Canyon just below mouth of Chinle 

Creek, looking southwest_________________________ 8

II. San Juan Canyon: A, The Narrows; B, Second Narrows 8

III. San Juan Canyon: A, The Tabernacle, in a loop of the river;

B, View looking west from head of Honaker trail-_-__;..,.__-. 8

IV. San Juan Canyon: A, View looking south (downstream) toward 

Mexican Hat; B, A thunder shower the characteristic rainstorm of the San Juan Canyon eouptry____ _._ ._ , 8

V. San Juan Canyon: A, View looking upstream from a point about 

1 mile above the mouth of Johns Canyon; B, View looking 

upstream from point about 2 miles below mouth of Johns 

Canyon__ ___________________ _____ __ 8

VI. San Juan Canyon: A, View looking northwest (downstream) 

toward mouth of Slickhorn Gulch; Bt View looking upstream 

from point below mouth of Moonlight Creek.-.____ ____ 8

VII. A, Alhambra Rock, a black volcanic neck, rising above a vast 

expanse of red rocks; B, Train Rock; C, The beautifial red 

Organ Rock; D, End view of Balance Rock__. _ 8

VIII. San Juan Canyon: A, View looking east (upstream) froia.point 

half a mile below mouth of Clay Gulch; B, View looking 

southwest (downstream) from Clay Guleh toward Copper 

Canyon______________________________ -____-_._____ 8

I.. A, Mesa of variegated marly shale in Chinle formation jaear 

mouth of Piute Creek; B, View looking west toward one of 

the Clay Hills from point just north of Clay Hill Crossing; 

C, View looking north (up the San Juan) from top of cliff near 

mouth of Nokai Creek__.__ _____-_____..,_ 12 

X. A, View looking west toward Balance Rock anticline from point 

1 mile above mouth of Nokai Creek; B, View looking east 

(up the San Juan) from canyon rim south of Spencer Camp; 

C, View looking south (down the San Juan) toward the mouth 

of Nokai Creek__________ 12
CONTENTS V

Page.

PLATE XI. San Juan Canyon in the Great Bend: A, View looking southwest (downstream) at point 3 miles below Spencer Camp; 

B, View looking west (upstream) in lower part of Great 

Bend____ ___________ ________ ____-_ 12"

XII. San Juan Canyon: A, View looking south (downstream) from 

lower end of Great Bend; B, View looking south from 

lower end of Great Bend across the open country that lies 

between the bend and Piute Creek____________ 12

XIII. A, Hole in the Rock, a crevice in the wall of the Glen Canyon 

of the Colorado; B, Ruins of road constructed by Mormon 

v mission party opposite Hole in the Rock.___________ 34

XIV. A, View looking east from Clay Hill Pass; B, Roadway constructed in face of cliff by San Juan mission party near 

mouth of Butler Wash_______ _____________ 34

XV. Geologic map of the San Juan Canyon and adjacent country,

in southeastern Utah_______________________ 34

XVI. A, View looking northwest from head of Honaker trail; 

B, View looking south into San Juan Canyon from point 

3 miles east of Clay Hill Crossing; C, View looking upstream toward rapid between Johns Canyon and Slickhorn Gulch_____ ____________ ____________ 34

XVII. Rapids in San Juan Canyon: A, View looking upstream 

toward first rapid at mouth of Piute Creek; B, View 

looking upstream toward Thirteen-foot Rapid; C, View 

looking downstream at a locality between Honaker trail 

and Johns Canyon. ___________________ 34

XVIII. The junction of the San Juan with the Colorado___ __ _ 50

XIX. A, Upstream view of flood-swollen river at the Piute Farms; 

B, Members of Trimble expedition clubbing and catching 

 exhausted fish that were floundering on surface of river 

during a flood at Honaker trail..__________ 50

XX. A, Small ."sand waves" near the Piute Farms; B, Waves of 

swift water in inter-rapid stretch near head of San Juan 

Canyon...^. _ 50

XXI. A, B, Sand waves 6 to 8 feet high during flood at Honaker

trail_...____.__.........___...._._.....__ 50

XXII. Profile of San Juan River between mouth of Chinle Creek

and the junction of the river with the Colorado._______ 64

FIGURE 1. Sketch of the country along the San Juan Canyon, Utah___ 6

2. Generalized columnar section of the rocks exposed along and

near San Juan Canyon, Utah__________________ 34

3. Section and profile running from the Thirteen-foot Rapid up

the southern tributary creek at this place.________._ 68

THE SAN JUAN CANYON, SOUTHEASTERN UTAH

A GEOGRAPHIC AND HYDROGRAPHIC RECONNAISSANCE

By HUGH D. MISER

LOCATION

The canyon bearing the name of San Juan River, which runs 

through it, lies in southern San Juan County, in southeastern Utah. 

It extends westward from the mouth of Chinle Creek to Colorado 

River, a distance of 63 miles in a straight line, yet it is so crooked 

that the distance by stream is 133 miles. (See PL XV.) The canyon has close precipitous walls as much as half a mile high and is 

continuous except for short distances where the river flows through 

open country.

San Juan River rises in the high San Juan Mountains of Colorado, 

whence it flows southwest into New Mexico, back into Colorado, 

enters Utah, flows west through its canyon, and joins Colorado River 

near the Utah-Arizona line.

The region trenched by the canyon is a rough, arid country, difficult of access, which forms a part of the broad Colorado Plateau. 

It is penetrated by few trails and still fewer roads, and parts of it 

are impassable for man and beast. All of the region lies more than 

150 miles from a railroad, and some of it is about 200 miles from a 

railroad. Although the region includes a part of the Navajo Indian 

Reservation, it has not more than a few score inhabitant®. The, 

canyon was not the habitation of a single person in 1921. Bluff is 

the nearest post office, and the " villages " of Groodridge and Mexican 

Hat, with their combined population of half a dozen persons, ar# 

the only white settlements near the canyon.

PRESENT AND PREVIOUS EXPLORATIONS

This report, which describes the San Juan Canyon, San Juan 

River and the tributary streams^ and the geography and to some 

extent the geology of the region, presents information obtained by 

me during the descent of the river with the Trimble party in 1921. 

The exploration of the canyon, which was financed jointly by the

1
2 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

United States Geological Survey and the Southern California Edison Co., had as its primary object the mapping and study of the 

San Juan in connection with proposed power and storage projects 

along this and Colorado rivers.1 The exploration party was headed 

by K. W. Thimble, topographic engineer,, pf the United States Greological Survey. Other members of the party were Robert N. Alien, 

Los Angeles, Calif., recorder; EL E. BJake^ jr., Monticello, Utah, 

and Hugh Hyde, Salt Lake City, Utah, rodmen; Bert Loper, Green 

Eiver, Utah, boatman; Heber Christensen, Moab, Utah, cook; and 

H. D. Miser, geologist. Wesley Oliver, of Mexican Hat, Utah, 

served as packer for the party and brought mail and provisions by 

pack train twice a month to specified accessible places west of Goodridge.

The party descended the canyon by using two 10-foot flat-bottomed 

rowboats, which were built in Los Angeles, Calif., shipped to Green 

River, Utah, and hauled 170 miles with a quad trucjs: to p, point on 

the river 4 miles below Bluff, Utah. The boats were launched and 

the canyon voyage began July 18, 1921, and the mouth of the river 

was reached October 3. The length qf the river thus traversed was 

about 140 miles, though before making the voyage we did not know 

whether we would have to travel 100 miles or 150 miles to reach the 

Colorado. The voyage was attended by strenuous labor and hardships, such as may always be expected in exploring an unknown 

canyon with its rapids in an uninhabited region. Its successful completion was due to the painstaking preparations and wise leadership 

of Mr. Trimble and to the loyalty and cooperation displayed by; all 

his assistants.

Puring tjie descent of the canyon I made detailed and reconnaissance studies of the geology not only along the river but to 

distant points as far as 25 miles from the river. On October 5 I 

joined, at the mouth of the San Juan, Sidney Paige, E, C. LaBue, 

and Ellsworth Kolb, who had descended by boat Green and Colorado rivers from the town of Green Biver, Utah. The downstream party reached Lees Ferry, Ariz., October 8, after a hurried 

trip with only a few short stops, including a visit to the Bainbow 

Natural Bridge.

Numerous oil and gold prospectors have descended in rowboats 

and on rafts pjirte of San Juan Canyon between Bluff and Zahns 

Camp (see PL XV), and it is stated that a man with pack train 

ascended the canyon floor a considerable distance many years ago 

while the river was at an exceptionally low stage. Some of the 

prospectors ascended the canyon with their boats, but they had to 

tow the boats upstream, because the current is too swift for up1 The maps and profiles along Colorado and San Juan rivers that were made In 1921 

have been published in 22 sheets (16 plans and 6 profiles) and may be purchased from 

the Director of the U. S. Geological Survey, Washington, D. C., for 10 cents each sheet.
PRESENT AND PREVIOUS EXPLORATIONS $

stream rowing. Bert Loper, our boatman, who spent two and onehalf years prospecting for gold in the upper part of the canyon, 

beginning in 1893, made a trip at that time on a raft from Chinle 

Creek to Slickhora Gulch in company with Bill Clark and John 

Clark. This trip he repeated numerous times witji a boat, and on 

several trips he was accompanied by George Edmonson and James 

Hamilton. In 1894 Loper, together with Edmonson and John Clark, 

descended the canyon to Zahns Camp and then returned to the head 

of the canyon by towing the boat upstream.

The Trimble expedition was the first engineering expedition to 

descend and map the San Juan Canyon, and so far as I have beep 

able to learn from printed records and from inhabitants of Utah 

it was the fourth expedition of any kind that has ever descended 

the full length of the canyon. ,, .. , , _ . , The first known trip down the canyon was made by E. I*. Gnoodridge, an oil prospector, who descended in ihe sprang of 1882 the 

San Juan and Colorado canyons, from Bluff to Lees Ferry with the 

loss of one boat.1

In 1894 Walter E. Mendenhall, p, gold prospector, o| Lake City, 

Colo., made the trip alone in a crude hand-made boat from Mendenhall Cabin to Lees Ferry.2 In the summer of 189§ he repeated the 

trip together with F. E. Mendfenhall, A. A. Savage, George Munally, 

Charles Murphy, Charles Rhodes, and EH Woplman. They had 

several boat loads of supplies and mining equipment.2 Their most 

serious mishap occurred one night while they were asleep on the 

bank. The largest boat with the grub and mining equipment broke 

its moorings and floated off unaccompanied on its wild journey 

down the river, but, fortunately it was found three days later at 

the head of a rapid, where it had lodged unharmed among willows,

The mapping of the canyon by P. Holman in 1884 as it is represented on the Abajo and Henry Mountain topographic maps of the 

United States Geological Survey is erroneous and is therefore of 

little practical use.

The San Juan oil field, near Mexican Hat and Goodridge, which 

lies north of and adjacent to San Juan Canyon, has been visited and 

fully described by Gregory 3 and Woodruff.4 Gregory 5 during his 

field work in the Navajo country, visited the canyon at places and 

gives much information on its geography and geology. Some fea1 Gregory, H. E., The San Juan oil field, San Juan, County, Utah : TJ. 8. Qeol. Survey 

Bull. 481, p, 21, 1911.

» Letter dated March 5, 1922, from Heber Christensen.

 Gregory, H. E., The San Juan oil field, Utah: U. S. Geol. Surrey Bull. 431, pp. 11-25,

* Woodruff, B. G., Geology of the San Juan oil field", Utah : U. S. GeoL Survey Boll. 471, 

pp. 76-104, 1&12.

"Gregory, H. B,, The Navajo country: U. S. Geol. Survey Water Supply Paper 880^ 

1916 ; Geology of the Navajo country : U. S» Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 9S, 1&17.

96640 24 2
4 THE SAN JTJA3ST CAJTYO3ST

tures of the river, including the transported silt, the movement of 

debris, " sand waves," and measurements of velocity and discharge, 

have been described by Pierce:6 These as well as numerous other 

reports and articles on adjoining regions have been consulted during 

the preparation of this report, and much information, for which 

credit is given in footnotes, has been abstracted from them.

A report describing briefly the rocks of this and other parts of 

the Colorado Plateau of southeastern Utah and northern Arizona 

was published in 1923.T

A report describing the structure of the rocks and the oil possibilities along San Juan Canyon has recently been published.8

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to the following members 

of the United States Geological Survey: Sidney Paige, by whose 

direction I made the canyon voyage, for cooperation in both field 

and office work; Kirk Bryan, E. C. Mbbre, C. R. Longwell, H. E. 

Gregory, N. H. Darton, and W. T. Lee, for cooperation in office 

work; and K. W. Trimble, for cooperation and interest in geologic 

problems in the canyon. » Acknowledgment is also due to Messrs. Loper, Blake, Hyde, Alien, 

and Christensen, other members of the party, for assistance and 

information during and after the canyon trip. Mr. Alien has kindly 

furnished prints of his excellent set of canyon pictures, numbering 

nearly 150, for publication and for other uses.

SUGGESTIONS TO OVERIiAND TRAVELERS

To penetrate the canyon country below Goodridge and Mexican 

Hat requires the use of a pack outfit, because there are no roads 

good enough to be depended upon at all times for travel in wagons 

or automobiles. Few wagons and still fewer automobiles have been 

taken into this area in fact, much of it is impassable for man or 

beast. Zeke Johnson, of Blanding, Utah, and John Wetherill, of 

Kayenta, Ariz., not only serve as guides but provide pack outfits. 

In 1921 Wesley Oliver, of Mexican Hat (post office at Bluff, 25 

miles away), with his pack outfit, was employed to carry supplies 

and mail for the Trimble expedition. If arrangements have not 

previously been made for equipment at Kayenta, Blanding, or

 Pierce, R. C., The measurement of silt-laden streams: U. S. Geol. Surrey Water Supply Paper 400, pp. 39-51,. 1917.

»Longwell, C. E., Miser, H. D., Moore, R. C., Bryan, Kirk, and Paige, Sidney, Rock 

formations in the Colorado Plateau of southeastern Utah and northern Arizona:, TJ. S. 

Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 132, pp. 1-23, 1923.

8 Miser, H. D., Geologic structure of San Juan Canyon and adjacent country, Utah: 

U. S. Geol. Survey Bull. 751, pp. 115-155, 1924 (Bull. 751-D).
SUGGESTIONS TO OVERLAND TRAVELERS 0

Mexican Hat, equipment should be procured at Gallup, Flagstaff, 

Dolores, Mancos, Green Kiver, or other points on the railroads.

The information given below, which was acquired by H. E. Gregory from personal experience, may be helpful to those who desire to 

visit the canyon country.9

The Navajo is vigorous, intelligent, and capable of hard work -If it is not too 

continuous. He will render assistance for pay, frequently for friendship, and is 

loyal and cheerful whea fairly treated. He is, however, independent and will 

desert with scant ceremony when unjustly treated. He will help himself to 

interesting trinkets and to food, but may be trusted with valuable things and 

with important missions. He is a past master at driving a bargain. He is an 

expert horseman, but knows little of harness, wagons, and pack outfits. His 

knowledge of distances and of directions is of such nature as to be of little use 

to a white man. It is essential to success that the Navajo should understand 

and approve of you and of your mission, and therefore frankness should characterize all dealings with, him. A Navajo, preferably a school boy recommended 

by a superintendent, should be a member of each party, not orSjr to serve as 

guide and interpreter but to obtain advance:information regarding water and 

forage and to establish friendly relations "with those Indians who have slight 

acquaintance with the whites.

The Piute, in my opinion, is less trustworthy and less skillful than his Navajo 

neighbors.

The prevalent Indian diseases are tuberculosis and trachoma, a fact which 

should be kept in mind when hospitality is extended or accepted.

" Roads," m the local sense 4hat is, -routes over which a staunchly built, 

lightly loaded wagon drawn by two, four, or more horses may be taken by 

skillful drivers may be found here and there. * * * The land of the 

Navajos [and also of the Piutes] is, however, preeminently a " horseback country," and a pack train is the only type of outfit which offers freedom of movement Quicksand is to be expected in all stream channels and in the beds of 

" dry lakes," and crossings should be tested before wagons or pack trains are 

intrusted to them. Owing to sudden rises of water, streams and dry washes 

should be crossed at the earliest favorable opportunity, and camp should never 

be pitched on the floor of even the most innocent looking dry stream bed or 

adobe flat.

The location of camps is necessarily controlled by the distribution of water, 

and the traveler should have reliable information regarding water holes and 

springs for the particular month during which he proposes to make his expedition. 

Grain for horses should be provided, as very few places afford the essentials of 

camp water, wood, and forage and barren zones surround most of the water 

supplies. Not all stores carry grain, and inquiries as to the amount available 

should be made beforehand. Fuel is lacking at many camp sites or is limited 

to yucca, grass, and annuals. Under such circumstances the abandoned 

" hogans " appear tempting; but some of these deserted huts have housed dying 

persons and are therefore taboo, and their use may lead to trouble. The traveler should never leave camp without a supply of water and should keep in mind 

the deceptive character of mirages. The danger from lightning may be minimized by avoiding shelter of trees during the thunderstorms that almost invariably accompany summer rains.

 Gregory, H. E., The,Navajo coautry: TJ. S. Geol. Surrey Water-Supply Paper 380, 

pp. 11-12, 1916.
THE SAN JUAN CANYON

Reliable information may be obtained from the offtciala at the 

various Government schools and 

from those traders, and missionaries who have been long in contact with the Navajos.

GEOGRAPHY

SURFACE FfiATTJBES

San Juan Canyon trenches 

a large arid region which is a 

part of the Colorado Plateau 

and which is a land of canyons, cliffs, mesas, and buttes. 

The general upland surface, 

averaging, 5,000 to 6,000 feet 

above sea level, is not a 

single plateau but consists of 

several plateaus. (See fig. 1.) 

Each plateau appears quite 

regular and continuous in a 

panoramic view, yet they are 

all trenched by the crooked 

canyons of San Juan River 

and its many tributaries. The 

intercanyon areas are gently 

rolling to rugged and contain 

no extensive tracts of level 

land. The solitary peak of 

Navajo Mountain, the only 

mountain that stands near the 

San Juan in Utah, towers to 

a height of 10,416 feet.

The roughness of the region, 

combined with the meager 

rainfall, the almost total absence of soil, and the scantiness of grass, sage, pine, pinon, 

and cedar, make it a desert 

waste practically all of which 

reveals bare rock ledges. Because the rocks have many colors gray, buff, brown, red, 

pink, lavender, green, yellow 
GEOGRAPHY 7

and also have many $hades of a single color, any landscape view presents a kaleidoscopic variety, though buffs, browns, and reds predominate, and the exposed edges of the gray rocks are generally stained 

with these three colors.

The rocks, which generally lie in nearly horizontal beds, do not all 

offer the same resistance to weathering, and for this reason the character of the surface features depends in large measure on the character of the rocks. Thick beds of hard sandstone and limestone form 

vertical cliffs, above which there are benches or plateaus, whereas 

shale produces slope? or badland areas. Stream channels cut entirely 

in sandstone aad limestone are confined in narrow, steep-walled canyons; but the channels that are cut into thick beds of shale are 

bordered by wide valleys, whose slopes are surmounted by precipitous cliffs of the overlying hard sandstone.

San Juan Canyon extends westward from a point near Bluff to 

the junction of the San Juan with the Colorado; the air-line distance 

is about 63 miles, yet the canyon is so crooked that it is 133 miles 

long. (See PL XV.) It is continuous^ and the walls, which are as 

much as half a mile high, are close together, except for a few stretches 

where the river is bordered by fairly wide valleys. The features 

of the canyon, the tributary canyons, and the adjoining plateaus are 

described below, beginning with the country in the vicinity of Bluff 

and thence continuing downstream.

BLUFF TO CHINLE CRJEEK

At and near Bluff the San Juan flows in a flat-bottomed valley 

half a mile to 1 mile wide, in which lie the village and its adjacent 

irrigated tracts. (S|ee PL I, A.) The valjey is bordered by gray to 

red precipitous cliffs more than 200 feet high which mark the edge 

of broad, flat-topped mesas described by Gregory 10 as the Gothic 

Mesas. The mesas extend for many miles south, east, and north of 

Bluff; but on the west they swing away from the river toward the 

north and th£ south, so that the valley becomes wider. This wide 

valley is floored by red rocks and contains high gravel-capped terraces. It is limited on the west by the narrow Comb Eidge, which 

has a general northeasterly trend. The ridge has a gentle east slope, 

which is trenched longitudinally by the narrow canyon of Butler 

Wash, a tributary of the San Juan, and its straight, sharp crest of 

buff and brown sandstones, rising many hundred feet above the adjacent country, is a conspicuous feature along its entire length of 70 

miles. The river runs through the ridge in a narrow silt and gravel

10 Gregory, H. E., the Navajo cotmtry: U. 8. Geol. Sotvey Water-Stmply Paper 380. 

p. 31, 1918.
8 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

filled gorge several hundred feet deep, and after emerging from the 

gorge it is joined by Comb Wash from the north and then runs southwest for 2 miles in a wide valley of red rocks parallel with the precipitous west face of Comb Eidge. In this valley the river is bordered 

by large bars of yellow sand and is joined on the east by the small 

though long Chinle Creek, whose mud-filled channel passes through 

Comb Ridge not only near its mouth but at several other places 

farther southwest.

CHINLE CREEK TO CEDAR POINT

Just below the mouth of Ghinle Greek the San Juan turns northwestward and enters the treacherous canyon, 133 miles long, that 

bears its name. (See PL I, #.) The canyon arid the^ adjoining 

country from the mouth of Chinle Creek to the vicinity of Cedar 

Point have similar features. The canyon is less than 100 feet in 

depth at places near Spencer trading post (formerly Goodridge post 

office) and near the village of Mexican Hat, but through most of 

this stretch it is many hundred feet deep, attaining about 1,000 .feet 

in the Soda Basin, east of Mexican Hat, and. 1,340 feet at and near 

the Honaker trail. (See Pis. IMV.) The first place that the -floor 

of the canyon can be reached by trail below the Menderihall Loop is 

at the Honaker trail. The floor can be reached by trail at only a 

few places between Chinle and Lime creeks.

Notwithstanding the great depths of the canyon and its inaccessibility, it is as crooked as the course of any stream that meanders 

on a wide flood plain. . The $an Juan once, im &ft, flpwed with a 

crooked course across a level or nearly, level .plai$, an4 ,th$ present 

bends are simply the old bends that,have* been lowered or intrenched 

in. the plain. The most closely spaced bends are the famous," goosenecks," 4 miles west of Mexican Hat, a, panoramic view of wMcK has 

been given by Gregory 11 and also by Grabau.12 1*ke river channel 

ranges in width from about 50 feet to several, hundred leet. -It.is 

skirted here and there by gravel and sand bars^but at most places 

the water's edge is met by the base of high ta^lus, slopes and by .precipitous walls that rise in a series of uniform' stjeps consisting of 

alternating sheer cliffs and steep slopes. The prevailing colors of 

the walls are pink, brown, and red, though some rock ledges are pot 

discolored and thus reveal their true gray color. The gray f color of 

the rocks is also revealed in irregular patches from which slabs 

and boulders of rock have fallen by gravity or have been blasted by 

lightning, and in the bottoms of ravines of .steep gradient which are

" Gregory, H. B., Geology of the Navajo country: U. S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 98, 

pi. 26, A, 1917; Military geology and topography, flg. 25, Yale TTnlv. Press, 1918. 

" Grabau, A. W., A text-book of geology, pt. 1, p. 706> 1920.
TJ. S. GEOLOGICAL STJBVEY WATEH-STJPPLY PAPER 53S PLATE I

A. BLUFF, UTAH, IN VALLEY OF SAN JUAN RIVER, LOOKING SOUTHWEST 

Photograph by Robert N. Alien

B. ENTRANCE TO SAN JUAN CANYON JUST RELOW MOUTH OF CHINLE 

CREEK, LOOKING SOUTHWEST

Goodridge formation produces canyon walls. Photograph by H. D. Miser
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER 538 PLATE II

A. THE NARROWS, LOOKING DOWNSTREAM

-B. SKCOND NARROWS, LOOKING DOWNSTREAM

SAN JUAN CANYON

Walls are formed by Goodridge formation. Photographs by Robert N. Alien
tj. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER 538 PLATE III

A. THE TABERNACLE, IN A LOOP OF THE RIVER, LOOKING WEST 

Canyon is trenched in Goodridge formation. Photograph by Robert N. Alien

B. VIEW LOOKING WEST FROM HEAD OF HONAKER TRAIL

Cedar Mesa to right capped by Coconino sandstone. Supai (?) formation is in lower half 

of escarpment of mesa. Canyon is in Goodridge formation. Photograph by H. D. 

Miser

SAN JUAN CANYON
TJ. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER 538 PLATE IV

A. VIEW LOOKING SOUTH (DOWNSTREAM) TOWARD MEXICAN HAT 

Sandstone ledges here produce a rapid

 S

11. A THUNDKRSHOWER THE CHARACTERISTIC RAINSTORM OF THE 

SA.N JUAN COUNTRY

View looking north from a point near Mexican Hat

SAN JUAN CANYON

Photographs by Robert N. Alien
U. S. GEOLOCHCJAL, SUltVJil

A. VIEW LOOKING UPSTREAM FROM A 

POINT ABOUT 1 MILK ABOVK THE MOUTH 

OK JOHNS CANYON

CoootutKi sundslcnie, I'ornis liisUuiL hi^h buM.rcssed 

cliffs, Goodridge formation occurs in lower parts of walls. Photograph by Robert N. Alien

II. VIEW LOOKING UPSTREAM FKOM POINT 

ABOUT 2 MILKS UK LOW MOUTH OK JOHNS CANYON

Lower part of wall formed by Goodridj-pt: forrnalioTi; 

upper, sunlit part by Coconino sandstone arid 

Supai (?) formation. Photograph by II. D. Miser

SAN JUAN CANYON
WATER-SUPPLY PAPER 53S PLATE VI

A. V1KW LOOKING NORTHWKST (DOWNSTRKAM) TOW AMD MOUTH OF SUCKHORN (iULCIl

Note boulder bar and rapid at moulh of guloh

SAN JUAN CANYON

Photographs by Robert N. Alleu

R. VIEW LOOKING UPSTREAM FROM 

POINT BKU)W MOUTH OF MOONLIGHT 

CREKK

Cliffs of Coooniuo sandstone rise slionr from 

water's edge
TJ. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPElt M PLATE VII

A. ALHAMBRA ROCK, A BIACK VOLCANIC NECK, RISING ABOVE A VAST 

EXPANSE OF RED ROCKS

Photograph by H. D. Miser

B. TRAIN ROCK

An outlier of Moenkopi formation, 800 feet high and 2 miles long, rising ahove floor of 

Coconino sandstone. View looking southeast. Pnotograph by H. D. Miser

C. THE BEAUTIFUL RED ORGAN D. END VIEW OF BALANCE ROCK 

ROCK

An outlier of red Moenkopi heds. 375 feet Rock is larger than a box car. Note profile 

high of human face on right

Photographs by H. D. Miser
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER 538 PLATE VIII

A. VIEW LOOKING EAST (UPSTREAM) FROM POINT HALF A MILE BELOW 

THE MOUTH OF CLAY GULCH

The platform trenched by the inner canyon is floored by the Shinarunrp conglomerate

S. VIEW LOOKING SOUTHWEST (DOWNSTREAM) FROM CLAY GULCH 

TOWARD COPPER CANYON

The wide shallow channel is here touched by long badland slopes of the Chinle formation, 

which are surmounted by impassable palisade-like cliffs of the Wingate sandstone and 

Todilto (?) formation. Low-walled inner canyon in distance is in Shiuarump conglomerate

SAN JUAN CANYON

Photographs by Robert N. Alien
GEOGRAPHY 9

scoured by rock-laden, torrents during rainstorms. A notable feature 

of the south canyon walls is the occurrence of yellow sand dunes 

that have been built in protected spots by the prevailing southwest 

winds.

The plateau trenched by this part of the canyon is floored by red 

and gray rocks which are concealed in considerable areas by scanty 

soil, sagebrush, and grass. It ranges in altitude from about 4,500 to 

5,500 feet and is gently rolling except for numerous small tributary 

canyons and for a number of peaks and buttes that rise above its 

floor. The dark-gray, almost black Alhambra Eock (PL VII, A) 

stands 3 miles southwest of the Goodridge bridge, and a great number of picturesque buttes (PL IV, A) are to be seen near Mexican 

Hat and farther north. The best published but by no means accurate map showing the surface features of the plateau was made by 

Woodruff.13 The plateau on its east side is limited, by the, wjestwardfacing escarpment of Comb Ridge, already mentioned; on the south 

it merges with, the floor of Monument Valley, where many buttes, 

called monuments, rise nearly 1,000 feet aboy^ the.vaUey floor; aftd 

on the west and north it is limited by a sheer escarpment several 

hundred feet high, which is the east edge of a higher plateau*, The 

east edge of the part of the higher plateau that lies north of the San 

Jman is known as Gedar Mesa or Cedar Kidge, and the; southernmost point of the mesa is known as Cedar Poiurt. (See Pls.*III, B, 

and XVI, A.)

CEDAR POIKT. TO CliAY HELL CROSSING' <

SJan Juan Canyon is about 2,000 feet deep in the vicinity of Cedar 

Point, but gradually becomes shallower toward the west until it 

terminates at Clay Hill Crpssing. Between Ge^dar Point and the 

mouth of Grand Gulch the canyon walls, which rise from the water's 

edge except where there are talus slopes and some bars of sand, 

gravel, and boulders, comprise three distinct divisions. (See Pis. 

Ill, Z?, V, and VI, A.) The lowest division is made up of a series of 

alternating sheer cliffs and steep slopes, such as are found along the 

canyon between Cedar Point and the mouth of Chinle Creek. It is 

about 1,300 feet high near Cedar Point, but gradually becomes lower 

toward the west until it disappears at the water's edge at a locality 

about 1 mile below the mouth of Grand Gulch. The middle division 

is a fairly uniform though steep slope of red rock about 400 feet 

high, and at its base there lies a narrow flat bench which is followed 

by a poor road running east from the mouth of Slickfrorn Gulch. 

The top division is a continuous sheer and inaccessible cliff 400 to

18 Woodruff, E. G. Geology of the San Juan oil field, Utah: TJ. S. Geol. Survey Bull. 471,. 

pi. 9,1912.
10 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

perhaps 600 feet in height, which is composed of buff to brown sandstone. Like the middle division and the top of the lower division, it 

becomes lower and lower toward the west; its base is about 1,700 feet 

above the river at Ce^dar Point, about 900 feet above at Slickhorri 

Gulch, and about 450 feet above at the mouth of Grand Gulch. The top 

canyon walls are less than half a mile apart at the mouth of Grand 

Gulch, but as they become higher upstream the distance between them 

increases; near Cedar Point they are perhaps 4 miles apart.

Below Grand Gulch the sheer cliff just described continues to become lower, and at thes mouth of Buckhorn Canyon its base reaches 

the edge of the river. The steep subjacent slope also becomes lower 

below Grand Gulch. Between the mouth of Buckhorn Canyon arid 

Clay Hill Crossing the San Juan runs between vertical walls a few 

hundred feet apart that rise from the water's edge except at places 

where short sand bars are present. At and near the mouths of 

Buckhorn and Moonlight canyons th'e walls are about 600 feet high, 

but they descend downstream and terminate at Clay Hill Crossing. 

(See Pis. VI, B and XVI, #.)

Between Cedar Point and Clay Hill Crossing San Juan 

Canyon trenches a westward-sloping plateau. The part of the 

plateau lying north of the canyon is bounded on the north by Elk 

Kiiige and on the west by the Clay Hills, and to portions of it the 

names Grand Flat, Polly Mesa, and Cedar Mesa have been applied. 

The southern part of the plateau, which is bordered on its south and 

west sides by higher country, was called Monument Valley by 

Gregory.14 Beautiful Organ Eock, 375 feet high, and Train Bock, 

about 800 feet high, as well as other buttes near by, are within this 

valley. (See Pis. VII, 2?, <7.) The plateau near the San Juan slopes 

gradually toward the west from an altitude of about 6,000 feet to 

about 3,700 feet but rises toward the northeast to almost 7,000 feet. 

It is so rugged as to be nearly inaccessible except around its borders, 

for its floor of gray to buff sandstone is deeply trenched by steepwalled canyons, including Johns Canyon, Slickhorn Gulch, Grand 

Gulch, the head of White Canyon, and the canyon of San Juan 

Eiver. Grand Gulch, which I ascended to a point three-fourths of 

a mile from the river, presents some of the wildest scenery along the 

San Juan. .It is a dark, narrow canyon with vertical red walls several hundred feet in height at whose base lie heaps of huge boulders 

and great piles of driftwood. At the mouth of the gulch there 

stands a castle-like column of brown sandstone 400 feet high, whose 

position and form suggest that it is an ancient fortress guarding the 

approach to the gulch.

14 Gregory, H. E.f U. S. Geol. Survey Water-Supply Paper 380 and Prof. Paper QB. *.
GEOGRAPHY 11 

CLAf HILL CROSSING TO PIUTE FARMS

Between Clay Hill Crossing and Piute Farms the river runs in a 

wide valley showing numerous terraces and ravines and a general 

badland topography; and the channel, which is skirted by very 

little alluvium, ranges in width from several hundred feet to more 

than 3,300 feet. In this stretch many islands of ripple-marked sand 

are revealed during low stages. The valley is sharply bounded on 

the west by a mesa 2,000 feet high surrounded by cliffs, but on the 

east it is bordered by the low country along the west edge of the 

plateau, which rises eastward, culminating in Cedar Mesa. (See Pis. 

XIX, A and XX, A.) The terraces, which are floored with gravel, 

are especially extensive east of the river and rise in steps toward the 

east, attaining an altitude of about 600 feet above the river near the 

mouth of Moonlight Creek.

PIUTE FARMS TO MOUTH OF RIVER

Between Piute Farms and the mouth of the San Juan the country 

along the river and also for many miles on each side reveals diverse 

surface features, though it is in general a much dissected plateau, 

highest to the east and lowest to the west, which attains altitudes 

ranging from 4,500 to 6,000 feet and which stands. 2,000 feet above 

the westward-sloping plateau that adjoins it on the east. The plateau 

extends southward beyond the dome of Navajo Mountain (PL XII, 

A), which rises to an altitude of 10,416 feet, and it extends northward and westward across the Colorado to the lofty peaks of the 

Henry Mountains, about 11,000 feet above sea level; to the broad, 

straight northwestward-trending ridge known as the Waterpocket 

Fold, 6,000 to 7,000 feet; and to the broad Kaiparowits Plateau, 

7,500 feet. The country west of the Piute Farms is so greatly dissected that most of its surface is extremely rugged and is accessible 

at only a few places. The canyons, 1,000 to 2,500 feet deep, are 

deepest and widest to the east, where the intercanyon areas are in 

reality mesas. The walls of many canyons are vertical cliffs, but 

others, especially the deepest ones, have walls composed of a series 

of alternating sheer cliffs and gentle to steep slopes. The only 

canyons here described are those of the San Juan and its tributaries. 

Parts of the intercanyon areas are level or gently rolling, but other 

parts, especially west of Spencer Camp and Piute Canyon, reveal 

numberless gigantic well-rounded mounds, domes, and "mosques" 

of solid bare buff sandstone. The largest and most conspicuous area 

of level plateau country is a grass-carpeted tract known as Wilson 

Mesa, about 4,500 feet in altitude, 6 to 8 miles long, and 3 to 4 miles
12 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

wide, which lies between the San Juan and the Colorado near their 

junction. (See PI. XI, B.) The rugged country near Wilson Mesa 

is briefly described by Judd 15 in two recent articles.

Between Piute Farms and Spencer Camp the San Juan and its 

tributaries run between mesas that rise 2,000 to 2,500 feet above the 

river. The top edges of the mesas are bordered by inaccessible 

palisade-like cliffs, 200 to 900 feet high, which are composed of buff, 

dark-brown, and vermilion sandstones. (See Pis. VIII, B; IX, C'; 

X.) Below the cliffs there are long badland slopes about 850 feet 

high which reveal in considerable areas marly shale with beautiful 

variegated colors but in other areas a tangle of huge angular boulders of sandstone and finer materials that have fallen from the cliffs 

above or have reached their present position through landslides. 

These slopes touch the river at Spencer Camp and for a distance of 

2 miles between the mouths of Clay Gulch and Copper Canyon. (See 

PL VIII, B.)

From Piute Farms to a point half a mile below the mouth of 

Clay Gulch a comparatively level platform lies at the base of the 

badland slope. In this platform the San Juan has <wt a narrow 

inner-canyon and a few small tributaries have cut side canyons. (See 

PI. VIII, A.) The walls of the inner canyon^ each composed of a 

steep slope of soft red rocks capped by a sheer cliff of gray to brown 

conglomeratic sandstone, are 500 feet high to the east and become 

lower downstream until they terminate half a mile below the mouth 

of Clay Gulch. For considerable distances'they extend down to the 

water's edge, but elsewhere their base is separated from the river by 

narrow bars of sand and gravel; : The San Juan enters a similar inner cannon at a point half a mile 

above the mouth of Copper Canyon and leaves it at a point just 

below the mouth of Nokai Canyon. (See Pis. VIII, B; IX, C'/ X, 

A, C.) The vertical walls, which are composed of conglomeratic 

sandstone, attain a height of 200 feet, and above them there are fairly 

level benches. The walls rise from the water's edge except where 

narrow short bars of sand and gravel intervene. Kokai and Copper 

canyons, which enter the south side of the main canyon in this 

stretch, also have narrow inner canyons that increase in depth and 

width upstream. They were followed to points several miles away 

from the San Juan; at such points they are 500 feet or more in depth 

and have serrated walls.

A conspicuous and interesting feature half a mile north of the 

mouth of Nokai Creek is a balanced rock standing on the crest of 

a spur about 400 feet above the river. (See Pi. VII, 2>.) It is so

»Judd, N. M., Beyond the Clay Hills: Nat Geog. Mag., vol. 55, pp. 275-302, 1924; 

Explorations IH San Juan County, Utah: Smithsonian Misc. Coll., vol. 76, No. 10, pp. 

77-82,1924.
U. 8. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER 538 PLATE IX

MESA. OF \ARIEGATED MARLY SHALE IN CHINLE FORMATION NEAR 

MOUTH OF PIUTE CREEK

Photograph by H. D. Miser

B. VIEW LOOKING WEST TOWARD ONE OF THE CLAY HILLS FROM A POINT 

JUST NORTH OF CLAY HILL CROSSING

The palisade-like cliff next Lo the summit is formed by the edges of the Todilto (?) and Wingate 

sandstones. The subjacent mottled badland slope is underlain by the Chinle formation. 

The lower dark buttressed and fluted cliffs are produced by the Moenkopi formation. 

Photograph by H. D. Miser

C. VIEW LOOKING NORTH (UP THE SAN JUAN) FROM TOP OF CLIFF NEAR 

MOUTH OF NOKAI CREEK

Rocks are here bowed upward into broad arch. Photograph by H. D. Miser
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER 538 PLATE X

A. VIEW LOOKING WEST TOWARD BALANCE ROCK ANTICLINE FROM 

POINT 1 MILE ABOVE MOUTH OF NOKAI CREEK

Cliffs of inner canyon in foreground are formed by the Shinarump conglomerate. The 

position of Balance Rock indicated by the cross. Photograph by H. D. Miser

 -.... 1

7S. VIEW LOOKING EAST (UP THE SAN JUAN) FROM CANYON RIM 

SOUTH OF SPENCER CAMP

The beds dipping toward the foreground lie on the wesl side of the Balance Rock anticline. Photograph by Robert N. Alien

C. VIEW LOOKING SOUTH (DOWN THE SAN JUAN) TOWARD THE MOUTH 

OF NOKAI CREEK

The walls of the inner canyon rise toward the right (west). Photograph by Robert N.

Alien
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPEH 53S PLATE XI

A. VIEW LOOKING SOUTHWEST (DOWNSTREAM) AT FOUNT 3 MILES BELOW

SPENCER CAMP

The sheer sandstone \valls of the Wingate and Todillo (?) formations are surmounted by 

colossal domes of the Navajo sandstone

B. VIEW LOOKING WEST (UPSTREAM) IN LOWER PART OF GREAT liKNl) 

The east edge of the level Wilson Mesa lies in the center distance

SAN JUAN CANYON IN THE GREAT BEND

Photographs by H. D. Miser
TT. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SrPPLY PAPER 538 PLATE XII

A. VIEW LOOKING SOUTH (DOWNSTREAM) FROM LOWER END OF GREAT

BEND

Navajo Mountain 20 miles away. Cliffs are formed by Wingate, Todilto (?), and Navajo 

sandstones. Boulder-strewn slope is underlain by Chinle formation

B. VIEW LOOKING SOUTH FROM LOWER END OF GREAT BEND ACROSS 

THE OPEN COUNTRY THAT LIES BETWEEN THE BEND AND PIUTE CHEEK

Note wide sand-filled channel of river

SAN JUAN CANYON

Photographs by Robert N. Alien
GEOGRAPHY 13

large larger than a box car and stands in so prominent a position as to be visible for a distance of 2 miles or more in different 

directions. The rock, which is a mass of sandstone 30 feet long, 

25 feet high, and 15 feet wide, is balanced on a crumbling base of red 

shale 5 feet high, 8 feet long, and 4 feet wide. That the rock can 

thus be supported by so weak a base is remarkable.

Just below the mouth of Nokai Canyon the inner gray to brown 

walls of conglomeratic sandstone and their superjacent platforms 

rise in graceful curves toward the west, become farther apart, and 

then descend to the river and terminate at Spencer Camp. (See Pis. 

IX, C, and X.) The tops of the walls between these two localities 

attain an altitude of about 1,000 feet above the river and inclose a 

picturesque basin less than 2 miles 5 square, in-which the'abandoned 

gold-mining camp known as Zahns Camp is located. The floor of 

the basin, which is crossed by the San Juan in a sand-filled channel, 

contains flat-topped, gravel-covered hills; and its steep serrated walls 

of gray, buff, red, and brown rocks are not crossed by trails except 

at the western margin, where wooden ladders have been placed to 

scale some of the steepest places. The basin can be reached on its 

east side by a poor road running through a gravel-filled gap half 

a mile south of the mouth of Nokai Canyon.

In the vicinity of Zahns Camp the palisade-like cliffs and the 

subjacent badland slopes, which border the top edges of the high 

mesas, are also arched. (See Pis. IX, £7, and X.) On the crest of 

the arch the highest summits of the mesas* attain an altitude of 

2,500 feet above'the river,'but they gradually descend toward the 

west until4hey stand 1,000 to 1,500 feet above the river near Spencer 

Camp.

The palisade-like cliffs descend to the water's edge at a point 

3^ miles below Spencer Camp, and the badland slope with its 

enormous talus boulders therefore disappears. Thence for a distance 

of 6 miles by stream the precipitous canyon walls meet the water's 

edge except for short stretches where there are willow-covered sand 

bars. (See PI. XI.) The walls are gashed by impassable hanging 

valleys at the mouths of side canyons, they are dented by alcoves, 

some of which have arched roofs, and they terminate upward in 

colossal sandstone domes that rise about 1,000 feet above the river. 

Only one of the side canyons could be entered from the river. Its 

precipitous walls bar entrance to it from all other directions. It 

was ascended in a north-northeastward direction for a distance of 

114 miles. No trails or other signs were found to indicate that it had 

been previously visited by man. Its pieturesqueness is most impressive and equals or surpasses the beauty of jshe canyon in which the 

famous Kainbow Natural Bridge is located. Its sandstone walls, 

with their buff, brown, and red colors, are as smooth as the gray
14 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

granite walls of the Yosemite, and they terminate upward in gigantic rock domes which tower higher than the Washington Monument. Yet they are dented with several alcoves -*ome with rounded 

walls like the upper interior walls of a huge hollow sphere and 

some with straight back walls and arched roofs. To their walls 

there cling sparse ferns and lichens, which are fed by seeps. Rivulets leap from the rim of the canyon and join the water from springs 

to form a small, clear stream which runs on the rough, rocky canyon 

floor. The water supply maintains abundant cedars, cottonwoods, 

scrub oaks, grasses, and flowers. This canyon is here named AtesFve 

Canyon.

Below Spencer Camp the San Juan runs in a northwesterly direction, then swings around and runs southeast, thus forming the 

Great Bend, the longest loop in the canyon. The length of the loop 

is 8*4 miles, yet the distance across the neck is only half a mile. 

Colorado River is only 5 miles away from the west end of the bend, 

but to reach the Colorado by descending the San Juan it is necessary 

to travel a distance of 34 miles.

From the lower end of this loop to the mouth of Piute Canyon 

the San Juan runs in a channel dotted by islands of ripple-marked 

sand and skirted by a number of willow thickets. (See PL XII.) 

As the river runs toward the southeast the true canyon walls with 

their palisade-like features rise high above the river and retreat 

from it, inclosing a wide valley of badlands, but as the river swings 

toward the west near the mouth of Piute Creek the valley narrows 

and the palisade-like cliffs descend in this direction. Piute Canyon 

presents the same features precipitous walls and subjacent badland slopes as are found in this stretch of the San Juan.

From the mouth of Piute Canyon to the mouth of the San Juan 

the canyon is 1,000 to 1,500 feet deep, is partly floored with widely 

scattered bars of sand, gravel, and boulders, and is bent into oxbow 

loops, notably near the mouth of the river. Through much of this 

stretch the canyon walls are composed of sheer cliffs several hundred 

feet high and of low talus slopes at the base of the cliffs. (See PI. 

XVII, A, B.) But in the oxbow loops near the mouth of the river 

the cliffs touch the river or touch short, narrow sand bars; the base 

of the cliffs rise to a height of 670 feet above the river near the 

Thirteen-foot rapid, where they inclose a comparatively wide valley.

Below Piute Canyon the walls are dented by alcoves, of which 

some are well-rounded chambers but others have arched roofs, and 

they are surmounted by closely packed domes of buff sandstone. 

There are a great number of tributary canyons. Most of them have 

hanging valleys with waterfalls, and those that could be ascended
GEOGEAPHY 15

were found to have crooked courses marked by bars of huge boulders, 

waterfalls, and water-filled potholes of small and large size.

A natural bridge of sandstone is perched on the rim of the right 

canyon wall at a point 2 miles by stream below the mouth of Piute 

Creek. The canyon wall at this locality is an unscalable nearly 

vertical cliff rising to a height of 1,300 to 1,500 feet. The bridge 

when viewed from the bottom of the canyon, a quarter of a mile 

below, appears as a tiny arch, yet its span and height are each estimated to be 50 feet. The bridge has apparently been formed by the 

partial collapse of the roof of an alcove or small o&ve in the massive 

Navajo sandstone. A distant view of the alcove indicates that two 

other parts of the roof have fallen in. To reach tbj8;bridge, if that is 

possible, would require a trip across the unmapped maze of canyons 

and domes lying north of the San Juan, The nearest points at which 

the north wall of the San Juan Canyon can be scaled are at the mouths 

of Piute and Wilson creeks.

An abandoned canyon-like valley trenches the rugged country 

north of the San Juan, beginning at a point about half a mile above 

the mouth of the river and extending northward about a mile to the 

Colorado. It ranges in width from about 0.1 mile at the south to 

0.4 mile at the north, and its partly gravel-covered floor stands approximately 400 feet above the two rivers. As the altitude at its 

north end is the same as that at its south end, no decision could be 

made as to which of the two rivers formerly ran through the abandoned canyon. The old vertical wall, more than 200 feet high, 

which is still standing on the east side of the canyon near its north 

end, is curved, running southeast, south, and southwest. This trend, 

together with the fact that the lowest part of the gravel-covered 

floor is adjacent to the wall, indicates that the wall skirted a broad 

outer bend of a river.

A natural bridge is perched on the rim of the old wall on the east 

side of the abandoned canyon described above. It is not visible at 

any great distance, for it stands only a few feet in front of an 

alcove. The bridge was in fact once part of the roof of the alcove 

and was formed by the widening of a crack in the roof, through 

which an intermittent stream now plunges to the floor of the alcove 

and runs under the bridge. The stream formerly ran over the unopened crack and then fell from the rim of the alcove-dented canyon 

wall. The crack back of the bridge is 50 feet long by 4 to 10 feet 

wide and is parallel with the face of the cliff. The width and height 

of the opening under the bridge are 80 and 40 feet, respectively. 

The span trends S. 15° E.; its width is 15 to 20 feet, and its thickness 

15 feet. A very small spring with a flow sufficient to fill a shallow 

pool issues on the floor of the alcove.
16 THE SAN JUAN CANYONCLIMATE 

PRECIPITATION AND TEMPERATURE 1*

The part of the Colorado Plateau trenched by San Juan Canyon is an arid region whose scanty rains fall mostly in two seasons 

one in winter, in which the moisture is derived from westerly winds, 

and one in July, August, and September, in which the moisture is 

derived from southwesterly winds. The summer storms take the 

form of thundershowers, during which the rainfall is torrential and 

the lightning almost incessant, causing considerable damage to life 

in some exposed localities. (See PL IV, B.)

No weather stations have been maintained in San Juan Canyon: 

for the collection of data on rainfall and temperature. Even the 

data furnished by the nearest stations are fragmentary. Conclusions regarding the climate of the canyon are therefore not precise.

The amount of rainfall is influenced by the topography of the 

country. In general the higher the country the more rain it receives. 

The canyon and the immediately adjacent country probably receive 

about 5 inches or less of rainfall a year. During the descent of the 

canyon from July 18 to October 3,1921, more thunderstorms formed 

over and near Navajo Mountain (altitude 10,416 feet) than at any 

place along the canyon. The mountain therefore receives a greater 

rainfall than the canyon. Its vegetation suggests a rainfall exceeding 20 inches a year.

Rain from 38 or more thunderstorms fell on me during the canyon 

voyage. Perhaps as many more passed by less than 2 or 3 miles 

away. These storms occurred on 10 days in July, 13 in August, 1 in 

September, and 1 in October. The longest rainless interval was 

from August 26 to September 29.

Hite, Utah, in the canyon of the Colorado (altitude 3,500 feet), has 

an annual rainfall of 6.92 inches. Blanding, Utah (6,000 feet), has 

14.26 inches; Bluff, Utah (4,300 feet), had 3.63 inches in 1913 and 

6.26 inches in 1921; Aneth, Utah (4,700 feet), on San Juan Eiver, 

20 miles above Bluff, has 5.45 inches; Chinle, Ariz. (5,200 feet), has 

0.9 inches; Kayenta, Ariz. (5,800 feet), had 10.91 inches in 1921.

The highest temperature recorded at Hite is 115° and the lowest 

2°; at Aneth the extreme range is 106° to 10°; at Bluff the range is 

from 104° to 1°; and at Kayenta it is from 99° to 1°. Daily ranges 

are also very great in this region, where the skies are prevailingly 

clear and the atmosphere dry. All nights following even the hottest 

days were comfortably cool in the canyon, and all required the use 

of cover.

16 Many statements here given are taken from reports by M. R. Thorpe (Jour. Geography; vol. 18, pp. 285-300, 1919) and H. E. Gregory (TJ. S. Geol. Survey Water-Supply 

Paper 380, 1916).
GEOGRAPHY 17

The keynote to the climate as a whole is variability between day 

and night, between sunshine and shadow, between opposite sides of 

mesa and canyon, and between canyon floor and rim.

WIND

The wind, whose prevailing direction is from the southwest, picks 

up and carries much sand and dust. Yet along the San Juan there 

are no extensive areas of sand dunes. Most of the dunes, which are 

all small, occur along the bottom of the canyon and in protected 

places on the south canyon walls. The scanty soil in the more level 

parts of the country, where grasses and sage brush are common, is 

probably composed in large part of wind-blown material that has 

lodged among the vegetation and has been held by it.

Our party experienced a violent windstorm when we were several 

miles above the mouth of Piute Greek. It began to blow from the 

south between 9 and 10 a. m. on September 18 and continued without 

cessation from this direction until 5 p. m. It blew in gusts and 

picked up sand and fine yellow dust, which were carried up into 

the air for hundreds if not thousands of feet. The wind shook Mr. 

Trimble's plane table so violently and blew so much sand into out 

eyes that at 11 a. m. we discontinued the descent of the canyon, The 

beating of the wind against the canyon walls roared like an enormous 

waterfall or the din, of a forest storm. The wind afao blew hard on 

September 17 and 19 but was less violent during the nights than 

during the daytime. On all three days considerable sand and fine 

dust were carried in the.air. On the mornings after the sand storms 

much of the cloudless sky was streaked by thin light-gray to creamcolored bands that were probably composed of impalpable dust.

The river fell several inches during the daytime on September 

17,18, and 19 and rose a corresponding amount at night. This coincidence of the fall and rise of the river with the activity and pause 

of the windstorms indicates that they were due to the extreme evaporation of the water during the storms in comparison with the, little 

evaporation during the pauses. The quantity of water thus evaporated was great.

Few opportunities were afforded for observing the effects" of daily 

evaporation on the flow of tributary streams in fact, the only recorded observation was at the mouth of a southern tributary that 

enters the river at a point 3 miles in a straight line west of the mouth 

of Piute Creek.

When we reached the mouth of the stream late in the afternoon of 

September 28 it was flowing half a second-foot or less over the sand 

bar at its mouth. The stream continued to flow across the sand bar 

until well toward noon next day, when the flow decreased so much
18 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

that the stream ceased to flow across the sand bar; all the water that 

was then flowing in the canyon farther south found its way to the 

river by seeping through the sand.

September 29 and all the preceding days for about four weeks were 

cloudless or nearly so, and in consequence the above-described daily 

variations in the flow of the river and the tributary here mentioned 

were apparently caused by the greater evaporation of the water during the daytime, in comparison with the evaporation during the 

night.

SOIL

The soil of San Juan Canyon and the adjacent country is exceedingly scanty. It clings here and there to canyon and mesa walls, 

lies in small patches on the canyon floors, and caps stream terraces 

and the more level parts of the plateaus. Two types of soil are 

found residual soil that is derived from the rocks immediately underlying it and transported soil that has been carried by winds and 

streams and deposited in its present position. The soils on the 

canyon floors have all been transported, but the higher soils include 

both residual and transported soils. Transported soils predominate, 

because the scanty vegetation, the heavy thunderstorms, the rapid 

run-off after rains, and the strong winds are not favorable for the 

formation and retention of soil in place.

Hie soils are derived almost entirely from shale and sandstone that 

are deficient in plant food. Much limestone is exposed in the San 

Juan oil fields, but on account of the small rainfall and the great 

depth and the inactivity of ground water the limestone undergoes 

practically no decomposition except disintegration. The limestone 

has therefore furnished very little, if any, residual clay. The colors 

of the soils are like those of the rocks from which they are derived. 

They are usually buff, brown, and red.

The soils, in spite of their dryness and seeming infertility, contain sufficient plant food to support sage brush and other perennial 

growths and to grow grass, Kussian thistle and flowers during the 

summer rainy season. Water is in fact the chief ingredient that is 

lacking in the soil. The rainfall is not sufficient in and near the 

canyon for dry farming, but the remains of dilapidated irrigation 

systems here and there indicate that the soil produces crops in response to the application of water. No cultivated patches were 

observed at any place in or near the canyon in 1921.

FLORA

The flora of San Juan Canyon and the adjacent country is so 

sparse that the widely scattered patches of green constitute only 

a small part of any landscape view, whether the view is taken
GEOGRAPHY 19

from the canyon floor or across the adjacent plateaus. T«he predominant colors in such a view are the browns and reels of bare 

rocks, . .

Very few trees grow in jbhe canyon. Between the mouth of GJwafe 

Creek and Piute Farms a few junipers were found that had been 

strong enough to withstand the floods, with their heavy loads <xf 

driftwood. No cotton wood trees remain in thi» section of the -eanypa, 

because they have all been swept away by floods, Probably less tkan 

two dozen cotton wood trees are to be found along the. San Juan 

at and below Piute Farms, Yet cottonwoods are numerous at 

places in some of the side canyons, especially those that have not 

been visited by high floods within the last- 20 yearp or nwwpe* ; The 

only yellow pine tree observed in the canyon is clinging to the 

southwest canyon wall near the west end of the Great Bend. The shrubs 

include hackberry, rabbit brush, mountain rush; (Brigham tea), 

greasewood, jronwood, sagebrush, willow, red haw, ofek, and box 

elder. Of these, the willows are most abundant, but few of them 

are more than, an inch in diameter. Their age, like that of most 

other shrubs, is dependent on the periods between the destructive 

floods which carry away most of the vegetation, No oaks were observed in the canyon above the mouth of Grand (Gulch. The most 

common vines are Virginia creeper and poison oak. ," Flat-leaved " 

and "globular" cacti are abundant; yucca is common; grass is 

scanty and commonly in detached tufts. During the rainy season 

there are many kinds of flowers and much Bussian thistle.

The above-described flora falls within the limit of 4he lowest of 

the several zones of vegetation that have been distinguished in the 

Navajo country by Gregory.17 The lowest zone, which he calls the 

zone of cottonwood, cactus, and yucca, extends from the floor of San 

Juan Canyon to an altitude of 5,000 feet. Some of the plateau 

areas adjoining the canyon that fall within this zone include much of 

the San Juan oil field, broad belts of low country on either, side of 

the canyon near Clay Hill Crossing, and the level-topped Wilson 

Mesa.

The next higher zone, called by Gregory the zone of sagebrush 

(Artemfaia) and greasewood (Sarcobatm) , ranges £rom 5,000 to 

6,000 feet in altitude. It was noted in the country north of the 

head of the Honaker trail and also a few miles south of Bed House. 

(See PI. XVI, A.) Gregory says;

Sage within* this zone attains heights of 4 or 5 feet and in places is so 

closely spaced, as to render travel difficult and may occupy the surface to the 

exclusion of trees. Besides the ever-present sage and greasewood, grass is 

fairly abundant in this zone. Patches of piSon and juniper are irregularly 

distributed, usually along rocky ridges, but are in general of " scrub " size.

! »Gregory, H. E., U. S. Geol. Surrey Water-Supply Paper 880, pu 72, 1«10.
20 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

A third zone, called by Gregory the zone of pifion (Pinua 

eduUs) and juniper (Jimiperus monosperma), ranges from 6,000 

to 7,000 feet in altitude. It occurs on Cedar Mesa, in the country 

north and east of Red House, on the mesas of the Clay Hills, 

on a mesa north of Zahns Camp, and on the mesa between Piute 

and Nokai creeks. The pinon and juniper I observed are of scrub 

size. Sagebrush and greasewood occupy open spaces. Grass in tufts 

and scattered mats grows everywhere except in the densest shade.

Two still higher zones occur on Navajo Mountain. They are the 

zone of yellow pine, from 7,000 to 8,500 feet in altitude, and the zone 

of Engelmann spruce, from 8,500 feet to the summit of the mountain, 

10,416 feet above sea level.

ANIMALS

Among the indigenous animals observed by members of the party 

were cottontails, *jack rabbits, one civet cat, field mice, harmless 

snakes, beavers, seven Arizona mountain sheep, and lizards. The 

mountain sheep are confined to the part of the canyon between the 

Honaker trail and the mouth of Moonlight Creek. They have survived here for the reasons that much of this part of the canyon is 

inaccessible to persons on foot and that few people have ever descended the canyon in boats/ The tracks of coyotes were numerous 

in all parts of the canyon, and the track of a single mountain lion 

was observed. The birds noted include black eagles, owls, ducks, 

blue cranes, swallows, and rock wrens.

Several kinds of insects, especially flies, mosquitoes, ants, and scorpions proved to be far too numerous for comfort. The thousands 

of ants that inhabit the sand bars on which we slept were bedfellows 

on many occasions, and they always displayed two disagreeable 

traits crawling and biting. On a few occasions scorpions who were 

bedfellows were crowded too much and expressed their anger by 

stinging. Lizards sometimes got into the beds and always caused 

considerable' anxiety for fear they were scorpions, until a match 

was lighted and thus revealed their harmless nature.

Mosquitoes were not numerous except during the period from 

August 13 to 25, which was in the rainy season. The party had no 

mosquito netting, and it combated mosquitoes unsuccessfully by using 

smoke barrages from fires of sagebrush and cow chips. After many 

sleepless and restless nights caused by these pests and by the rains, 

which wet the bedding, our canvas bed covers were converted into 

pup tents. Such tents protected us from both the mosquitoes and 

the rain.

A few wild cattle were seen at places in the upland country north 

of the canyon. Burros, some of which may be wild, were, noted 

south of the canyon below Clay Hill Crossing. Indian horses and
GEOGEAPHY 21

mules were seen grazing in Piute Canyon, also on the high mesa 

east of Piute Canyon and on the plateau extending north from the 

base of Navajo Mountain. Flocks of sheep have been grazed at 

places in £he canyon below Clay Hill Grossing, but they, like all the 

Indians, had moved away from the river before our descent of the 

canyon. The abandoned hogans and sheep corrals along the river 

suggest that a few Indians with their sheep spend their winters 

there.

MINERAL RESOURCES

Among the prospectors to visit San Juan Canyon and the adjacent 

country were those in search of gold and petroleum, which are the 

only exploited mineral resources of the region. The gold prospects, 

the dilapidated oil-well and gold-mining machinery, and the piles 

of stones marking the corners of the numerous oil leases and mining 

claims are some of the most conspicuous reminders that this deserted 

canyon has formerly been visited by human beings.

Several oil seeps occur in the bottom of the canyon between Mexican Hat and the mouth of Slickhorn Gulch. The largest of these 

is a rather continuous series of seeps extending 1*4 miles upstream 

from the mouth of the gulch. (See PL VI, A.) Oil-prospecting permits in the country north of the San Juan have been acquired by 

the hundreds from the Department of the Interior, and a continuous 

belt of land covered by such permits extends from Bluff westward 

past Mexican Hat and Goodridge to Colorado River. Many wells 

in search of commercial quantities of oil have been drilled near 

Goodridge and Mexican Hat, in what is known as the San Juan oil 

field.18 Oil has been found, but the production has thus far been 

so small as not to repay the large expenditures of capital. Further 

and complete exploration with the drill may, however, reveal oil 

in commercial quantities, but the oil prospector should always keep 

in mind the hardships and enormous cost of drilling wells and of 

marketing oil in this arid region, which is more than 150 miles 

from a railroad. The possibility of obtaining oil and the structure 

of the rocks in the canyon and the adjacent country are fully discussed in another report.19

Prospecting for gold in San Juan Canyon began in 1892, when 

tales of fabulously rich deposits caused 1,200 men to stampede to the 

canyon. After spending a few months there they went -away empty 

handed, but prospecting continued at a few places as late as 1915. 

The gold is extremely fine in grain, being known as flour gold, and

M Gregory, H. IX, The San, Juan oil field, Utah,: U. S. Geol. Survey Bull. 431, pp. 11-25, 

1911. Woodruff, E. G., Geology of the San Juan oil field, Utah: U. S. Geol. Survey Bull. 

471, pp. 76-104, 1912.

18 Miser, H. D., Geologic structure of San Juan. Canyon, and adjacent coaatry,. Utah: 

U. S. Geol. Survey. Bull. 751, pp. 115-155, 1924 (Bull. 751-D).
22 THE SAN JUAN CANTON

occurs mostly in placer deposits along the river channel and in 

terrace gravels. Placer deposits have been prospected at numerous 

places between the mouth of Chinle Creek and Zahns Camp. The 

results of work at Zahns Camp are not known, but the richest 

returns from the rest of the canyon were obtained at the Nephi 

claim, 4 miles below the Honaker trail, where $3,000 worth of gold 

was recovered in 30 days. At Spencer Camp and near the mouth 

of Copper Creek attempts have been made to extract gold from 

sandstone debris, which has been derived from the Wingate and 

Navajo sandstones. Small quantities of gold 20 to 40 cents a ton 

are said to occur disseminated through these sandstones. For further information on the gold deposits in San Juan Canyon the 

reader is referred to reports by Gregory 20 and Butler.21

INHABITA3STTS

A part of Utah south of San Juan River has been set aside for the 

use of the Navajo Indians. The former Piute Indian Reservation, 

which was a belt of country lying between the San Juan and the 

Utah-Arizona line and extending from Colorado River eastward to 

the 110th meridian, has recently been returned to the public domain. 

The Navajo Indian Reservation extends eastward from this meridian 

and southward from the San Juan into Arizona and New Mexico, in 

which most of the Reservation lies.

The country lying south of the river in the Navajo Indian Reservation is not subject to entry except by permission of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, but the region adjoining the north side of 

the river and in the former Piute Indian Reservation is public domain and is subject to entry by the usual method.

San Juan Canyon was found by the Trimble party to be uninhabited by either white people or Indians, though much evidence indicates that the more accessible parts have been the temporary abode of 

a few Indians with flocks of sheep and that prospectors have visited 

the canyon in search of placer gold and of oil, of which there are 

seeps near the San Juan oil field. Furthermore, the country adjacent to the canyon is inhabited by very few people.

An uninhabited country fully 50 miles square lies north of the San 

Juan and east of Colorado River; yet it is visited during the winter 

by herdsmen with their cattle. The only settlements in its southern 

edge are at Goodridge and Mexican Hat; the only ones on the western edge are the Loper ranch, on the Colorado at the mouth of Red 

Canyon, and the Hite ranch, at the Dandy Crossing of the Colorado;

»Gregory, H. B., Geology of the Navajo country: U. S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 98, 

pp. 139-140, 1917.

^Butter, B. S., The ore deposits of Utah: U. S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 111, pp. 

636-640,1920.
GEOGRAPHY 23

and the first settlements to the east are found at Bluff and Blanding 

and at places near the Abajo (Blue) Mountains. There is a single 

ranch, however, near the head of Comb Wash.

.Bluff is a thriving village of white people in an irrigated valley 

and is visited by many Piute and Navajo Indians. (See PL I, A.) 

The only white people living near the river west of Bluff are at 

Goodridge, Mexican Hat, and a trading jDost near Oljeto in Moonlight Valley. Goodridge, formerly a post office, was in 1921 a trading post operated by A. H. Spencer. It consists of three frame buildings and a cellar, and is the permanent residence of not more than 

three or four people.

The village of Mexican Hat, which receives its name from a 

near-by butte (PL IV, A) that is capped by a wide circular rock 

standing in such a position as to resemble a huge Mexican sombrero, 

is 25 miles from Bluff and half a mile west of the river. In 1921 it 

consisted of two frame buildings, with as many white families, 

though a third building, the home of A. L. Raplee, was on the- right 

bank of the river half a mile away. J. L. Oliver, who lives in the village, operates a store with a very small stock of merchandise.

Both Goodridge and Mexican Hat are field headquarters for oil 

men who visit the San Juan oil field, in which the villages are situated. The people living there go 25 miles to Bluff, the nearest post 

office, for mail; their nearest available physician lives at Branding, 

about 50 miles away. No white inhabitants and only three Indians 

were seen during the canyon voyage from Goodridge to Lees Firry, on 

Colorado Kiver, notwithstanding the facts that the party speiat two 

Months in the canyon west of Goodridge and that members of the 

party walked to several points as much as 6 or 7 miles away from the 

river, to one point 15 miles away, arid to one point 25 miles away. 

The three Indians referred to were Navajos who were living in Piute 

Canyon, 9 miles south of the river. But several abandonee! hogans, 

farms, and corrals, whose location is discussed below, were seen on 

or neat the river. Their character is such as to indicate that nomadic 

Indians have lived for short periods along the river. In fact, it appears thai a few Indians take their flocks to the San Juan to spend 

the winter.

Abovfc the entrance to the canyon two or three hogans were .seen 

near the mouth of Chinle Creek, and in July, 1921, a Kavajo family 

was found living by a cultivated patch on the north side of the rivep 

just -below the mouth of Butler Wash. Ko hogans occur along the 

river near Mexican Hat and Goodridge, though one or more " sweat 

boxes" were noted on the west bank near Goodridge. An Indian 

who wishes to take a " Turkish bath " tightly closes himself and 

some heated stones in such a box and then while perspiring copiously 

rushes and plunges into the river.
24 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

Other signs of Indian habitation were not observed until the 

party reached Boekhouse Gulch, where there is a hogan partly constructed of stone 1*4 miles in a straight line southeast of the mouth 

of the gulch. Abandoned Indian farms and a corral are on the left 

bank of the river at a locality known as Piute Farms. A hogan is 

on a bench on the left bank of the river just north of the mouth of 

Copper Canyon; two or three were noted on Nokai Creek at points 

several miles south of the river. A hogan and an abandoned farm 

are on the east side of the river at a point 3 miles above the mouth 

of Piute Creek. Another with a farm is just south of the Thirteenfoot Rapid, and a third, also with a farm, is 1% miles to the south 

in a tributary canyon.

IRRIGATION AND AGRICULTURE

Water from the San Juan is used for irrigation at Bluff and other 

places farther upstream, but in the canyon there is practically no 

tillable land and none was under cultivation in 1921. The thin soil 

on the terraces and on some of the other level upland areas below 

Clay Hill Crossing would probably grow crops if irrigated, but the 

areas of tillable land are small, and the enormous cost of utilizing 

water from the river, either by pumping or by building dams, precludes such practice under present conditions.

No farming has ever been done in the canyon between the mouth 

of Chinle Creek and Clay Hill Crossing. Farming has been carried 

on in recent years at and near Piute Farms, where water from both 

the river and small tributary streams has been utilized, but the 

aggregate area under cultivation there probably did not exceed several acres. The land that has been cultivated at Piute Farms is 

now subject to being flooded by the river during high stages, and 

much if not most of it has been carried away in recent years by the 

river. During the stay of the Trimble party at Piute Farms from 

August 18 to 26 the waves of the surging flood-swollen stream beat 

against the south bank and carried away a strip of land 7£ feet 

wide, notwithstanding the fact that the channel was already 3,300 

feet wide.

There appears to be an abandoned Indian farm on the east side 

of the San Juan at a point 3 miles east-northeast of the mouth of 

Piute Creek. Another abandoned Indian farm is just south of the 

Thirteen-foot Rapid on the San Juan and another is in a side canyon 

1^2 miles south of the rapid; both these farms were irrigated by 

water from the stream that drains the side canyon.

In 1921 no tract under cultivation was seen along the San Juan 

or along its tributaries at an altitude of less than 3,900 feet. In
GEOGRAPHY 25

fact, the only cultivated patches that the Trimble party saw during 

the canyon voyage below Comb Ridge were in Piute Canyon at a 

point 9 miles south of the river.

ARCHEOLOGY

A fairly large number of accessible cliff dwellings occur along the 

river at and east of Bluff, but in and near San Juan Canyon, which is 

west of Bluff, cliff dwellings and other prehistoric ruins are surprisingly few. This apparently means that the canyon country, 

with its meager quantity of tillable land and its sparse grasses, has 

not at any time been able to sustain more than a few nomadic inhabitants.

A small accessible dwelling stands in a recess in a cliff on the west 

side of Butler Wash near its mouth. Its walls have been partly 

demolished.

There are a few small dwellings, difficult of access on account of 

the steep approach and the small entrance, on the north side of the 

San Juan about half a mile west of the mouth of Butler Wash. 

They appear to be well preserved. A few ruins are said to occur at 

the mouth of Comb Wash. The ruins near Bluff and those in Butler 

and Comb washes, also some in and near the Great Caves in Grand 

Gulch and some north of the north base of Navajo Mountain, have 

been described by Prudden.22

A round jar haying the form of an olla was found beneath a 

narrow projecting ledge on the right bank of the river about one mile 

above the mouth of Slickhorn £ruleh. In this vicinity oil seeps occur 

in the river and at the- water's edge for a distance of a mile and a 

quarter. Perhaps the cliff dwellers who made pottery of this type 

came to the locality to obtain the oil for fuel or medicine. No 

masonry that could have been part of a cliff dwelling was seen, but 

buried heaps of charcoal, corn cobs, grains of corn, and partly completed arrowheads that were found indicate that the cliff was once 

a place of habitation.

Fragments of pottery of several designs were noted on the surface 

near the mouth of Clay Gulch. The cliff at this locality is on the 

west side of the gulch and has a large recess, which has obviously 

been used as a shelter by Indians and white people.

A dwelling with an entrance 2 feet square was found beneath a 

huge sandstone boulder in the bottom of Copper Canyon at a point 

some 4 or 5 miles from the San Juan. The length and breadth of the 

single room are only a few feet, and its ceiling of solid rock is so 

low that a person can not stand erect in it;

88 Prudden, T. M., The prehistoric ruths of the Son Juan, watershed in Utah, Arizona, 

Colorado, and New Mexico: Am. Anthropologist, new ser., vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 224-228, 

1903.
26 THE SAN JTJAN CANYON

A cliff dwelling beneath a projecting ledge on tie northeast side 

of the inner canyon of Nokai Creek at a point about 6 miles from tTie^ 

river consists of two rooms, the larger 8 by 12 fejet. The smooth 

walls, which were constructed of slabs of rock and. red clay, stand 

ral feet high. The walls have been partly torn down by recent 

Indians to obtain stone* for building crude huts in which no mortar 

or clay was used, l^ft^fragjg^i^of pottery of several designs 

were noted on the surface. The abundance of th0 frajgpents suggests that the locality was a place of habitation for a long time?*'

A small cliff dwelling whose walls have been mjostly demolished 

was seen about 2 miles north of Spencer Camp. It is in an alcove 

in the Navajo sandstone on the northwest side of a gulch and is 

more than 1,000 feet higher than the San Juan. >nly small pieces 

of broken pottery were observed on the surface.

A cliff dwelling with walls several feet high was 1 milt in an alcove 

in tiie Wingate sandstone in the northwest canyon wall of the river 

at a point S miles by stream below Spencer Camp. It is 50 feet or 

more above the river and can be reached by cautioi sty climbing the 

steep face of the cliff, in which shallow notches hsive been chiseled 

for steps. It is small Jand erude, but is in a good state of preserve 

tion. Bits of broken pottery were found in and neat the dwelling.

P4ctographs^fli^i|tieiiti^, many things, such as mountain sheep,' 

snakes, and ducks, have been*c%iseled by the In^inns on numerous 

huge boulders of sandstone below the Clay H^Owwsing. They 

were chiseled on smooth surfaces that had a dark-l^own coating of 

iron oxide^ known as "desert varnisju." None of them appear to 

have been made in recent times in fact, some have been so nearly 

obliterated by weathering as to suggest that they are many" centuries old. Some of the pictograph-bearing boulders have recesses 

whose upper surfaces are covered with soot. This soot and the occurrence at places of buried masonry indicate that Indians long ago 

used the boulders for shelter.

Two or more low circular rock walls, mostly fallen down, stand 

on- the terraces just south of the Thirteen-foot Rapid and occupy 

prominent positions overlooking the adjacent flats along the river. 

They wtsse^yeiry crude, being built of angular stones apparently 

without mortar. TfasjT'iuBg said by Lopef and Christensen to antedate the architecture of the present Indians of the region.

ROADS AND TRAILS

Because San Juan Canyon and the region traversed by it are dif* 

ficult of access and are inhabited by few people, the region contains 

only a f&w roads and trails. The canyon and the adjacent country 

are generally reached by two overland routes one by way of Bluff» 

Utah, and the other by way of Kayenta, Ariz.
GEOGBAPHY 27

Bluff may be reached by automobile stage from Thompson, Utah, 

on the Denver & Eio Grande Western Eailroad, 148 miles by road 

to the north, by going through Moab, Monticello, and Blanding 

(formerly called Grayson), Utah. It may also be reached by auto* 

mobile stage from Dolores, Colo., on the narrow-gage line of the 

same railroad. The route from Dolores runs in a west-northwesterly 

direction to Monticello, a distance of about 75 miles, and then south 

through Blanding to Bluff. From Bluff a road runs to Mexican 

Hat, a distance of 25 miles, and then on to Goodridge 2% miles by 

road farther south. The road between Bluff and Goodridge is 

used by a few automobiles, but on account of washouts it is occasionally impassible except for pack animals.

Several roads radiate from Goodridge and Mexican Hat and run 

to different parts of the San Juan oil field, most of which is north 

of ;the river. These roads, which are used very little except by oil 

drillers, are shown on Woodruff's map of the region.23 A road, as 

shown on this map, crosses the river at the mouth of Comb Wash 

and runs southwest for several miles along the west face of Comb 

Eidge. In 1921 the members of the Trimble expedition found a trail 

running southwest from the mouth of Chinle Creek. If there ever 

was a road here it has been obliterated on account of disuse.

From Goodridge a wagon road runs in a southwesterly direction, 

crosses the San Juan over a suspension bridge half a mile west of 

the village, and then runs through Monument Valley and Pass to 

Kayenta, Ariz., the distance being about 50 miles by road. On 

account of deep sand and washouts, only one automobile had made 

the trip from Kayenta to Goodridge before 1921.

Kayenta may be reached by automobile from Flagstaff, Ariz., on 

the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, 155 miles by road to the 

southwest. The road between Flagstaff and Tuba is in good condition, but most of that between Tuba and Kayenta is poor. Kayenta 

iflay also be reached by automobile by way of Chinle, Ariz., from 

Qallup, N. Mex., on the Atehison, Topeka & Santa Fe Eailway, a 

distance of 190 miles.

The bridge near Goodridge is the only one spanning the river 

below Shiprock, N. Mex. It is therefore used by many people, because the crossing of the river, by wading on foot or by fording or 

swimming on horseback, is precarious on account of the quicksands 

and the unreliable, changing channel.

The first place that the canyon floor can b« reached below the 

bridge is at the Mendenhall Loop, where a trail descends the north 

wall to Mendenhall Cabin. The next place is at the Honaker trail,

» U. S. Geol. Survey Bull. 471, pi. 9, 1912. 

96640 24 3 PUBLIC

remove fkv '., - rr

- -

- '.W Vol. 2, ,. O
28 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

whose head is iy2 miles by road west of Mexican Hat. The trail 

was built in 1904 by gold prospectors, who were attempting to work 

the placer deposits in and near the river channel. The canyon wall 

descended by the trail is only 1,235 feet high, yet the trail is so 

crooked that it is about 2% miles long. The trail was built with 

the intention of using pack animals on it, but the only horse ever 

to attempt the descent fell off from a particularly steep, narrow 

stretch known as " The Horn," and its bleached bones may still be 

seen lying at the base of the cliff. Before 1904: prospectors reached 

this part of the canyon by descending the river from Goodridge 

and Bluff or by ascending the canyon from Clay Hill Crossing or 

the mouth of Slickhorn Gulch. Also for some time they used ropes 

for lowering themselves and supplies into the canyon at the Honaker 

trail. The ropes were used over the high impassable pink cliff that 

is about halfway down from the rim.

A road used mostly by oil prospectors runs from the vicinity of 

the Honaker trail past the south base of Cedar Point and across Johns 

Canyon to the mouth of Slickhorn Gulch, where it descends the lower 

part of the canyon wall to the river. It follows the prominent bench 

that gradually becomes lower and lower downstream and disappears 

at the water's edge near the mouth of Grand Gulch. The road down 

the canyon wall at the mouth of the gulch was constructed many years 

ago by E. L. Goodridge for the purpose of lowering drilling machinery to the bottom of the canyon, where there are large oil seeps. 

An engine, after being brought across the desert for a distance of 

more than 175 miles, was safely taken down the canyon wall to a point 

within a stone's throw of the drilling site, but at that point, owing to 

an unfortunate accident, the engine tumbled from the road and over 

the cliffs to the bottom of the canyon and was thus broken beyond 

repair.

To reach the canyon below the mouth of Slickhorn Gulch there are 

two customary routes. One passes through a locality known as 

Oljeto, which is about 30 miles from Goodridge and 25 miles from 

Kayenta. A poor road from Oljeto runs in a northwesterly direction 

past Organ Rock, 375 feet high (PI. VII, C), thence in a westerly and 

northwesterly direction down Copper Canyon to the river, and next 

to and across Nokai Creek to Zahns Camp. The road down Copper 

Creek follows the stream to a point about 3 miles from the river, 

ascends a low escarpment on the west side of the creek, and follows a 

bench to the river and downstream as far as Nokai Creek.

One or more trails run in a northwesterly direction from the 

vicinity of Orange Rock to Piute Farms and Clay Hill Crossing, on 

the San Juan. One of them was found to be marked for short distances by wagon tracks. Another trail leaves the road west of Organ
GEO&BAPSY. 29

Bock and, alter climbing an escarpment a few miles farther west, 

follows a platform or bench along the east side of Copper Creek to 

the river.

A trail apparently constructed by gold prospectors runs along the 

south canyon wall from f*iute Farms to .the mouth of Copper Canyon. 

In 1921 it was in places so narrow as to be impassable for pack ani- 

-mals and to require a steady nerve and sure footstep for a person to 

pass over it. West of Nokai Creek a fork of the trail ascends the east 

slope of a saw-toothed hogback ridge and thence follows a level or 

gently sloping bench to Spencer Camp. This trail was used by 

wagons in hauling gold-mining machinery to Spencer Camp. In 

September, 1915, a Franklin automobile was driven by the five Zahn 

brothers, of Los Angeles, Calif., over the route leading from Kayenta 

through Oljeto, down Copper Canyon, and across Nokai Creek ta 

their gold-mining camp, commonly known as Zahns Camp.

Stock trails ascend Nokai Creek for only a few miles. A trail Fanning from a point on the road near the mouth of Nokai Creek climbs; 

the high mesa to the west and then crosses Piute Canyon about 9' 

miles south of the San Juan. This route was followed in 1909 by the 

combined parties of Cummings and Douglass when they were being 

guided by Piute herdsmen to the Rainbow Natural Bridge. This was 

the first time that white men had visited the bridge. In September,. 

1921, Wesley Oliver, packer for our party, who was to meet us at the 

mouth of Piute Creek, attempted to follow this trail with his pack 

train. When he reached a particularly steep part of the trail leading 

west out of Nokai Canyon he encountered a landslide of huge jagged 

boulders that had recently blocked the trail. Nevertheless he attempted to take his pack animals across the landslide, but before he 

had gone far one of the mules, in floundering on the boulders, was 

so seriously injured that the attempt was given up. The pack train 

with its provisions, which were greatly needed by the San Juan 

party, was returned to the bottom of Nokai Canyon, where the stock 

could get water and grass. Then Oliver returned to the landslide 

with his saddle pony, managed to cross it, and reached our camp two* 

days late. He reported seeing the skeletons and carcasses of eight 

horses that had fallen from the cliffs at the landslide within the last 

two months. To obtain the much-needed provisions Bert Loper and 

I laboriously towed a boat upstream to Spencer Camp, a distance of 

16 miles, where we met Oliver with his pack train, as he had in themeantime returned with his pony over the treacherous trail to NokaiCanyon. The trail across the landslide has, according to John Oliver,24 been repaired by Indians since 1921.

Another southern route into the canyon country leads from* 

Kayenta southwestward to the head of Marsh Pass, northwestward!

» Letter dated April, 1923.
30 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

up Laguna Canyon past its cliff dwellings, across the head of Piute 

Canyon, and around the east side of Navajo Mountain to its north 

base, a distance of fully 75 miles, whence there are two or more trails 

leading north to the river and one leading west to the Rainbow Natural Bridge. One of the trails descends ( the west wall of Piute 

Canyon at a point 9 miles away from the river and then descends 

Piute Creek to the river. From the mouth of this creek a good trail, 

used by horses and burros, runs up the left bank of the river for a 

distance of 5 miles.

A trail constructed for the use of horses and burros ascends the 

south canyon wall at a point 1 mile southwest of the mouth, of Wilson 

Creek and passes on to a nearly level grass-covered plateau that 

extends to the base of Navajo Mountain, several miles away. It 

doubtless connects with the trail that follows the north side of the 

mountain to the Rainbow Bridge.

The canyon that is drained by a stream entering the river at the 

Thirteen-foot Rapid was formerly followed by a trail. The trail 

led from the abandoned Indian farms near the mouth of the creek 

past the abandoned farm just north of the forks of the canyon and 

thence up the west fork for an unknown distance. Whether it connects with the Rainbow Bridge trail is not known. It was found 

to be so obliterated at many places by landslides and washouts as 

to be impassable for man or beast.

The difficulties in reaching the part of the canyon below Slickhorn 

Gulch from the north are fully as great as those in reaching it from 

the south, because only a few people, including herdsmen, prospectors, and guides, are familiar with the trails. One of the principal routes of travel runs from the town of Green River, on the 

Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad, by way of Hanksville to 

Hite. A wagon road from Green River has been built as far as 

Hite. At Dandy Crossing, just above Hite, animals can easily swim 

the river, and supplies can be taken across in boats. From Hite 

the trail, which was once used as a wagon road and which is still 

an excellent pack trail, passes in a southeasterly direction up White 

Canyon to the natural bridges, 40 to 45 miles distant. From the 

bridges one trail runs in an easterly direction to Blanding, a distance 

of 40 miles, and another that has been used at times by wagons runs 

in a southeasterly direction to Bluff. Another route of travel is 

-ffom. Thompson, on the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad, 

to Blanding and thence west over the route just described,

In 1923 a party of the National Geographic Society traversed by 

pack train the region lying north of San Juan Canyon. The region
GEOGBAPHY. *" , 31.

and the route followed are briefly described by Judd,25 leader of the^ 

party, in two recent articles.

A road from Hole in the Eock to Bluff by way of the Clay Hill 

Pass and the head of Grand Gulch, was constructed in the winter 

of 1879-80 by a Mormon mission party, which followed this direct 

yet unknown route from Cedar City, Iron County, to colonize the 

part of the San Juan Valley where Bluff now stands. The party 

consisted of 200 men and women and 50 children, who took with them 

more than 100 teams, 82 covered wagons, and nearly 1,000 cattle. 

An account of the journey of the party, which underwent endless 

privations and hardships during the severe winter in this most 

rugged, barren country, and which still displayed an exemplary 

morale and discipline and an unbounded confidence in their leaders, 

is one of the most interesting chapters in Utah history. Since 1880 

the road traversed by them between the Colorado and Bluff has been 

used very little by wagons, and to-day its location is marked simply 

by a trail. In fact there is not a single human habitation on it west 

of Bluff.

The following brief description of the route is abstracted from 

an article by J. Cecil Alter:26

About December 14, 1879, the leading wagons reached the Hole in the Rock, 

the only break in the continuous canyon wall through which a road could be 

constructed to the river. [See PL XIII.] Work was immediately begun In 

the 4-foot crevice to build a roadway 1 mile long to reach the river 800 feet 

below. So precipitous was the crevice that the first workmen had to be 

lowered by ropes from the rim and then held in suspension while they drilled 

the powder holes. By December 17 enough room was found in the crevice 

for 47 men to work. The number of workmen gradually increased, but it 

was not until January 26, 1880, that the first wagons could be taken down 

the new road to the ferryboat, which was built of lumber that had been hauled 

from Escalante, a distance of 60 miles. On February 10, after the last wagon 

had descended to and crossed the icy river, the caravan began to climb the 

east canyon wall, in which a road had been blasted.

On February 13, cold, stormy weather, with snow and bad roads, forced a 

halt about 10 miles from the Colorado, yet the summit of the " San Juan Hill" 

was still 2 miles distant On February 17 the party passed near the most 

northerly bend in San Juan River, about 14 miles east of the Hole in the Rock, 

where it is said the vertical canyon walls of the San Juan obscured the stream 

below. [The bend referred to is obviously the Great Bend that is below 

Spencer Camp.]

About February 20 the leaders of the party reached the Slick Rocks, " consisting of great knobs and hummocks of sandstone, jumbled together and 

riven with crevices, the whole field a half mile across being tilted at a sharp-

»Judd, N. M., Beyond the Clay Hille: Nat Geog. Mag., TO!. 45, pp. 275-302, 1924; 

Explorations in San Juan, County, Utah: Smithsonlan Misc. Coll., TOl. 76, No. 10, pp. 

77-82, 1824. 

, » Salt Lake Tribune, Oct. 23, 1&21.
 2 THE SAN JUAN CANTON

angle. A roadway had to be literally chiseled and blasted through this region^ 

as box canyons prevented getting around it." On February 28 the first 

wagons slid down the chutelike roadway into Lake Canyon and reached Hermit 

Lake, called Pagahrit (standing water) by the Indians. This lake, which was 

half a mile long, was produced by a spring and stream having been dammed by 

beavers. "The dam went out with a flood six or seven years ago, and the 

beautiful lake with its willows, bushes', canes, grass, and ducks, is no more." 

On March 2 the advance column, after passing over rocky ridges and sand 

dunes, reached Green Water Spring, in Castle Wash, so named from a castlelike cliff dwelling near the spring. After another two day's travel in heavy 

sand in the wash the leading wagons reached the head of the Clay Hill divide 

or pass the only pass in the southeast escarpment of the mesa country that 

extends from San Juan Eiver in a northeastward direction to the head of 

Bed Canyon, a distance of 20 miles. The clay hill lies east of the pass and 

is a long badland slope leading down to the lower plateau country to the

 east, which is sometimes referred to as the "Grand Flat." [See PL XlV,: 

A.] It is only a part of a belt of badlands that runs the whole length of 

the southeast escarpment of the above-mentioned mesa country. To this mesia 

country the name Clay Hills has been appropriately applied, yet l^he hills,

 which are in reality mesas, are capped with massive cliff-making sandstones 

that are generally bare of soil and vegetation.

The descent of the Clay Hill was difficult, for the cla'y was wet and slippery/ 

the mud was deep, and the slope was long and steep. The first wagons made 

the descent about March 12, and headed in a northeastward direction through 

a cedar-clad country, reaching the Cow Tanks after going a distance of 20 

miles, and next reaching Dripping Springs, some 6 or 8 miles farther northeast. The party, after traveling 10 miles in going* around the head of Grand 

Ouleh near Elk Ridge, and in crossing Harmony Flat, reached the point where 

the present-day trail leads off to the north about 2 miies to the Edwin Natural 

Bridge. The caravan next entered the canyon of Comb Wash and followed 

it for 25 miles in a southerly direction to San Juan River, where a roadway 

had to be blasted in the face of a cliff. [See PI XIV, f?.] The wagons after 

passing down the " dugway " went eastward 9 miles to the place since known 

as Bluff, where two or three families were then living. The first wagons 

reached that place on April 5 and the last on the next day.

During my exploration of the country adjacent to San Juan Eiver 

I saw the abandoned road on both sides of the Colorado at Hole in th,e 

Bock and at a locality 9 miles west of Bluff, where a dugway was 

made in the face of a cliff of solid rock, and also walked over the 

route from Clay Hill Pass to Red House, which is about 10 miles 

northeast of the pass.

A trail used many years ago by wagons leaves this old road at the 

foot of the clay hill and runs in a southwesterly direction to Clay 

Hill Crossing on the San Juan, a distance of 10 to 12 miles. During 

the " gold " excitement of 1892 the trial was used by prospectors who 

rushed southward to the river, and it was also used by them when they 

went away empty-handed. At that time the river could be forded 

at Clay Hill Crossing, for the channel was narrow. Since then the 

tree-covered bottomland extending from the crossing to Piute Farms
GEOLOGY . . 3$

has been swept away and has been replaced by the widened river 

channel with its shifting bed of quicksand.

Spring Gulch was found to be followed by a cattle trail that leads 

northward to the grassy valleys of the high country. The trail, 

which was followed for a distance of 4% miles from the river, has 

been obliterated at some places by washouts and is in poor condition at most other places.

A trail constructed for the use of horses and cattle ascends the 

north wall of San Juan Canyon at the mouth of Wilson Creek and 

runs in a northwesterly direction on a grass-floored bench on the 

east side of the creek. It was followed for a distance of only 2 miles 

from the river. A similar trail described on page 30 ascends the 

south canyon wall at a point 1 mile southwest of the mouth of the 

creek.

GEOLOGY

GENEBAL FEATURES

The rocks in and near San Juan Canyon are bare of soil and 

vegetation at most places and thus offer an unexcelled opportunity 

for their study. They include both igneous and sedimentary rocks.

The igneous rocks are found at Alhambra Bock, where there is a 

high, dark volcanic neck and associated dikes; 3 miles north of 

Mexican Hat and 4 miles south-southeast of Goodridge, where there 

are dikes; and 2 miles south of the mouth of Chinle Creek, where 

there is a volcanic neck. All these localities are in the east end of the 

region here described.

The sedimentary rocks, which are generally horizontal or inclined 

at low angles, are of Pennsylvanian, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, 

Cretaceous (?'), and Quaternary age and have been grouped into a 

number of formations. The succession and character of the sedimentary rocks are graphically represented in the accompanying 

columnar section (fig. 2) and the distribution of the different formations is shown on the geologic map (PL XV). The oldest formations are exposed at and near Goodridge and Mexican Hat, in the 

San Juan oil field. Because these and the younger formations dip 

in all directions from the oil field, successively younger beds are 

found in going both upstream and downstream from the field. The 

different formations are described below in the order of their age, the 

oldest first. Their structure is briefly described on pages 40-41.

SEDIMENTARY FORMATIONS 

GOODRIDGE FORMATION

The Goodridge formation, of Pennsylvanian age, is widely exposed 

on the crests of two broad anticlines in the San Juan oil field. In
THE 8A2SF JTJA2ST CAHYOH

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Me Dmo formation 

25O+ ffeet

ShaJe and sandstone 

iTotoSoofeet

Gypsifferous shate and sandstone 

SO to 250 ffeet

Klavajo sandstone 

675 to IOOO feet

/

Tbdiltof) formation 

too to 2OO fteet

Wingate- sandstone 

275 to 4OO ffeet

Chinle formation 

SOOlbiOOOffeet

Shinarump conglomerate 

Otor220fiei

Moenkopi fermatton 

765 to. 92O fteet

 De Oietfyf?) sandstone tenfil 

Ofozoofeet

Coconino sandstone

4OO to 6OO ffeet

SupaJ (?) formation

3SO Feet

1900 (?) feet

FIGURE 2. Generalised columnar section 

of the rocks exposed along and near 

San Juan Canyon, Utah

the western anticline the canyon 

of San Juan River has been carved 

into it to a depth of 1,388 feet 

without revealing its base, and in 

the ©astern anticline the canyon 

has been carved into it to a depth 

of 1,000 feet. The formation is 

also exposed continuously down 

the canyon from the oil field as 

far as the mouth of Grrand Gulch, 

a distance of about 25 miles by 

stream. Within this distance the 

formation makes up the lower 

parts of the canyon walls, and its 

top becomes lower and lower toward the west on account of the 

low westward dip. As a result of 

this dip the top of the formation 

passes beneath the river and disappears near the mouth of Grand 

Gulch. The formation consists of 

sandy shale, sandstone, and cherty 

limestone, all interbedded and revealed in every exposure. Most 

of the sandy shale is in reality 

nonfissile mudstone. Gray limestone predominates in the lower 

500 feet, and sandstone and shale 

in the upper portion. Eed is the 

most common color of the beds in 

the upper TOO feet.

The even bedding and interbedding of the limestone, shale, and 

sandstone give rise to numerous 

cliffs and benches in the walls of 

the canyons that trench the Goodridge formation. The cliffs are 

formed by limestone and hard 

sandstone, and the benches are 

formed by shale and soft sandstone. (See.Pls.I-VI.)

Sandstone and limestone beds 

of the formation supply the oil in 

the San Juan oil field. Some of 

the oil-bearing beds are near the
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

A. HOLE IN THE ROCK, A CREVICE IN THE 

WALL OF THE GLEN CANYON OF THE 

COLORADO

A roadway was blasted in this crevice in the winter

WATER-SUPPLY PAl'Ell 538 PLATE XIII

R. RUINS OF ROAD CONSTRUCTED BY MORMON MISSION PARTY OPPOSITE HOLE IN 

THE ROCK

Photograph hy H D. Miser
TJ. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATEH-SUPPLY PAPER 338 PLATE XIV

VIEW LOOKING EAST FROM CLAY HILL PASS

The San Juan mission party descended the east slope of the Clay Hills through the badlands 

of the Chinle formation in the foreground and then passed on to the Grand Flat in the 

distance. Photograph by H. D. Miser

P.. ROADWAY CONSTRUCTED IN FACE OF CLIFF BY SAN JUAN MISSION 

PARTY NEAR MOUTH OF HUTLER CREEK

Photograph by Robert N. Alien
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER 538 PLATE XV

EXPLANATION

SEDIMENTARY ROCKS

N

I

NATURAL 'BRIDGES

ATI^NAL M/ONUMENT Gypsiferous and calcareous

shale and sandstone

Navajo sandstone, Todiltof?) fbrmationj

and Wingate sandstone

UNCONFORMITY

Chinle formation

Shinarump conglomerate 

UNCONFORMITY

Moenkopi formation

UNCONFORMITY

UndifFerentiated Moenkopi, 

Coconino, and Supai(?) formations.

Coconino sandstone

Faults

Strike and dip of stratified rocks

Horizontal rocks

Supait?) formation

UNCONFORMITY

ABANDONED ROAD TO 

HOLE-IN-THE-FtOCK

'/BEDROCK DAMS/TEL

Goodridge fbrmafion

 Y Axis of" anticline 

Y

IGNEOUS ROCKS

 - f Axis ofsyncline

Dikes and volcanic necks

Wells drilled for oil 

Numbers correspond to 

those in the text- in Bulletin 751

^-'Natural 

J Bridge

 I JHRUST FAULT

Tttcr Spr

o , rqan Rock N AVO IN D AM=

TRAIL- TO A/AVAJO MTN

l Train Rock

OL<JETO. ORGAN ROCK, AND KAYENTA \

TO OLUETO, MONUMENT VALLEY, 

GOODRtDGE, AND KAYENTA MONUMENT

Base west of Chinle Creek is mainly from the U.S.Geolo§|ical 

Survey map of SanJuan and Colorado rivers, Utah.

Base east of Chinle Creek isfrom the Bureau of Reclamation 

map of the Bluff city reservoir.

VALLEY

Geology by H.D.Miser in 1921. The geologic mapping in 

and near the SanJuan oilfield isTBrdely taken from 

map by E.G.Woodruff in U.S.G.S.Bulletin 471.

GEOLOGIC MAP OF THE SAN JUAN CANYON AND ADJACENT COUNTRY, IN SOUTHEASTERN UTAH

£ U.a.9EOU>«IOAL SURVEY

Scale

0

I

10 MILES
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATEK-SLTPPLY PAPEK 538 PLATE XVI

A. VIEW LOOKING NOBTHWEST FROM HEAD OF IIONAKEIl TRAIL

Cedar Mesa in distance capped by Coconino sandstone. Supai (?) formation is in lower 

part of escarpment of Cedar Mesa. Goodridge formation floors plateau in foreground 

and right distance. Photograph by H. D. Miser

B. VIEW LOOKING SOUTH INTO SAN JUAN CANYON FROM POINT 3 MILES 

EAST OF CLAY HILL CROSSING

Coconino sandstone forms canyon walls and also floors adjacent plateau. Younger beds 

.occur in distant mesa. Photograph by II. D. Miser

C. VIEW LOOKING UPSTREAM TOWARD RAPID BETWEEN JOHNS CANYON 

AND SLICKHORN GULCH

Equipment of Triroble expedition was portaged, and rapid was shot with empty boats. 

Photograph by Robert IN7 . Alien
C. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER 538 PLATE XVII

A. VIEW LOOKING UPSTREAM TOWARD FIRST RAPID AT MOUTH 

OF PIUTE CREEK

Equipment of Trimblc expedition was portaged here, and boats were taken empty 

through rapid

S. VIEW LOOKING UPSTREAM TOWARD THIRTEEN-FOOT RAPID 

Boats and equipment were all portaged here

C. VIEW LOOKING DOWNSTREAM AT A LOCALITY BETWEEN 

HONAKER TRAIL AND JOHNS CANYON

Boulder bar in foreground forms rapid

RAPIDS IN SAN JUAN CANYON

Photographs by H. D. Miser
GEOLOGY 85

top of the f ormatiojiy b«& others a*fe much deeper, the* lowest being 

1,3QQ feet below the top. The oil at the oil seeps in the canyon is 

also derived from the Goodridge. 

SUPAI (?) FORMATION

The Supai (?) formation;, of Permian age, which overlies the 

Goddridge formation, is exposed in and around the San Juan oil 

field and down San Juan Canyon almost to the mouth of Moonlight 

Creek. Lime and Gypsum creeks drain large areas underlain by this 

formation. Farther west the exposures occur in steep slopes that 

are surmounted by vertical cliffs of the next younger formation, the 

Coconino sandstone, which caps Cedar and Polly mesas and otiker 

high areas to the west and south, ' (See Pis. V> YI,t*4, and XVI, A.) 

At the -base of such slopes there is everywhere a narrow to wide* 

bench that is floored by the topmost beds of the Goodridge formation. The trail leading westward past Cedar Point to the mouth* of 

Slickhorn Gulch runs on such a bench. The formation consists ol 

red sandy shale and earthy sandstone. The thickness as measured at 

the mouth of Slickhorn Gulch is 380 feet. It was not measured 

farther east, but is probably much the same as at the mouth of Slickhorn Guleh.

COCONlkO SANDSTONE

The Coconino sandstone, of Permian age, floors the broad westward sloping plateau areas that lie on both sides of San. Juan Biver 

between the Clay Hills and the San Juan oil field. These areas are 

trenched by numerous canyons, including Grand Gulch, Slickhora 

Gulch, and the canyon, of Moonlight Creek. (See Pis. m, #, V, VI, 

VII, B, and XVI, A, B.) On the east they are limited by a precipitous, impassable/escarpment several hundred feet high that separates them from the lower plateau in which the oil field is situated. 

To parts of the plateau north of the river the names Grand Flat, 

Polly Mesa, and Cedar Mesa have been applied ; and the plateau south 

of the river, which is surrounded on its west and south sides by higher 

country, was called Monument Valley by Gregory.27 A small isolated exposure of the Cocouino sandstone occurs on the crest of an 

anticline in the lower part of San Juan Canyon at Zahns Camp.

Near the mouth of Moonlight Creek the thickness of the sandstone is about 600 feet; at the mouth of Slickhorn Gulch it is about 

400 feet ; and the exposed thickness near Zahns Camp is 144 feet or 

less, depending on whether the upper 89 feet of gray to red Sandstone and shale belong with the Coconino sandstone or with the next 

succeeding formation, the Moenkopi.

" Gregory, H. B., U. S. Geol. Survey Water-Supply Paper 380 and Prof. Paper 93. 

90640 24 4
86 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

Eastward from Cedar Mesa the sandstone is said by Woodruff to 

grade completely into red sandy shale, which is present on the southeast side of the oil field. This shale and the equivalent sandstone 

were included by Woodruff 28 and Gregory 29 in their Moenkopi 

formation.

The Ooconino sandstone is massive, and its color is creamy white, 

though on Cedar Mesa much of it is tan. The grains are fine to 

medium in size, and as a rule the cement of calcium carbonate is 

sufficient to make the rock firm, although in places it is friable.

MOENKOPI FORMATION

The Moenkopi formation, the next younger formation, is of Triassic age and is overlain by the Shinarump conglomerate. Within 

 the limits of the area shown on the map it is widely expose'd along 

the river between Moonlight Creek and Spencer Camp, along Nokai 

and Copper creeks, along the eastward-feeing escarpment of the Clay 

Hills, and along title west base of Comb Ridge, The beautiful Train 

and Organ rocks of Monument Valley are isolated outliers of the 

formation. (See PL VII, B, O.)

The formation, being easily eroded, forms badland slopes and 

steep, fluted cliffs underneath a capping of the resistant Shinarump 

conglomerate. (See Pis. VIII, -4., and IX, S.)

Near Clay Hill Crossing, Piute Farms, and Zalins Camp it ranges 

in .thickness from 765 to 920 feet and consists principally of evenbedded red sandy shale and earthy sandstone, with veinlets and lenses 

of gypsum. South and southwest of Piute Farms there is a thin bed 

of cream-colored sandstone near the middle of the formation. The 

bed gradually thickens toward the south, developing into a massive 

cross-bedded member which in Train Eock is estimated to have a 

thickness of about 200 feet. In the cliffs of the Moenkopi formation 

this sandstone forms a most conspicuous cream-colored band between 

the brick-red bands of the overlying and underlying parts of the 

formation. The sandstone disappears entirely near Piute Farms 

and was not recognized between Clay Hill Crossing and Bed House.

The sandstone under discussion is apparently the same as the sandstone in southern Utah that has been called the De Chelly sandstone 

by Gregory, though Dorsey Hager 80 and N. H. Barton 81 consider 

the De Chelly sandstone in and near its type locality, Canyon De 

Chelly, in northeastern Arizona, to be equivalent to the Coconino

88 Woodruff, BJ. 6., Geology of the Saa Juan oil field, Utato: TJ. S. Geol, Surrey Bull. 

471, pp. 86-87,1912.

88 Gregory, H. B'., Geology of the Navajo country: U. S. Geol. Surrey Prof. Paper 98, 

pp. 29-30,1917. v

80 Hager, Dorsey, Oil possibilities of the Holbrook area in northeastern Arizona, private 

publication, 1921.

81 Manuscript "report ' '
sandstone of the Grand Canyon section. Gregory treated the De 

Chelly sandstone as a separate formation, because in most of the 

region he studied in Utah and Arizona he found it above shale called 

by him the Moenkopi and immediately underneath the Shinarump 

conglomerate. Hie De Chelly sandstone, according to Gregory, is 

present on the east side of the San Juan oil field, where it is red in. 

color and thins out toward the north.

SHINARUMP CONGLOMERATE

The Shinarump conglomerate, of Triassic age, is widely exposed 

along San Juan Canyon between Piute Farms and Piute Creek and 

also along JNokai and Copper creeks. It is apparently absent at 

all .places between the canyon and Bed House, to the north, and 

near the entrance to the canyon.

, The formation, owing to its hardness and its occurrence between 

two soft shaly formations, produces precipitous cliffs and also floors 

benches above and back of the cliffs. (See Pis. VIII and X, 4,5.) 

It ranges in thickness from a feather-edge to 220 feet; the greatest 

thickness was measured on the river near the mouth of Nokai Creek. 

It consists of massive gray cross-bedded coarse-grained sandstone 

and lenses of conglomerate with well-rounded pebbles of quartz and 

quartzite as much as 2 inches in diameter. Fossil logs that have 

been partly silicified are abundant in the lenses of conglomerate; 

and greenish-gray shale is a plentiful constituent, especially near 

the top of the formation.

. CHTNLJB FOBMATION

The Chinle formation, of Triassic age, succeeds the Shinarump 

conglomerate. It is exposed in a narrow belt along the west base 

of Comb Eidge and in wide areas in San Juan Canyon and the side 

canyons west of Piute Farms, It is also exposed along the east face 

of the Clay Hills. The exposures produce long badland slopes, 

which are cut by ravines and gullies and are strewn with landslides and huge jagged boulders derived from the sandstone cliffs 

above. (See Pis. VIII-XI, XIV, A, and XVII.)

The thickness ranges from 800 to 1,000 feet. Thick beds of 

marly shale of gray, pink, lavender, yellow, and numerous other 

colors makes up the bulk of the formation, and where they are not 

concealed by landslides, soil, and boulders they produce with their 

many vivid colors landscape views of amazing beauty. Cherty and 

conglomeratic limestone and sandstone are common, especially near 

the top of the formation. Silicified logs, some 40 feet or more in 

length and 4 feet in diameter, are numerous at places.
38 THE SAX SWA&

WINGATE SANDSTONE

The Wingate sandstone, of Jurassic age, is ©ne of the most conspicuous cliff-makers of the region. It is from 275 to 400 feet 

thick, and commonly the greater part of the total thickness appears 

as a single massive unit which is cut by vertical joints and presents 

an impassible palisade-like wall at the top of the long badland 

slopes of the Chinle formation. (See Pis. IX, #, (7, X-XII, and 

XVII.) The sandstone forms the western part of Comb Eidge 

and is widely exposed in the country of high plateaus and mesas 

west of Piute Farms.

At some places the lowermost beds are lenticular and are in part 

conglomeratic. The massive cliff-making portion, which averages 

about 300 feet in thickness, has indistinct and continuous bedding 

and is cross-bedded on a large scale. The sandstone is composed 

of fine rounded sand grains. The color of the sandstone on exposed surfaces gives the cliffs a striking appearance even in a 

" painted desert"; it is dark brown and at times assumes a vermiHon 

color. On unweathered surfaces the rock is buff. The darker color 

ordinarily seen on cliffs is due to a coat of iron oxide along the 

joint faces.

TODILTO ( ?) FORMATION

The Todilto (?) formation, also of Jurassic age, ranges from 100 

to 200 feet in thickness and consists of light to dark brown sandstone 

in comparatively thin beds, brown sandy shale, thin lenses of gray 

limestone, and lenses of conglomerate with sandstone pebbles. The 

formation as a whole is very resistant; it almost everywhere caps the 

cliffs of the underlying Wingate sandstone and flows wide, and narrow benches wherever the overlying Navajo sandstone has been 

eroded from it. (See Pis. VIII, B, IX, B, XI, XII, XIII, A, and 

XVII, A.) The sandstone is exposed in a narrow belt near the middle of Comb Eidge and in irregular areas and crooked belts in the 

country of high plateaus and mesas west of Piute Farms. These 

areas and belts have dark-brown and vermilion colors and at a distance frequently display a tint of lavender.

NAVAJO SANDSTONE

The Navajo sandstone, of Jurassic age, forms the eastern part of 

Comb Eidge and caps most of the high plateaus and mesas west of' 

Piute Farms. It forms great tracts of almost impassable badlands, in 

which domes, " mosques," " minarets," and canyons are common features. (See Pis. XI^XIII, XVII, A, B, and XVIII.) Caves, 

alcoves, and arches are conspicuous in the canyon walls of this sand-
GEOLOGY 39

stone, and it forms a number of natural bridges, notably the Rainbow 

and Owl bridges, near Navajo Mountain. The two small bridges near 

San Juan River have been formed in this sandstone. One of these 

is on the rim of the right canyon wall 2 miles below the mouth of 

Piute Creek, and the other is on the rim of the oanyon wall of the high 

abandoned river channel that rufis from a point near the mouth of 

the San Juan northward about 1 mile to the Colorado. These two 

bridges are described on page 15.

The sandstone is thickest on Wilson Mesa, where it is 800 to 1,000 

feet thick. The usual color is tan or buff, but on Wilson Mesa the 

upper part of the formation is gray to buff and at places has a pinkish 

tint. The sand grains are small and rounded and are loosely held 

together by a cement of calcium carbonate. Cross-bedding on a large 

scale m characteristic of the 'greater part of the formation. True* 

bedding planes are present but not distinct, so that the entire formation stands in some cliffs with the appearance of a single massivelayer. Lenses of gray compact limestone from 2 to 5 feet thick are? 

common in all parts of the sandstone, especially near the mouth of the 

San Juan. These lenses at some places contain chert. They extend 

laterally from a few hundred feet to half a mite.

OTHER ROCKS OF JURASSIC AGE

The Navajo sandstone is overlain by 100 to 250 feet of red gypsiferous and calcareous shales and thin sandstones at Bluff (PI. I) and 

along Glen Canyon below the mouth of the San Juan. These gypsiferous beds are succeeded by a massive cliff-making, cross-bedded 

sandstone, which in some parts is red, in others gray or white, and 

in other mottled red and white. (See PL I.) At Bluff the sandstone is from 170 to 270 feet thick and in places along Glen Canyon 

it is apparently as much as 500 feet thick.

M'ELMO FORMATION

The McElmo formation, of Cretaceous (?) age, is exposed near 

Bluff, where it consists of gray, red, and green shales and thin beds 

of sandstone, with two heavy conglomerates, making an incompletesection several hundred feet thick. This and later formations of 

Cretaceous age are exposed along the Colorado beyond the limits of! 

the area under discussion.

TERRACE GRAVEL

Gravel of Quaternary age floors terraces of small extent at; 

numerous places in the canyon, especially in the several wide, open 

stretches, and they partly floor an abandoned canyon near the mouth*
40 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

of the river through which the San Juan or the Colorado formerly 

flowed. The largest areas of gravel are in the wide stretch extending 

from Clay Hill Crossing to Piute Farms.

The gravel floors terraces at several different altitudes up to about 

600 feet above the river. It was deposited mostly by the San Juan 

but partly by side streams when their channels stood at the altitude 

of the terraces. The usual thickness of the gravel deposits is 10 feet 

or less, but at some places they are 20 feet and at a few places as 

much as 100 feet thick. The deposits are all similar in character 

and consist mostly of limestone pebbles from the Goodridge formation of the San Juan oil field, and of quartzite, conglomerate, and 

crystalline rocks from the San Juan Mountains of southwestern 

Colorado. Much or all of the terrace gravel at and near the mouths 

of side streams consists of sandstone and limestone pebbles that have 

been contributed by the side streams. Such gravel is thus of local 

origin and differs in character from gravel of the common type.

The constituents of the gravel deposits range in size from pebbles 

a small fraction of inch in diameter to cobbles a foot in diameter; 

the largest ones occur near the base of the deposits. The usual 

diameter is probably between 1 and 3 inches. All the pebbles are 

well rounded, and most of them are flattened. Some of the deposits 

near the mouths of side streams contain boulders 6 or 8 feet in 

diameter, and one boulder 10 feet in diameter was observed. The 

gravel is poorly to firmly cemented by earthy calcium carbonate, 

which is concentrically banded around the pebbles. At many places 

the shells of calcium carbonate that have become detached from, the 

pebbles are conspicuous on the surface, for they resemble shallow 

cups.

RECENT STREAM DEPOSITS

Stream deposits of recent age, consisting of sand, gravel, cobbles, 

and boulders, occur along the banks of San Juan River or on the 

river bed at most places in the canyon. These deposits are fully 

described under the heading " Canyon fill" on pages 58-71.

STBTTCTURE - - >

San Juan Canyon, as stated by Gregory,88 bisects a flat corrugated 

dome one of the major upwarps of the Colorado Plateau to which 

he has applied the name Monument upwarp. The upwarp is broad 

and high and trends north. On the east it is sharply bounded by the 

conspicuous monocline of Comb Ridge, but on the west it merges 

with the Waterpocket, Kaiparowits, and other flexures.

88 Gregory, H. E., Geology of the Navajo country: U. SL Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 98, 

p. 113,1917.
SAN JUAN RIVER AND TEEBUTABY STREAMS 41

The youngest formation involved, the Navajo sandstone, of Jurassic age, lies on the summits of the Clay Hills 3,000 feet higher limn 

it does at the mouth of the San Juan and 2,000 feet higher than it 

does at the east base of Comb Ridge. The oldest beds involved are 

in the Goodridge formation, of .Pennsyivanian age, which is widely 

exposed not only in San Juan Canyon near Goodridge but afeo?far» 

ther north in the upwarp in Cataract Canyon of the Colorado. The 

Cretaceous strata that formerly covered the dome have been stripped 

back to Black Mesa on the south, to Bluff on the<«ast, and to points 

beyond the Colorado on the west; Tertiary sediments may also have 

been present.

The strata along and inside <the margins usually have dips of i<* 

to 59 ; higher dips are exceptional, though they are common alongthe Comb monocline. Large areas of practically horizontal rocks 

underlie Wilson Mesa and also a belt of country between Prate andi 

Wilson creeks.

Within the Monument upwarp there are several minor flexures, 

which include anticlines and synclines more than 20 miles in length. 

Th«; folds are parallel or .nearly so and have a general northward 

trend. The location of their axes-is shown on the accompanying: 

geologic map (PI. XV). The folds together with the few thrust and 

normal faults, also shown ,on the map, are fully described in another 

report.88 . -* : \\

SAN JUAN RIVER AND TRIBUTARY STREAMS

GENERAL FEATURES

San Juan Eiver rises in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, runs southwest into New Mexico and west 

through northwestern New Mexico, crosses the southwest corner 

of Colorado into southeastern Utah, where it runs in a general 

westerly direction across San Juan County^ and enters Colorado 

Eiver several miles north of the Arizona-Utah line. Its head* 

waters and some of its tributaries in Colorado drain a high mountainous region that is forest-clad and , well watered. The largest 

volume of water from that region is carried by these streams late in 

the spring, when the snow melts. Comparatively little silt is carried by the streams from this region. Away from the mountainous 

region of southwestern Colorado the San Juan and its tributaries 

drain ,a barren arid country of mesas, plateaus, and canyons, There 

the streams, which receive most of their .water froca.short, violent

*»U. S. Geol. Survey Bull. 751, pp. 115-155, 1924 (Bull. 751-D).
£ THE SAN JUAN CANYON

thundershowers, are torrential and carry much silt, sand, gravel, and 

boulders.

The San Juan in its lower course in Utah runs through San Juan 

Canyon, 133 miles long, which has already been described. In the 

canyon the current is generally swift, the average fall being about 

7 feet to the mile, and there are numerous rapids. These features, 

together with the muddiness of the water, the quicksands, and the 

frequent and sudden rises, are well known to the Navajo Indians, 

whose name for the San Juan is Pawhuska (mad water).

Jim, a Pimfce Indian, when told at Mexican Hat that the Trimble 

party was to descend the river in boats, was surprised and briefly remarked that he did not believe it. Indians at the mouth of Plute 

Canyon told us we were crazy for descending the river in boats; 

they said we would never return. A return trip has in fact not been 

made by us to Piute Canyon, and I suppose they think that our 

boats were wrecked in rapids and that our bones now lie buried in 

some sand bar. Hie next canyon voyagers may therefore expect to 

receive from the Indians the same admonition as was given to us.

A number of the headwater tributaries of the river are large 

enough to be called rivers, but all the streams that join it in the 

canyon are small, flowing not more than several second-feet during 

low stages. All of them are at times converted by thunderstorms 

into rushing silt and boulder-laden torrents that attain a depth of 

20 feet. Chinle Creek and Comb and Butler washes join the San 

Juan just above the canyon. The principal tributaries in the 

canyon include the streams that drain Grand and Slickhorn gulches, 

from the north, the Moonlight, Copper, Nokai, and Piute creeks, 

from the south.

DISCHARGE MEASUREMENTS OF SAN JUAN RIVER

The drainage area of the San Juan comprises 25,800 square miles 

and includes parts of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. 

Hie discharge varies greatly. In January, 1905, the river had a 

minimum flow of 40 second-feet; in June of the same year a maximum flow of 24,800 feet was recorded. In July, 1904, the river 

reached a minimum discharge of 20 second-feet, as contrasted with 

20,000 second-feet in October. The discharge measurements given 

below show that the annual run-off ranges from 1,500,000 to 4,500,- 

000 acre-feet. The drainage area tributary to the river above the 

gaging station at the Goodridge Bridge, the station nearest the 

mouth of the river, is about 24,000 square miles.
SAN JUAN RIVER AND TRIBUTARY STREAMS 43

Monthly discharge of San Juan River at Qoodridge Brtdge, near Goodridge, 

Utah, during the years 1914-1917

Month

1914-15 

November _________________________

December ________________________

Jftnuwy

April...-. .... .. . .. .

May .....................................................

July.....-..-....... ......-.............. ...-.....

August _ . ______________ . ..................

The period . ... ...

1915-16 * 

October ___________ . _ . < ... ... .... ... .....

January _ . _____________ _ .. _ . _ . ....

February

ApriL.. ..-.-.. .. .. . 

July.................................... ......... .........

September _______________ . _ . ..........

The year.. . . ..................... ..........

1916-17 «

November ___________________ . __ . ....

JftfHIRTy

April..................................-...... .. ...-

July.............................. ........... ..........

A iignstSeptember ______________ . _ . _ .. _ . ....

Discharge in second-feet

Maximum

2,360 

1,210 

2,060 

4,820 

4,980 

13,900 

13,100 

12,900 

21,900 

3,880 

5,830

21,900

1,960 

824 

793 

5,790 

2,390 

16,200 

11,000 

15,500 

14,400 

7,670 

14,500 

5,790

16,200

28,300 

2,010 

1,130 

990 

2,800 

3,610 

12,400 

14,700 

18,700 

14,700 

5,310 

2,490

28,300

Minimum

1,140 

505 

630 

1,080 

960 

3,740 

4,980 

4,820 

2,610 

705 

380

380

552 

552 

388 

505 

864 

1,340 

4,850 

5,470 

7,130 

2,800 

2,290 

1,740

388

1,740 

990 

199 

350 

410 

758 

2,100 

5,630 

6,620 

5,000 

1,660 

1,340

199

Mean

1,580 

1,020 

1,010 

2,330 

2,230 

8,040 

9,270 

10,100

1^050

4,060

941 

667 

637 

1,310 

1,400 

6,210 

7,570 

9,340 

10,500 

5,160 

7,120 

2,590

4,460

7,850 

1,040 

669 

694 

1,250 

1,370 

5,910 

9,110 

14,000 

8,470 

2,880 

1,870

4,630

Run-off in 

acre-feet

94,060 

62,700 

62,100 

129,000 

137,000 

478,000 

570,000 

692,000 

399,000 

102,000 

62,500

2,700,000

57,980 

39,780 

39,200 

80,600 

80,500 

382,000 

450,000 

574,000 

625,000 

317,000 

438,000 

154,000

 3,240,000

483,000 

61,900 

41,100 

42,700 

69,400 

84,200 

352,000 

560,000 

833,000 

521,000 

177,000 

111,000

3,340,000

« U. S. Geol. Survey Water-Supply Paper 409, p. 118,1918. 

»U. S. Geol. Survey Water-Supply Paper 439, p. 130,1919. 

 U. S. Geol. Survey Water-Supply Paper 459, p. 129,1921.

Monthly discharge of San Juan Rfoer at Shiprock, N. Mex., for 1911, 1915-1920

Month

1911«

Marcb... ......... ... . ..... . .

April.,. ,. .. . ...... ... .. 

May.....-. - ........ ......... ... . ...

July... ............... ....................... .. .

The period ._..... .. . . . 

Discharge in second-feet

Maximum

2,800 

1,450 

9,920 

9,920 

15,000 

14,300 

20,400 

4,950 

4,250 

47,600

Minimum

850 

600 

1,050 

4,250 

7,100 

6,000 

3,200 

325 

300 

9,600

Mean

1,400 

979 

4,390 

7,090 

10,700 

10,600 

10,000 

1,140 

872 

19,300

Run-oft In 

acre-feet

50,000 

54,400 

270,000 

422,000 

658,000 

631,000 

615,000 

70,100 

51,900 

230,000

3,050,000

 La Rue, B.C., Colorado River and its utilization: U. S. Geol. Survey Water-Supply Paper 395, p. 104, 

1916.
44 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

Monthly discharge of San Juan River at SMproolc, N. Mess., e£o. -Continued

Month

1915 » 

November 17-30 ______________________

December ____ . ____________________

' The period _____________________

1916 » 

January

March.,. . ........ _ ..... ______ 

April....... ...........................................

May.......... ........................................

July..... .-. . -.._ .-_-._.- . .-..- 

The year... _______ . ___________ ...

1917 » 

Jftmwry

Pebraary..... ... ___________________ ...

ApriL-.- . . 

May. .......... .......................................

July.. . . 

. The year. .. _ ... .. ... ___ .. . ...

1918"

ApriL.... - - - 

May.... ......................... ......... ...............

July _____________ ____ . _ ___ _ ...

The year ..... . . ........ .......

1919 *

April.. -- - -- -

July .. ______ _ _ _____ _ ... .. ...

The year . 

Discharge In second-feet

Maximum

553 

542

553

1,020 

18,700 

33,100 

13,200 

21,600 

21,800 

12,400 

21,600 

13,500 

31,800 

2,470 

1,680

33,100

1,160 

2,850 

7,460 

11,500 

20,300 

27,800 

24,100 

4,040 

1,340 850- 

575 

460

27,800

670 

1,100 

4,600 

4,600 

10,000 

16,100 

5,700 

6,680 

14,100 

610 

990 

610

16,100

704 

1,020 

9,600 

11,900 

16,600 

11,500 

17,100 

14,060 

6,600 

2,500 

1,150 

2,560

17,100

Minimum

543

519

519

400 

480 

595 

3,650 

5,700 

8,300 

2,010 

2,100 

880 

1,330 

740 

390

390

520 

680 

630 

900 

5,400 

3,400 

3,500 

470 

445 

550 

405 

380

380

225 

500 

670 

1,420 

3,370 

2,280 

990 

645 

485 

315 

610 

479

 225

440 

715 

1,040 

1,950 

4,500 

4,300 

2,800 

330 

260 

600 

800 

450

260

Mean

548 

530

536

641 

2,370 

8,430 

7,240 

11,700 

14,000 

7,230 

7,770 

2,690 

8,860 

1,410 

754

6,110

768 

1,100 

1,920 

6,710 

9,260 

17,300 

8,010 

1,510 

815 

646 

482 

413

4,070

459 

785 

1,860 

3,060 

5,920 

7,900 

2,820 

1,540 

1,960 

481 

808 

550

2,350

536 

870 

2,800 

5,410 

9,370 

7,520 

7,830 

2,340 

1,670 

1,080 

939 

1,020

3,500

Run-off in 

acre-feet

15,200 

32,600

47,800

39,400 

136,000 

518,060 

431,000 

718,000 

834,000 

444,000 

478,000 

160,000 

544,000 

84,200 

46! 300

4,430,000

47,200 

61,300 

118,000 

399,000 

569,000 

1,030,000 

492,000 

92,800 

48,500 

39,700 

28,700 

25,400

2,950,000

28,200 

43,600 

115,000 

182,000 

364,000 

470,000 

173,000 

94,600 

117,000 

29,600 

48,100 

33,800

1,700,000

33,600 

48,300 

172,000 

342,000 

576,000 

448,000 

481,000 

144,000 

99,200 

66,600 

55,900 

63,000

2,530,000

1 » Flench, J. A. Surface water supply of New Mexico, 1888-1917, p. 204,1918.

 French, J. A., Surface water supply of New Mexico, 1918, p. 132,1919.

* Gfltett, L. A., Surface water supply of New Mexico, 1919=1920, p. 161,1921 (f).
SAN JUAN EIVEE AND TRIBtJTABY STEEAMS 45 

Monthly discharge of San Jwan River at SMprock, N. Mew., etc. Continued

Montb

1920 <«

 Tajmary. .,.. u ^

March __________________ . ___ . .......

May ____________________________

July...... . _

The period ____ . ______________ . ....

* 

Discharge in second-feet

Maximum

6,400 

11,400 

10,560 

12,100 

43,200 

21,900 

10,800 

8,250 

3,590

43,200

Minimum

630 

1,030 

2,310 

2,560 

9,360 

5,170 

2,800 

1,100 

400

400

Mean

2,150 

3,690 

4,260 

7,220 

16,300 

14,800 

5,480 

2,450 

1,050

6,380

Run-oft in 

acre-feet

132,000 

212,000 

262,000 

429,000 

1,000,000 

879,000 

337,000 

151,000 

62,400

3,464,000

* Qfllett, L. A., Surface water supply of New Mexico, 1919-1920, p. 161,1921 (?)

Monthly discharge of San Juan River at Farmtngton, N. Mess,, for

1912-18

Month

1904 «

July ________ _ ...

September ...

The period.. _ ..... ___ - _____ . ......

1904-5 

November ...

December...... . . .

January.......... .. ...._ ^, ,. , .^ ^ _,.. ,

February .

March...................................................

Apri] __ __ __ .. . . .. .

May.....................................................

July.... __ .. _ . . ...

August. _ .. _ ... _ .. _ ..... ... . _ .

The year..... ___ . ___ ___ . ...........

1912-13 

November. . ... .

February. . _ . _ _ .. ... ...

April... .. .. . ...

May _____ ___ . __ . . ..

June..... _ .. .... _ ... ..... ... .... _. ....

July...

The year.. . _ ...

1913-14 

October ....

December .

JBCusry ~ .. .» . .

March _______ . ....................................

Discharge in second-feet

Maximum

1,300 

1,580 

4,980 

8,620

20,000 

1,700 

780 

338 

2,580 

8,410 

7,460 

19,100 

24,800 

8,240 

3,740 

4,870

24,800

1,970 

1,450 

796

602 

2,510 

6,570 

11,100 

9,860 

4,340 

1,310 

4,150

11,100

7,360 

1,080 

992 

620 

6,520 

4,900

Minimum

780 

20 

1,450 

400

2,620 

630 

90 

40 

230 

780 

1,080 

4,640 11, too

2,180 

840 

1,180

40

502 

621 

240

366 

394 

2,760 

4,520 

3,500 

673 

353 

628

673 

688 

560 

501 

580 

2,470

Mean

1,030 

375 

2,630 

1,380

5,940 

1,090 

348 

242 

682 

1,620 

4,290 

10,100 

18,300 

3,600 

1,750 

1,670

4,140

945 

1,090 

498 

464 

471 

683 

4,650 

8,020 

5,880 

1,770 

621 

1,450

2,210

1,480 

932 

684 

697 

1,870 

3,460

Run-off is 

acre-feet

24,600 

23,100 

162,000 

81,800

291,000

365,000 

64,700 

21,400 

14,900 

87,900 

99,900 

255,000 

622,000 

1,090,000 

222.000 

107,000 

99,600

3,000,000

58,100 

64,900 

30,600 

28,600 

26,200 

42,000 

277,000 

493,000 

350.000 

109,000 

38,200 

86,300

1,600,000

91,000 

55,500 

42,100 

36,700

104,000 

213.000

 La Rue, E. G. 

p. 103,1916.

Colorado River and its utilization: XT. S. Oeol, Survey Water-Supply Paper 395,
46 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

Monthly discharge of San Juan River at Fwmfagton, N. Jtfea?., etc. Continued

*

Month

1913-14 Continued 

April-. 

lifay -

July 

September ___ ..................... _ ...............

The year. ____ .... ___________ .......

1914-15 » 

October _____________________ .... ...

February ____ . ______________ . , ......

Aprfl...... ..... .. ............. ........ 

July.. ... -. .. 

August _ ......... . . .... ......

December..-. . ........ __ . __ . __ .........

The period............... _ ... _ . ____ .. ... 

1916* 

January.. ____ .. __ . _____________ ...

March ___________________________

April.. - ..... ' 

June

July. .. . .

October __ .............. _ . _____________ ..

December- . . ... .........

The year... ..-----.... _____________ ..._-

1917*

April.......... 

May 

July 1-29. ............. ............ ................

December- _____ - ...... ...........................

The year.... ..... _____ . ...................

1918*

April. ................. .......... ... .....

May . 

July 1-28... ......... ..............................

Discharge in second-feet

Maximum

5,360 

15,100 

20,400 

8,620 

3,310 

4,380

20,400

12,600 

2,120 

992 

660 

800 

3,600 

10,600 

12,190 

13,600 

17,600 

3,400 

3,520 

1,540 

675 

570

17,600

870 

1,750 

9,750 

10,500 

14,200 

12,300 

6,340 

14,200 

7,810 

19,800 

3,170 

1,360

19,800

1,310 

2,360 

5,900 

8,900 

14,600 

22,500

470

'470 

1,790 

5,510 

3,060 

10,100 

16,300 

7,490

16,300

Minimum

3,430 

3,540 

4,540 

2,680 

866 

887

501

887 

939 

650 

440 

510 

750 

2,500 

4,350 

5,000 

2,640 

870 

715 

640 

500 

400

400

355 

320 

1,090 

2,340 

7,340 

6,560 

2,490 

2,000 

1,630 

2,760 

1,210 

220

220

943 

943 

905 

1,800 

3,770 

6,200

340

390 

425 

895 

1,340 

2,900 

2,830 

839

390

Mean

4,480 

7,940 

9,900 

4,260 

2,020 

1,010

3,270

3,680 

1,340 

801 

559 

638 

1,629 

6,780 

7,200 

9,540 

5,630 

1,560 

1,110 

914 

585 

482

2,790

651 

989 

4,870 

5,040 

9,630 

9,620 

4,640 

4,700 

3,200 

7,530 

1,940 

840

4,480

1,040 

1,120 

1,890 

4,890 

7,370 

17,500 

11,000 

2,120 

1,360 

809 

396 

366

4,660

427 

620 

1,780 

2,060 

4,830 

6,800 

2,800

2,780

Kuu-offin 

acre-feet

267,000 

488,000 

589,000 

262,000 

124, 000 

95,800

2,370,000

189, GOO79, 700- 

49,300 

34,400 

35,400 

100,000' 

404,000 

443,000- 

568,000 

346,000- 

96,100 

66,300 

56,200 

34,800 

29,700

2,528,000

40,080- 

56,900 

299,000 

300,000 

592,000 

572,000 

285,000 

289,000' 

191,000 

463,000> 

115,000 

51,700

3,250,000

63, 7<# 62,400- 

116,000 

291,000* 

453,000 

1, 040, 000' 

634,000 

83,900 

43,100 

11,200 

18, 160 

22,500-

2, 840, GOO26, 200' 

34,400 

109,000 

123,000' 

297,000 

405,000 

156,000

1,150,000

* French, J. A., Surface water supply of New Mexico, 1888-1917, pp. 201-202, 1918.

* French, J. A., Snrface water supply of New Mexico, 1918, p. 130,1919.

>
SAN JUAN EIVEB AND TBOHJTABY STBBAMS 4f 

FALL OF SAN JIT AN BIVEB

The San Juan in running through its canyon has not only numerous rapids but a fairly swift current between the rapids. The fall 

of the entire river and that of parts of the river are given in the 

table on page 48 and are also discussed in the following paragraphs, 

(See PL XXII.)

From the mouth of Chinle Creek to the Colorado, a distance of 

about 132.5 miles, the San Juan descends from an altitude of 4,209 

feet to 3,259 feet, a total fall of 950 feet, or an average of 7.17 feet 

to the mile. Only a few miles of the river has an average fall of 

less than 5 feet, and none has less than 3 feet. The mile in which 

the fall is greatest extends downstream from the head of the first 

rapid at the mouth of Piute Creek; here the fall is a little more than

-25 feet. (See PI. XVII, A.) The mile with the next greatest fall

 extends downstream from the head of the Thirteen-foot Rapid, 11% 

miles by stream above the mouth of the river; its fall is about 24 feet, 

(See PL XVH, B.)

The river from the mouth of Chinle Creek to the south end of 

Soda Basin, ,a distance of 10.75 miles, has a fall of 101.5 feet, or 

un average of 9.4 feet to the mile. In this distance there are several 

«mall rapids, of which the; largest, with a fall of 8 feet, runs over a 

boulder bar at the mouth of a southern tributary half a mile above 

The Narrows^ .

The part of the river from the south end of Soda Basin to a point 

1.5 miles above the foot of the Honaker trail has a fairly uniform 

iall, yet it is marked here and there by very small rapids, the largest 

of which is at the mouth of Gypsum Creek. The fall of this rapid 

is about 3.5 feet. The length of this part of the river is 23.85 miles, 

the total fall 160 feet, and the average fall 6.7 feet to the mile.

The part of the river extending from a point 1.5 miles above the 

ioot of the Honaker trail to the mouth of Slickhorn Gulch has an 

average fall of 8.6 feet to the mile, the distance being 23.2 miles 

and the total fall 199.5 feet. This part of the river has numerous 

small rapids, none of which has a fall greater than about 4 feet.

The part of the river extending from the mouth of Slickhorn 

Gulch to a point 3 miles below the mouth of Grand Gulch is especially swift, yet it is marked by only one or two rapids, one of which 

is at the mouth of Slickhorn Gulch. The fall of this part of the 

. river, which is 6.8 miles long, is 79 feet, or an average of 11.6 feet 

to the mile.

The river between a point 3 miles below the mouth of Grand 

Gulch and the head of the first rapid at the mouth of Piute Creek, 

a distance of 46.4 miles, has a rather uniform fall, averaging 5 feet
48 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

to the mile. This part of the river has no rapids of any consequence, 

yet the current is swift at most places*

The part of the river extending 1.6 miles downstream from the 

head of the first rapid at the mouth of Piute Creek is marked by 

about five rapids and has a. total fall of 35 feet, of which a little 

more than 25 feet is in the first mile.

The next 8.5 miles of the river to the head of the Thirteen-foot 

Rapid is marked by few rapids and the largest has a fall of 3 feet. 

Hie total fall in this distance is 56 feet, or 6.6 feet to the mile. The 

first mile of the river below the head of this rapid has two other 

rapids, and the aggregate fall in this distance is about 24 feet.

The last 10.5 miles of the San Juan has a fall of 57 feet, or an 

average of 5A feet to the mile. There are no rapids in this stretch,, 

though the current is swift,. especially where it impinges against 

the canyon walls and rebounds to form whirlpools across the main 

channel from the points of impingement.

Fail of San Jnan River

From 

Point

Mouth of Chinle Creek... 

Do....................

3 miles below month of 

Grand Gulch. 

Month- of Chinle Creek _ 

South end of Soda Basin. .

1.5 miles above Honaker 

Trail. 

Mouth of Slickhorn Gnleh3 miles below mouth of 

Grand Gulch. 

Head of first rapid at 

mouth of Piute Greek. 

1.6 miles below bead of 

first rapid at mouth of 

Piute Creek. 

Head of Thirteea-foot 

Rapid. 

1 mile below head of Thirteen-foot Rapid.

Altitude 

(feet)

4,209 

4,209

3,669

4,209 

4,107.5

3,947.5 

3,748 

3,669 

3,431 

3,396

3,340 

3,316

ToPoint

3 miles below mouth of 

Grand Gulch.

South end of Soda Basin. 

1.5 miles above Honaker 

Trail. 

Month of Slickhorn 

Gulch. 

3 miles below month of 

Grand Gulch. 

Head of first rapid at 

mouth of Piute Creek. 

1.6 miles below head of 

rapid. 

Head of Thirteen-foot 

rapid.

1 mile below Thirteenfoot Rapid.

Altitude 

(feet)

3,259 

3,669

3,259

4,107.5 

3,947.5

3,748 

3,669 

3,431 

3,396 

3,340

3,316 

3,259

Distance 

(miles)

132.5 

64.6

68

MXTS

23.85 

23.2

as

46.4

8.5

1 

10.5

FaH (feet)

Total

950 

540

410

101.5 

160

199.5 

79 

238 

35 

56

24

57

Average 

permfler

7.17

8.3

6

9.4 

6.7

S.6 

11.6 

5.1

6.5

5.4

CHARACTER OF CHANNEL OF SAN JUAN RIVER

The channel of the river in the box canyons is generally 150 to 

300 feet wide, but at a few places near Goodridge and Mexican Hat 

it narrows to a width of 50 to 75 feet. One of these places is at the 

Goodridge Bridge, where the channel occupies a rock-walled gorge 

75 feet wide, and another is at a point 1 mile due east of The Narrows, where it occupies a similar gorge only about 50 dfeet wide. In 

the box canyons the river is sikirted" here and there by gravel and 

sand bars, but at most places the water's edge is met by the base of
SAN JFAK BIVEB AND TRIBUTARY STEEAMS 4$

talus slopes and by precipitous walls. (See Pis. II-VI, IX, O, 

X-XII.) A few rock ledges extend far out into the channel; none 

are exposed in the middle of the channel. Boulders of all sizes up 

to 60 feet in their longest dimension, submerged and unsubmerged, 

dot the channel here and there; and great heaps of them that -have 

been brought to the river by tributary streams and piled at their 

mouths form boulder bars that not only narrow the channel but 

produce rapids.

In the open stretches those that are not closely bordered by canyon walls the channel is wider, attaining a maximum width of 

3,300 feet at Piute Farms. An open stretch occurs near the mouth 

of Chinle Greek, a second between Clay Hill Grossing and Prate 

Farms, a third between the mouths of Clay Gulch and Copper Canyon, a fourth at and near Zahns Camp, a fifth at Spencer Camp, a 

sixth between the Great Bend and the mouth of Piute Creek, and a 

seventh extending 3 miles downstream from the mouth of Wilson 

Creek. In such open stretches the river is bordered by large bars of 

yellow sand and a few gravel bars, is dotted by islands of rippyfei 

marked sand, and is marked here and thera by boulder bars and 

their accompanying rapids.

The part of the river extending from the head of the canyon te 

the mouth of Moonlight Creek is comparatively deep, if we may 

judge from the fact that our boats grounded at no place in this 

distance. The water was so muddy that the bottom could not be 

seen in fact, it was so muddy at all times that objects held an inch, 

below the surface were not visible. No soundings with poles wera 

made to a depth greater than 10 to 12 feet, but a few soundings with, 

lines and baited hooks were made in apparently favorable fish haunts 

in quiet water below huge boulders. Such soundings found no water 

more than 1 to 2 feet deep, and either the water was inhabited by no 

fish, or if any were there they were not hungry or could not find the 

bait in the muddy water.

The part of the river extending from the mouth of Moonlight 

Creek to the Colorado is very shallow in numerous stretches, of 

great and small extent. At the rapids the river runs over boulders* 

but between the rapids it runs over fine buff to yellow sand and a, few 

thin deposits of yellow to red clay.

The descent of the canyon below the mouth of Moonlight Creek 

was difficult, because the river through much of this distance was so 

shallow less than 6 or 8 inches deep that the party had to wade 

and pull the boats. Occasionally the boats would ground in swift 

water when they were in a sidewise position. On such occasions the 

force of the impact and of .the current would tilt the boats so high 

that water would run into them on the downstream side. While 

rowing in such shalloir.water we always sat ready to jump into the
50 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

water at the instant of impact. Only once did I jump into the water 

on the downstream aide of the boat; that time the boat threw me 

down and skinned my legs before I could extricate myself. Ever 

afterward I jumped into the water on the upstream aide.

In aome short stretches where the water was less than 5 inches 

deep the boats had to be carried. We found the river shallowest 

between Nokai and Piute creeks, and if it had been a few inches 

lower we would have been required to wait for higher water or 

abandon the descent of the canyon.

Where the river has a wide channel whose beds and sides are loose 

sand the main current frequently changes its position. For example, 

the main channel at Piute Farms, where the entire channel is 3,300 

feet wide, was observed to shift in one afternoon from the middle of 

the stream to the south bank; and at Spencer Camp the main current 

shifted a few .times from the center of the stream to the edge and 

against the sand bar on which we camped. At such times the 

undercut the banks, not only causing the banks to cave but 

compelling -us to move our meager camp equipment to prevent it 

from iallipg into the river.

During observed flood stages at Piute Farms the current beat 

.agaiasfc- $LG, left bank, which was composed of earth and shrubbery, 

and wideaed the channel fully 75 feet in the vicinity of our camp* 

(S^PLXKL). .

> .4 savingbank is an unsafe place.for tying up a boat. The boat 

would better be taken out of the river. This lesson we learned from 

experience, lor on a number of occasions one of our boats was sunk 

by falling chunks o| earth, resulting in the loss of oars, rowlocks, 

and other essential equipment.

'.Some, years ago a caving bank and a high flood swept away much 

o| the modem house of A. L. Raplee, which had been built on the 

river bank half a mile east of the village of Mexican Hat.

RAPIDS OF SAN JUAN BIVEB

The San Juan in passing through the canyon has numerous rapids, 

though, they are small, the greatest fall of a single rapid being only 

13% feet. The rapid having this fall is lV/2 miles by stream above 

the mouth of the river and is herein called the Thirteen-foot rapid. 

(See PI. XVII, B.) The rapid at the mouth of a southern tributary 

half a mile above The Narrows has a fall about 8 feet, and the first 

rapid at the mouth of Piute Creek also has a fall of 8 feet. (See 

PI. XVII, A.)

Most of the rapids are produced by boulder bars at the mouths of 

side canyons. (See Pis. VI, A, XVI, 0, and XVII.) The bars are 

composed of boulders as much as 18 feet in. their longest dimension 

that have been brought to the river by thfe torrential streams that drain
TJ. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER 538 PLATE XVIII

THE JUNCTION OF THE SAN JUAN WITH THE COLORADO 

Here the turbulent muddy wave-covered San Juan has built a wide delta far across the comparatively placid waters of the Colorado. Photograph by E. C. LaRue
XIX PLATE 538 PAPER WATER-SUPPLY SURVEY GEOLOGICAL S. U. 

FARMS PIUTE THE AT RIVER FLOOD-SWOLLEN OF VIEW UPSTREAM A. 

rebounding and bank the striking is surge a of edge front the at wave splashing high The 

Alien N. Robert by Photograph bank. opposite toward 

CATCHING AND CLUBBING EXPEDITION TRIMBLE OF MEMBERS S. 

RIVER OF SURFACE ON FLOUNDERING WERE THAT FISH EXHAUSTED 

TRAIL HONAKER AT FLOOD A DURING 

Alien N. Robert by Photograph 
TJ. S. GEOLOGICAL STJBVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPEK 53S PLATE XX

A. SMALL "SAND WAVES" NEAR THE PIUTE FARMS 

Photograph by Robert N. Alien

B, WAVES OF SWIFT WATER IN INTER-RAPID STRETCH NEAR HEAD OF 

SAN JUAJN CANYON

Photograph by H. D. Miser
U. B. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATEK-SUPPLY PAPER 538 PLATE XXI

SAND WAVES 6 TO 8 FEET HIGH DURING FLOOD AT HONAKER TRAIL 

Looking downstream. Photographs by Robert N. Alien
SAN JUAH BIVEB AND TBIBUTARY STBEAMS 51

the side canyons. The bars attain a width and length of several 

hundred feet and are highest next to the mouths of the side canyons. 

They not only cause the river to flow against the opposite canyon 

wall, but some of them extend entirely across the main canyon. The 

rapids over such bars are known as boulder rapids. During low 

stages of the river hundreds of boulders protrude above the water's 

surf ace and others are but slightly submerged.

A few rapids are found where huge boulders as much as 60 feet 

in length have fallen from the cliffs, and others occur where the 

channel runs between close canyon walls, as it does at the Goodridge 

Bridge and at The Narrows (PL II, A) and also where rock ledges 

reach partly across the channel. (See PL IV.) Numerous small 

rapids are caused by the impingement of the main current against 

the canyon wall and by the consequent narrowing of the current next 

to the place of greatest impingement. If the current strikes the wall 

at a high angle it not only rebounds toward the opposite wall but 

develops a whirlpool across the channel a little below the point of 

impingement. A shallow submerged spitlike sand bar always lies 

above such a whirlpool and points toward the narrowest part of the 

channel.

The boats of the Trimble expedition were run through most of 

the rapids. In shooting the worst ones Loper, the boatman, was the 

only member of the party to stay in the boats; the other men walked 

along the banks around such rapids. The loaded boats were nosed 

one at a time through a few rapids by the boatman, who in wading 

held on to the bow and guided it downstream ahead of him. Both 

the boats and the camp equipment were portaged around the Thirteen-foot Rapid. (See PL XVII, B.) The equipment was portaged around a rapid 3 miles above the mouth of Slickhorn Gulch, 

and then the boats were run empty through the rapid. (See PL

XVI, G.) The equipment was portaged around the first and second 

rapids at the mouth of Piute Canyon; the empty boats were nosed 

through the first rapid but were run through the next. (See PL

XVII, A.) The loaded boats were run through a small rapid half 

a mile above the mouth of Johns Canyon, but one of the boats containing two members of the party not only narrowly missed striking 

the canyon wall but struck a boulder and was burst on one side from 

bow to stern. The boat was nearly filled with water by the time a 

landing place was reached. Then the wet equipment was unloaded, 

and the boat was dragged ashore and repaired.

The Trimble party before reaching the mouth of Grand Gulch 

expected that a portage would be necessary there, for Loper and two 

other men who descended the river past this locality in 1894 were 

required to portage their boat around a boulder-obstructed part of
52 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

the channel. In 1921, however, although the swift current at this 

locality was thickly dotted with enormous boulders, some standing 

above the water and some submerged only a few inches, a portage 

was not necessary, but Loper was required to use all of his skill as 

an oarsman to dodge the boulders. We also anticipated a portage 

around the rapid at the mouth of Gypsum Creek, for Loper in his 

previous trips past that locality had found the river extremely rough 

with boulders; but a change in the rapid had taken place, and our 

boats were run through the rapid without difficulty.

WAVES ON SAN JUAN RIVER

Waves on the San Juan were found by the Trimble party to be so 

numerous that no long stretches of the river were free from them. 

(See Pis. XVIII-XXI.) Most of the surface of the river is therefore rough, presenting a choppy or ragged appearance not only in 

the rapids, but in the intervening stretches. The roar of the breaking 

and splashing waves was heard continuously during most of the 

voyage of 2% months from Bluff to the Colorado, for the party 

camped every night on the banks and spent most of the days on 

and near the river. When the Colorado was reached, on October 3, 

it was found t6 be a peaceful stream free from breaking waves and 

other noises in fact, its peaceful nature, in comparison with the: 

swift, noisy, and turbulent San Juan, was most impressive.

The character and causes of the waves form a subject to which 

much study could be devoted. I studied them very little, yet a few 

observations are here presented.

The waves are of many kinds, which depend on their form and' 

causes. Among the kinds of waves characteristic of .other swiftflowing rivers fare those at the rapids that are produced by rock 

ledges and bounders; those around both exposed and slightly submerged boulders in the inter-rapid stretches; and those at every 

place where the current impinges against the canyon walls. Low, 

choppy waves are also produced by strong winds.

In addition to such waves the San Juan has waves that are characteristic of streams that carry heavy loads of debris. They are. 

especially well developed during flood stages, when the current is 

swift and the debris load is unusually heavy.

During observed flood stages at Piute Farms the current would 

flow in surges almost a foot high. Each surge would be followed by 

another a few minutes later. The advancing front of each surge 

was marked by a ragged splashing wave as much as 6 feet high, 

which broke downstream. The waves, which extended diagonally 

across the shallow island-dotted channel, 3,300 feet wide, would 

strike and follow the banks with a violent force, tearing away earth
SAN JUAN BIVER AND TRIBUTARY STREAMS 5S,

and shrubbery, (See PL XIX, A) The surges completely submerged all the low sandy islands and also picked up and carried 

logs and stumps. In the troughs between the surges the islands 

reappeared, and many of the logs and stumps stood mired in shallow 

water and on the islands. Surges of such magnitude were not 

noted elsewhere along the river. Their presence here may have been 

 due to the great width and shallowness of the channel in comparison 

with the greater depth and smaller width along other portions of 

the river. When the end of such a wave would strike and follow the 

bank the water in and behind it would rebound and thus give rise to 

.a similar wave that advanced toward the opposite bank. As the rebounding waves traveled in a direction at right angles to the impinging waves the river frequently displayed what might be termed cross 

waves.

Waves of a type that was especially conspicuous during flood 

stages are commonly known as "sand waves." (See PI. XX, A, 

and XXI.) They resemble those thrown up by a stern-wheel rivei* 

steamboat. They attain a maximum observed height of 6 or 7 

feet and occur as a series of parallel waves at right angles to the 

channel, though on one occasion they were observed to extend diagonally across the channel. Such a series of waves starts at the 

downstream end of a swift stretch of water and travels slowly upstream to the head of the stretch. Each wave gradually increases 

in height and is accompanied at its climax by a.breaking toward 

the upstream side. This process of breaking is known as combing 

and is accompanied by a roaring noise. Such a noise is continuous 

during the entire upstream advance of the waves, for a few to several waves are always breaking at the same time. The current is 

somewhat checked by the waves, but below them it picks up speed 

and is comparatively free from waves. No sooner has one series of 

waves died out upstream than a new series appears downstream and 

begins its upstream advance.

The sand waves were so high and rough when the river was 2 

feet or more above a normal stage that the Trimble party then stayed 

off the river, because the boats were open-topped and had no watertight compartments. That rowing under such circumstances is 

precarious was proved by experience on one occasion. At that time 

the party started rowing down the river, not realizing at first the 

high stage of the water. One of the boats in which Blake, Hyde, 

and I were riding encountered a series of sand waves fully 6 feet 

high, which half filled the boat before Blake, the oarsman, could 

get the boat into quieter water. So strenuously did Blake pull on 

the oars that he broke a rowlock immediately after getting out of 

the rough water. There was thus imminent danger of OUF 

being swept back into the rough water. Blake, by sticking an oar
54 THE SAN JTJAN CANYON

down, determined the water to be only waist deep. Hyde therefore 

jumped into the water, followed by Blake and me. Then the boat 

was held and was pulled to the bank, where the water was bailed out. 

Everything in the boat got wet, including my camera and aneroid 

barometer.

The sand waves take their name from the fact that sand forms a 

large part of the load of debris transported by the river along its bed 

at such times. They are produced by a peculiar method by which 

the debris is transported. This and other methods of transportation 

are described by Gilbert 3* in the following concise statements:

Some particles of the bed load slide, many roll, the multitude make short 

skips or leaps, the process being called saltation. Saltation grades into suspension. * * *

When the conditions are such that the bed load is small, the bed is molded 

into hills, called dunes, which travel downstream. Their mode of advance 

is like that of eolian dunes, the current eroding their upstream faces and depositing the eroded material on the downstream faces. With any progressive 

change of conditions tending to increase the load, the dunes eventually disappear and the debris surface becomes smooth. The smooth phase is in turn 

succeeded by a second rhythmic phase, in which a system of hills travels upstream. These are called antidunes, and their movement is accomplished by 

erosion on the downstream face and deposition on the upstream face. Both 

rhythms of d6bris movement are initiated by rhythms of water movement.

The dune phase is accompanied by comparatively small downstream-moving waves. The smooth phase has no waves, or only small 

ones. During this phase, by wading the river, I found the smooth 

bed to be composed of compact sand. The sand waves appear when 

the river passes from the smooth to the antidune phase.

R. C. Pierce,35 who has studied the sand waves of San Juan Eiver 

.at and near the Goodridge Bridge, describes them as follows:

On the wide, shallow sections of San Juan River sand waves may usually 

be seen below the riffles at medium stages. In the deeper sections they appear 

at their best development on rapidly rising stages. In the immediate vicinity 

of the gaging station, so far as observed, the sand waves appear on rapidly 

rising stages between gage heights of approximately 4 and 7 feet. With the rise 

of stage beyond this range the movement is drowned out. Three miles above 

the gaging station, where the river is wider, sand waves usually may be seen 

at any stage from about 4 to 10 feet. That section of the river was not visited 

at stages higher than 10 feet, and it is not known whether the sand waves continue or are drowned out, as in the vicinity of the station.

The usual length of sand waves, crest to crest, on the deeper sections of the 

river is 15 to 20 feet, and the height, trough to crest, is about 3 feet. However, 

waves of a height of at least 6 feet were observed. The sand waves are not 

continuous, but follow a rhythmic movement. Their appearance, as seen on

84 Gilbert,, G. K., The transportation of debris by running water: U. S. Geol. Survey 

Prof. Paper 86, p. 11, 1914.

K Pierce, R. C., The measurement of silt-laden streams: U. S. Geol. Survey WaterSupply Paper 40O, pp. 42-48, 1916.
SAN" JUAN EIVEB AND TRIBUTARY STREAMS 55

the lower San Juan, is as follows: At one moment the stream is running 

smoothly for a distance of perhaps several hundred yards. Then suddenly a 

number of waves, usually from 6 to 10, appear. They reach their full size In 

a few seconds, flow for perhaps two or three minutes, then suddenly disappear. Often, for perhaps half a minute before disappearing, the crests of the 

waves go through a combing movement, accompanied by a roaring sound. On 

first appearance it seems that the wave forms occupy fixed positions, but by 

watching them closely it is seen that they move slowly upstream. In the narrow parts of the stream the waves may reach nearly the width of the river, 

but in the wider par,ts they occupy smaller proportional widths. Usually they 

are at right angles to the axis of the stream, but at some places, particularly 

in the wider parts of the river, they may suddenly assume a diagonal position, moving rather rapidly across the stream in the direction toward which the 

upstream side of the wave has turned.

In the experiments made by Gilbert at Berkeley he found that the water surface closely paralleled the surface of the antidunes. In natural streams this 

is not always the case. The writer was informed by Prof. H. E. Gregory, of 

Yale University, that in swimming down through a short section of the San 

Juan he found that in going over the crest of the antidunes he could touch 

bottom with his feet and at the same time keep his head above water, but that 

in the trough of a wave he had to go down more than arm's length below the 

surface to touch bottom. From this it would seem that where the antidune 

movement is well developed and where there is a considerable depth of water 

the undulations of the sand surface are not closely followed by the water surface, but that the effect is partly smoothed out in being transmitted to the top. 

It might be proper to infer from this that at high stages the antidune movement 

may still go on, although no indication of it reaches the surface. This inference must be qualified by the fact that at high stages more of the bed load is 

picked up and carried in suspension, thus necessitating a lowering of the bed 

and the movement of new d6bris.

FLOODS IN SAN JUAN CANYON

Floods in San Juan Canyon are numerous and disastrous. They 

are known to have reached stages as high as 50 feet in the narrower 

parts of the canyon. Not only has the flood-swollen river swept away 

practically all trees and shrubs from the bottom of the canyon, but 

it has killed fish at times when it was so laden with silt as to become 

a river of mud. The flood-swollen river frequently changes the position of the main channel and also eats into the short stretches of sand 

and silt along the banks. The floods rush down the canyon with such 

speed and rise so rapidly that all canyon voyagers should heed the 

oft-repeated admonition to seek high ground for every camp site. 

Among other admonitions given to the Trimble party was one from, 

a Government official in Washington for us to keep a man well in the 

rear of the bulk of the party; the duty of this man on seeing an 

approaching flood would be to blow a shrill whistle as a warning for 

the other persons to flee to higher ground. The floods during rising 

stages carry so much driftwood including logs as to make boating 

precarious. Furthermore, with their high waves and great speed,
§6 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

they make boating in open rowboats impossible. Equally dangerous 

for river expeditions are the low stages, especially in the part of the 

canyon below the mouth of Moonlight Creek. During such stages 

the river is likely to become so low and shallow over the wide, sandy 

channels as to prevent progress with boats of any kind.

During flood stages the river frequently has a peculiar disagreeable odor, which is noticeable as far as 50 feet away from the river. 

The odor is apparently due not only to the large quantity of clay 

 in the water but also to dead vegetal matter'from, cedar and 

pinon forests and dung from sheep, goat, and horse corrals. Pinon 

needles and other fine vegetal matter pile up on the bank during 

every flood. They are found in every bucket of water taken from 

the river during flood stages and cover much or all of the water 

surface in the bucket.

During the descent of the canyon from July 18 to October 3, 1921,. 

many floods were discharged by the San Juan; the highest attained 

7 feet above low stages. High floods were discharged in 1921 by 

Piute Creek and the other southern tributaries farther west. Although they were not seen by members of the Trimble party, mute 

yet convincing evidence of them was afforded by freshly broken and 

twisted tree stumps, newly laid driftwood as high as 20 feet above 

the stream beds, and macerated and bent shrubbery and plants. None 

of the other tributaries had discharged such high floods in 1921 before the dates that they were observed. All the observed floods of 

1921, both of the San Juan and the tributaries, took place in response to near-by or distant thunderstorms.

A flood taking place in October, 1911, as a result of a general rain 

stood 18 to 20 feet above low-water mark at Shiprock, N. Mex., and 

is said to have reached a height of 50 feet in the narrower parts of 

the canyon. During the flood the Indian agency grounds at Shiprock were flooded and the bridge at that place and also the one at 

Goodridge, Utah, were destroyed. Some of the driftwood found by 

the Trimble party at a height of 35 feet above the river was probably 

brought downstream at that time. This has been the greatest flood 

within the memory of the first whit© people who settled at or near 

Bluff a few years prior to 1880, though the Indians who had seen 

such floods warned the people not to build their homes in low bottom 

lands.

SILT IN SAN JUAN RIVER

The amount of silt carried in suspension by San Juan Eiver is 

unusually high for streams in the United States. It is thereforeknown, as a muddy stream. In fact, its load of silt that is emptied 

into the Colorado comprises a very large part of the silt carried by 

that stream through and beyond the Grand Canyon. (See PL
SAN JUAN BIVEE AND TEIBTJTAEY STREAMS 57

XVIII.) The quantity of silt is lowest during low stages of the 

river, and also during the early summer floods that are caused by 

melting snows in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. Then 

the water assumes a milky color. It never gets clear. Between 

July 18 and October 3, 1921, it was comparatively free froni silt 

during only two periods on July 18 and 19 and from September 

10 to 30 but even then every cup of water taken from the river 

would contain sand grains and fine silt. At all other times, especially during flood stages, the river was very muddy.

The usual color of the silt-laden stream is gray to buff, but it 

changes to a brick-red during the falling stages of floods. On 

August 1 a flood in the river passed the foot of the Honaker trail, 

where the Trimble party was camped. The highest stage of the 

flood 6 feet was reached at 7 a. m. Between that time and the 

middle of the afternoon the river fell 3 to 4 feet, and in so doing 

assumed a brick-red color and ran like a stream of molten metal, 

whose entire surface was covered by waves of large and small size. 

While the river was flowing like metal the fish came to the surface 

in an exhausted condition and swam feebly in the eddies, with their 

dorsal fins sticking out of the water. The enormous load of fine 

red silt in the water had apparently in some way prevented 

the fish from obtaining the usual supply of oxygen. Many of the 

exhausted fish were caught by members of the party with bare 

hands, and many were washed ashore by waves to perish. (See PI.

XIX, B.) After two or three hours the fish revived and disappeared from the surface. Bert Loper, boatman of the party, who 

lived on Colorado River for many years, says such floods have been 

known to last long enough to kill thousands of fish.

The spring flood from the melting snows in the mountains of Colorado comes in June. Through the upper course of the river this flood 

is, according to Pierce,88 like the spring floods of other streams that 

flow from high mountainous regions, but when the flood reaches the 

barren region of mesas, canyons, and plateaus of New Mexico and 

Utah it picks up a load of sand and silt that has been brought by 

small streams to the San Juan and that has been deposited along its 

course. Pierce says:

Hence the spring flood from the high mountains carries through the lower 

course of the river and into Colorado River considerable silt and sand picked up 

in transit Observations made by the Reclamation Service 20 miles above the 

gaging station [at Goodridge Bridge] show an average content of silt, by weight, 

£»f 0.37 per cent for the period from May 16 to June 30,1915, and for the period 

October 18, 1914, to August 2, 1915, 0.44 per cent.

The heaviest loads of silt are carried during the torrential floods of summer 

and fall. A sample taken by the writer just after the peak of a sudden heavy

86 Pierce, R. C., The measurement of silt-laden streams: U. S, Qeol. Surrey WaterSupply Paper 400, pp. 40-41, 1917.
58 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

occurred in the afternoon of August 26, 1915, and examined after 

settling for 24 hours, show|||^|^|^5 per.gent o£ the original volume of sample 

was silt and red sand, chiefly the iatter^HliSiischarge at the tii*g«*««9«»«4pproximately 13,000 second-feet, all of which except about 1,000 second -feet was 

coming into the river from Chinle Creek, 10 miles above the gaging station. 

The flood lasted only a few hours. A sample consisting of silt and very fine 

sand taken two hours after the first one, at a discharge of about 5,000 secondfeet, showed a silt load of 45 per cent. At the peak of the flood and for almost 

an hour afterward the river ran with a smooth, oily movement and presented the 

peculiar appearance of a stream of molten red metal instead of its usual rough, 

choppy surface. A sample collected at the height of the July flood, which 

lasted several days and reached a maximum discharge of about 30,000 secondfeet, showed 12 per cent of silt by volume and 9 per cent by weight.

The silt records obtained by the United States Reclamation Service show a 

maximum silt content of only 1.67 per cent by weight. These samples, however, 

were taken 20 miles upstream, where the river is fairly wide, and from a point 

close to the shore, where velocities are low. Furthermore, it is probable that 

samples were not obtained at times of maximum silt load, as only 62 samples 

were taken in 289 days.

nit should be borne in mind, however, that though very heavy loads of silt 

are occasionally carrgj^ bv the San Juan, yet for the spring period, in which 

the greater part of the yeifry ruads^jj^ffirs, the loads of silt are considerably 

lighter.

Other silt observations were made by the United States Reclamation 

Service near Bluff over a period from March 17 to July 18, 1917. 

These indicate a silt content of 1.41 per cent by weight, or a little over 

1 per cent by volume for the period. These observations indicate that 

24,000 acre- feet of silt is carried each year by the river.87

CANYON FILL ALONG SAN JUAN RIVER 

GENERAL FEATURES

San Juan River has eroded its canyon in solid rock and thus runs 

long distances between close precipitous walls of solid rock; yet, 

except during great floods, the river runs on solid rock at few places. 

Between suc&di^ds it runs on unconsolidated material that fills 

the canyon to depths of ^%1$!8lf>s 50 feet or more. This loose material may properly be called canyon fill. It consists of material in 

course of transportation and of material that is permanently and 

temporarily deposited. Perhaps no great quantity of material is 

permanently deposited, for the highest floods, such as that of October, 1911, when the river is said to have reached a stage of 50 feet 

in the narrower parts of the canyon, may pick up and move all the 

material down to bedrock at many if not most places. The impinging and grinding of the transported material against the bedrock 

floor wears away the solid rock. In consequence of this wearingaway process the canyon is deepened at times of high floods. During

w U. S. Red. Service Eighteenth, ABO. Rept, p. 404, 1&19.
SAN JUAN BIVER AND TBIBUTABY STBEAMS 59

the recession of such floods much of the debris load is deposited and 

thus partly fills the canyon. Between such floods much d4bris is 

added from, time to time by the river and other contributing sources. 

It follows from the above statements that long stretches of the San 

Juan present most of the time the peculiar example of an alluvial 

or aggrading stream flowing between close towering walls of solid 

rock. Yet on the assumption that much or all of the canyon fill is 

moved at times of high flood the river is in reality not an alluvial 

or aggrading stream but a degrading stream. To determine whether 

any of the present canyon fill is or is not a permanent deposit can 

be settled only by observations over a period of at least a few 

decades.

SOURCES OP CANYON FILL j

The canyon fill, including both the deposited material and the 

material in course of transportation, is derived from several sources. 

One of the contributing sources is the river's own power of erosion 

by which its transported material impinges, wears away, and undermines the canyon walls. A chief source is the falling or sliding of 

rock debris from the canyon walls due to landslides, loosening of 

blocks by rains, freezing and thawing of water, changes in temperature, and the blasting of rocks by lightning; such debris, which collects a$ talus ajb the fojot of every cliff, skirts the river for long 

distances. .Sand aft<J dust are brought to the river by wind. A part 

q£ such material immediately falls into the river and a part is 

deposited in dungs, especially in protected positions on the south 

canyon wall. Fine material is contributed by the sheets of water 

t%t i/w pa tae surface during and after rains. Both fine and coarse 

materials are contributed by every tributary rill and stream in fact, 

the material from these two sources equals or surpasses in quantity 

that from all other sources combined.

TJie tributary streams, as is shown in the accompanying table, 

have steep gradients, ranging from 65 feet to more than 170 feet to 

the mile. They are thus able to carry much debris, especially during 

flood stages. All of them are actively lowering their channels in 

bedrock and thus transport their loads of debris to the San Juan; 

only a pa^?t of the load of some streams has been deposited in their 

channels near the river. The load of d6bris thus brought to the river 

includes clay, sand, pebbles, cobbles, mud balls, and boulders. The 

mild balls, which are spherical, attain a diameter of 18 inches. In 

rolling along the stream beds, they pick up and carry numerous varicolored pebbles and thus present a spotted or mosaic appearance. 

]STunierous rock boulders 6 to 8 feet in their longest dimension, several 10 to 12 feet long and one 18 feet long, were observed.

96640 24 5
60 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

Fatt of some tributary streams of £an Juan River, Utah

Name of stream

Chinle Creek "......... _____ .

Stream in Grand Gulch ............

Moonlight Creek ...................

Stream in Rockhouse Gulch. _ _____

Stream in Clay Gulch ........_____.

Stream in Spring Gulch ______

Copper Creek. __ ________

Nokai Creek................. _ ...

Piute Creek ..__.................

Wilson Creek and other tributaries

west of Piute Creek.

\

Distance

from San

Juan for

which 

altitude

was determined

(miles)

100+

W

.5

.5

( b)

4

3.25

2.75

4

5.25

9

Ttotftl

fall in

distance 

stream

WiWS ftS*

cended

\LW\tJ

150

200

295

320

325

340

350

750±

Average 

fall per 

mile

(feet)

13

75

100

120

85

65

80-85

170+

Bemarks

Waterfall 60 to 75 feet high at mouth

Waterfall at least 50 feet high at

mouth.

o Gregory, H. E., U. S. Geol. Survey Water-Supply Paper 380, p. 36,1916. 

b Inaccessible from the river.

The load of rock debris carried to the San Juan by its tributaries 

has greatly increased within the last 25 to 35 years. The tributaries formerly deposited along their courses much of their debris 

load and ran on smooth floors of alluvium; 38 but now they are eroding and deepening their valleys and run in inner canyons intrenched 

in the alluvium or in valleys from which all alluvium has been 

eroded.39 This change in the character of the stream valleys is 

thought by Gregory to have been, caused in part by overgrazing 

and probably in part by climatic change. Another reason for the 

change is suggested by Keagan, who believes that the former dense 

population conserved practically all the water by irrigating their 

fields and by impounding it in village reservoira. This" dense agricultural population, according to him, was replaced by the nomadic 

Navajo with his stock and by the white man with his roads and 

trails. The Navajo and white man use little water for irrigation, 

but let the torrential floods of the streams sweep down the valleys 

to the San Juan with their heavy loads of rock debris.

CHARACTER, TRANSPORTATION, AND DEPOSITION OF CANYON FILL

San Juan Kiver, being confined between closely spaced cliffs in 

most parts of its canyon, does not have alluvial plains in such parts. 

Whatever alluvial material is present occurs beneath the bed of the

88 Button,, C. E., Tertiary history of the Grand Canyon district: U. S. Geol. Survey 

Mon. 2, pp. 228-229, 1882. Gregory, H. E., The Navajo country; U. S. Geol. Surrey 

Water-Supply Paper 380, p. 100, 1916; Geology of the Navajo country: U. S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 98, pp. 130-132, 1917. Reagan, A. B., Archeological notes on Pine River 

valley, Colo., and the Kayenta-Tuba region, Arlz.: Kansas Acad. ScL Trans.,, vol. SO, pp. 

262-267, 1922.

39 Gregory, H. E., op. cit.; Reagan, A. B., op. cit.
SAN JUAN BIVEB AND TMBUTAEY STEEAMS 61

river and as short unsubmerged bars. Alluvial plains of small extent occur only in the open stretches like those near Clay Hill Crossing, Piute Farms, and Zahns Camp. There the river has wide 

braided channels and narrow alluvial stretches over which the main 

channel frequently shifts position, especially during floods.

So swift is the current of the river that its alluvial material 

consists almost entirely of sand, pebbles, cobbles, and boulders; 

the clay, being very fine and thus carried in suspension, is mostly 

emptied into the Colorado; very little of it is deposited along the 

San Juan. The banks of the San Juan are therefore comparatively 

free from mud, in marked contrast to the slippery mud-covered 

banks of the more slowly flowing Colorado in Glen Canyon.

Much of the sand that is present along the river is being continually moved downstream. It is piled up in shifting ripple and 

rill-marked bars. Some of the bars are exposed as small and large 

areas adjacent to the river, and some rise above the water as islands, 

but others are submerged for depths ranging from a small fraction 

of an inch to perhaps many .feet. Sand underlies the bed of the 

river for long distances. For example, Loper and I, in towing a boat 

upstream from the mouth of Piute Creek to Spencer Camp, a distance of 16 miles, waded the river with bare feet the entire distance 

and encountered gravel and boulders at only two or three places; 

only a few shoals were so deep they could not be waded.

The sand on account of its fine grain is generally firm and compact 

enough for a person to walk on its surface, though in doing so he 

causes wavelike movements in the sand around him and is likely to 

sink into it if he retraces his steps. Quicksand is usually confined 

to the lower ends of the sand bars, where it is being piled continually 

by the river and where it has not yet had time to become compact. 

The deepest quicksand encountered by members of the party was not 

more than waist deep.

Every flood in the river doubtless handles coarse as well as fine 

debris; but as the closing work of each flood is performed by a discharge less than its maximum, it doubtless happens that the coarsesc 

part of a flood's load is so buried by fine material as not to be visible 

when the river bed is exposed at low stage. The long stretches of 

sand along some parts of the river are therefore without much question underlain by gravel and boulders. (See PL XXII.)

In the part of the canyon above the mouth of Moonlight Creek the 

fall or gradient of the river is high, averaging 8.3 feet to the mile 

(PL XXTT); the velocity is great; the canyon fill is mostly coarse 

debris from adjacent cliffs or from tributary streams; the clay and 

sand that are brought to the river are not deposited to any great extent but are carried to the lower part of the canyon or emptied into 

the Colorado; and the debris is composed in large part of boulders
62 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

of hard limestone and is thus difficult to transport. With such d4bris 

the river in this part of the canyon is overloaded during normal 

stages and small floods; but high floods such as that of 1911, which 

attained a stage reported to be 50 feet in the narrower parts of the 

canyon, may not only move much of the debris but attack and erode 

the bedrock.

The river, having a steep grade between Chinle and Moonlight 

creeks, deposits comparatively little sand. Such as is found occurs 

as short low sand bars that skirt the river during low stages, among 

vegetation and boulders, and also on the river bed. The meager clay 

found in this part of the canyon fills interstices of the coarse rock 

debris. In this stretch the river is confined almost continuously between vertical walls and talus slopes. The boulders of the talus 

slopes project into the river, and many, including some 60 feet long, 

are found in the middle of the river. Sand is piled among .these 

boulders. When the river is at a low stage walking along the sandy 

banks is comparatively easy, but if the river is in flood the sand is 

submerged and the traveler is thus required to follow the steep slope 

of jumbled boulders, some the size of an ordinary house. To go 

across an area of such boulders is a difficult job, requiring agility 

and precaution, for it is necessary to crawl, slide, and jump at numerous places.

When the river reaches a point near the mouth of Moonlight Creek 

the gradient decreases to about 5 feet to the mile; the current 

becomes less swift; a part of the load is deposited; the deposited load 

raises the river bed; and the main channel is not only widened at 

places but frequently shifts position on its bed of unconsolidated 

debris.

As the debris load is emptied by tributaries into the river there is a 

sorting of the debris, the coarser part being swept along the bed and 

the finer part being borne in the body of the current. Some of the 

finer material, however, is deposited and held in the interstices of the 

coarser material. Except during high floods, when the discharge 

of the river is great, the boulders, cobbles, and pebbles are moved 

little if any.

The mouths of many tributaries are marked by accumulations or 

bars of boulders that have been brought to the river by occasional 

floods that sweep down the side canyons. The boulders accumulate at 

such places because the flood-swollen tributaries-have a greater fall, 

greater velocity, and probably at times a greater discharge than the 

river, and because the discharge of the river is not sufficient to overcome the effects of the reduction of fall and velocity of the tributaries' flood waters. Such bars not only push the river channel 

away from the mouths of the tributaries but produce rapids. (See 

Pis. VI, A, XVI, <7, and XVII.)
SAN JUAN EIVEB AND TEIBUTAEY STREAMS 6S

The visible part of the de"bris deposited at the mouths of tributaries exhibits a gradation from large boulders at the rapids to 

pebbles and cobbles downstream. This is especially well displayed 

at and below the mouth of Piute Creek. (See PL XVII, A.) At 

the mouth of this creek the largest boulders are found; from this 

place downstream for a distance of 6 miles as far as the debris 

derived from Piute Creek could be identified the coarse debris 

consists of smaller boulders, cobbles, and pebbles.

Piute Creek and also the creek at the Thirteen-foot Kapid (PI. 

XVII, B) join the San Juan at places where the channel is comparatively wide. ' Because the river channel is thus comparatively 

shallow the load of boulders that is emptied into it by these steepgradient flood-swollen creeks is piled up and forms boulder bars 

and rapids. On the other hand, Nokai and Copper creeks, which 

drain near-by basins similar to those of the two streams just mentioned, join the San Juan where it occupies a narrow box canyon; 

The deep river at the mouths of these creeks has thus been able to 

carry away the load of boulders they have brought down and therefore has no marked boulder bars and rapids at these places.

Other tributaries, such as Lime Creek and all the northern tributaries west of Grand Gulch, have small or no accumulations of boulders at their mouths, apparently because floods in the river have 

swept away large parts of any such accumulations that may have 

formed in the past.

Most of the southern tributaries west of and including Piute 

Creek are marked at their mouths by boulder bars or accumulations. 

A large part of the boulders appear to have been brought to the 

river by high floods in 1921 and other recent years. The northern 

tributaries west of Grand Gulch have had no floods in recent years 

comparable in size to those of the southern tributaries, and this 

apparently explains the absence of large boulder bars at their 

mouths.

The boulder bars at the mouths of Piute Creek and some other 

creeks extend entirely across the river channel, suggesting that the 

rushing, flood-swollen, and boulder-laden waters of such tributaries 

dashed completely across the channel and filled it with boulders. 

For the river to be so powerless under such circumstances, its velocity 

and also probably its volume must have been far exceeded by the 

velocity and volume of the tributary. That some of the tributary 

streams have large discharges in comparison with the discharge of 

the river is shown by the observations of K. C. Pierce 40 at the gaging 

station at Goodridge Bridge. On August 26, 1915, there was at 

this station a flood with an approximate discharge of 13,000 second-

*° U. S. Qeol. Survey Water-Supply Paper 400, pp. 4O-41, 1917.
64 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

feet, all of which, except about 1,000 second-feet, was coming from 

Chinle Creek.

The boulder bars built at the mouths of side canyons have the 

effect of dams, causing slack water above them and a consequent 

filling of the slack stretches with sand. (See PL XXII.) Although 

these stretches resemble reservoirs and are thus filled with sand, the 

river's current through them is swift, and the fall is generally about 

5 feet to the mile. The longest sand-filled reservoir extends upstream from the first Piute Creek rapid to a point near the mouth 

of Moonlight Creek, a distance of about 45 miles.

If a flood in the river should be of sufficient volume to sweep out 

a boulder bar it would also begin to pick up and move the sand 

above the bar and thus increase the gradient of that part of the 

river. Floods are known to have partly swept away within the 

last 30 years the accumulations of boulders at the mouths of Gypsum 

Creek and Grand Gulch.

PLACES WHERE CANTON FILL IS ABSENT OR THIN

The canyon fill apparently overlies bedrock at all or almost all 

places, though during high floods the river doubtless transports 

much of the canyon fill and thus scours its bedrock floor for shorter 

or longer distances. In other words, bedrock does not form the 

river bed during normal and low stages except at perhaps a cymparatively few localities, all of which are confined to the part of 

the canyon between the mouths of Chinle and Moonlight creeks. 

Between these creeks the river is skirted at very few places by bars 

of sand, gravel, and boulders; at most places the water's edge is 

met by the base of talus slopes and by precipitous walls. Some 

rock ledges with low and high dips extend partly across the channel. At a few places these ledges and the canyon walls on opposite 

sides approach one another so closely as to produce narrows or 

gorges. No ledges were observed to extend completely across the 

floor of the canyon. If any form a part of the river bed they were 

concealed by the muddy water.

According to Dr. Neil M. Judd,41 of the United States National 

Museum, a ledge of rock reaches across the bed of the river just 

above the mouth of Chinle Creek. It was formerly used by pack 

trains in fording the river at this place, but it has been used very 

little or none since the completion of the suspension wagon bridge 

near Goodridge in 1910. Doctor Judd says that the Byron Cummings party, of which he was a member, used the ford in 1909 on 

the way to the Rainbow Natural Bridge. The ledge was not seen 

by members of the Trimble party in 1921; it was then probably

41 Oral communication.
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATEltSUPPLY PAPER 538 PLATE XXLT

65 66 MILES 

FROM MOUTH OF RIVER

57 S8 59 60 61 6Z 63

31 X 33 34- 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 46 46 47 48 49

109 110 MILES TROM MOUTH OF RIVER

132 133 MILES

Boulder bars or accurnul 

occur at the mouths

-,,.~lations that 

of side canyons

81 Si 63 84 65 86 87 88 89 90 MILES

PROFILE OF SAN JUAN RIVER BETWEEN COLORADO RIVER AND MOUTH OF CHINLE CREEK, UTAH

Shows possible depth to bedrock and character and inferred distribution of the canyon fill under bed of river

Datum is mean sea level
SAN JUAN EIVEE AND TRIBUTARY STREAMS 6§

covered with the extensive deposit of alluvial sand which occars 

along the river near the mouth of Chinle Creek.

The occurrence of small rapids or-especially swift water in the 

several gorges or narrows between Chinle and Moonlight creeks 

suggests that bedrock immediately underlies the river at such places' 

or that it lies at no great distance beneath the river bed. Some of 

the most conspicuous narrows and gorges are described below.

A notable narrows occurs in San Juan Canyon just inside its entrance, about 1^ males below the mouth of Chinle Creek and 12 

miles below Bluff. (See PI. I, B.) A dam site at this locality, 

known as the Bluff dam site, has been mapped by the United States 

Bureau of Reclamation. Here solid ledges of limestone and sandstone dipping 15° E. extend to the water's edge on both sides of 

the river. If any fill exists at this locality it must therefore underlie the river bed. That some fill exists here is suggested by the 

wide braided, sand-filled channel of the river just above the narrows. James McKittriek, assistant engineer of the Bureau of Reclamation, in a report dated May t, 1917, says, " it is believed that bedrock lies within 20 or 30 feet below the river surface." The usual 

depth of the water and the width of the channel as determined by 

the Bureau of Reclamation are 10' to 12 feet and 215 feet, respectively.

A gorge occurs at a locality 126 miles above the mouth of the 

river and about 2% miles above The Narrows. It is in reality an 

inner canyon whose walls stand about 50 feet apart and rise 30 

feet above the normal water surface. The walls are massive hard 

limestone lying in a nearly horizontal position. The river occupies 

the full width of the gorge and runs very swiftly through it, No 

canyon fill may be present beneath the river bed, but if any exists 

it doubtless consists entirely of large boulders and is perhaps not 

over 20 feet deep. .

The Narrows, so named by the Trimble party, is one of the most 

forbidding gorges in the canyon. (See PL II, A.) Its walls of 

limestone, which dipi a few degrees upstream, rise vertically from 

the edges of the river and tower so high that a difficult ascent of 500 

feet and an equal descent are required to pass around it on 

foot. The water rushes through the gorge with great speed, 

forming a rapid with a small fall. The Trimble party, before passing through The Narrows, camped one night just east of it. Next 

morning the river had risen some 2 or 3 feet and was too rough for 

rowing. In order that a safe passage could be made the party 

waited half a day for the river to run down; but during the wait 

Christensen and I scaled the south canyon wall, passed around the 

gorge, and descended the wall in a steep talus-strewn crevice. The 

narrowness of the channel, the occurrence of a rapid, and the massive-
66 ' THE SAN JUAN CANYON

ness and .great hardness of the limestone suggested that little if any 

fill occurs under the river at this locality.

..Another place where rock ledges extend far across the canyon 

floor and project? partly across the river channel is between Soda 

Basin and Lime Creek. Here the rocks are massive limestone and 

sandstone and dip 12°-20° W. (downstream). If there is any fill 

below the stream bed, it would surely not be thick perhaps not 

over 20 feet.

A small rapid half a mile northwest of the A. L. Easplee residence, 

near Mexican Hat, is obviously produced by massive hard beds of 

red and gray sandstone. (See PI. IV.) The gray saiidstone, 20 

to 30 feet thick, is known as the " Goodridge " oil sand and .contains 

an oil seep near the water's edge on the west side of the river.' Some 

recent blasting has been done in the sandstone with the hope that 

oil might accumulate in the blasted pit. The exposed beds dip 10 * 

SE. (downstream), and project far across the river. A steall raf»d 

occurs between the exposed ledges that project from either bank, 

and it is inferred that the submerged parts of the ledges occur on 

the bed of the river and produce the rapid.

A rock-walled gorge, which is spanned by the Goodridge Bridge, 

lies half a mile west of Goodridge. It is in a massive hard gray 

sandstone (the "Goodridge" oil sand), 27 feet thick, which dips 

about 2° SE. (upstream). The gorge is funnel-shaped, being n'arrowest at its upper end, where it is about 75 feet wide. The river 

on entering the gorge contracts abruptly from a width of about 

150 feet and races with great velocity through the gorge in fact, 

the water at the head of it is swift endugh.to form a rapid. Ifc ig 

inferred that the rapid is produced not only by a narrowing of the 

channel at the head of the gorge but also by the occurrence of bedrock ("Goodridge" oil sand) immediately under the bed of the 

river. A gaging station was maintained from 1914 to 1917 by the 

United States Geological Survey at a point 500 feet below the h^ad 

of the gorge. At this point, where the width is about 200 feet, the 

river bottom is very loose sand underlain by loose gravel.42

The Second Narrows, with precipitous cliffs rising from both 

sides of the river, occurs at a locality 9 miles by stream above the 

Honaker trail and 8 miles by stream below the Goodridge Bridge. 

(See PI. II, B.) An attempt was made by the party to ascend the 

canyon walls and pass around the narrows, because the water in 

the gorge was rough with boulder rapids and sand waves. The 

attempt failed, and therefore the boats had to be used. One of 

them ran into very high sand waves, and was half filled with water, 

and narrowly missed sinking. The narrows are produced by a bed

43 Pierce, R. C., The measurement of silt-laden streams: t". S. Geol. Survey WaterSupply Paper 40O, pp. 39-40, 1&17.
SAN JUAN BIVEE AND TBIBTJTARY STREAMS 67

of massive hard gray limestone, about 100 feet thick, which dips 

upstream at an angle of less than 1°. This bed is the same as the 

one forming The Narrows, above Goodridge. The bed produces the 

most persistent and impassable cliff found in the part of the canyon 

near Goodridge. The cliff is stained pink by wash from overlying 

red beds* and is therefore known as the pink cliff or ledge. There may 

be some canyon fill underneath the river at this locality; if so, it 

is perhaps not more than 20 feet deep.

DEPTH OF CANtON FILL

The canyon fill is absent or thin at the localities described in the 

preceding section. It is probably present in all Other parts of the 

canyon. Nothing is definitely known regarding t^e total depth of 

the fill, and little is known regarding its partial depth. The available information bearing on this subject is here presented and discussed.

The depth of the fill along some parts of the river has apparently 

increased within the last 30 years. This increase seems to be indicated by the change in the character of the river channel at Bluff, 

Clay* Hill Crossing, and doubtless other places. Within the last 30 

years the channel has widened at these places and has assumed 

a braided appearance. The increased depth of the fill is almost certainly due to the heavy debris loads of the tributary streams, in 

comparison with the light loads carried by them more than 30 years 

ago.

The depth of the fill in the main canyon at the mouths of side 

canyons is equal to or greater than the depth of the boulder accumulations. The partial depth of a boulder accumulation may be 

determined by ascertaining the average slope of the: slack river current for a distance of several miles below the accumulation and then 

projecting the average slope upstream to the mouth of the side 

stream. "The partial depth is the difference between the altitude of 

the projected slope and the actual altitude of the head of the boulder 

accumulation. (See PL XXII.)

The exposed boulder accumulation at the mouth ©f the stream 

entering the river at the Thirteen-foot Bapid consists ©f a series of 

individual bars which extend down the river for a mile below the 

mouth of the tributary. All the boulders and the coarse material 

in it have been derived from this tributary. By projecting upstream 

the slope of the river between the boulder accumulation and the 

moutn it is found that the boulder accumulation is at least 20 feet 

deep. (See PI. XXII.)

Boulders and other coarse material derived from Piute Creek can 

be identified downstream to a point as far as 6 miles below the mouth
68 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

of the creek. The series of rapids extending from the mouth of 

Piute Creek downstream for 1.6 miles has a fall of 35 feet. The 

average slope of the next 8.5 miles of the river is 6.6 feet. If this 

slope is projected upstream from the base of the series of Piute 

Rapids, the partial height of the boulder accumulation in the canyon 

at the mouth of Piute Creek is found to be about 25 feet. (See PI. 

XXII.)

The other boulder accumulations at the mouths of side canyons are 

apparently smaller than those just described. At any rate the fall 

of the series of rapids produced by any individual accumulation does 

not exceed 8 feet, so that if the above method is applied to them 

their partial depth would be found not to exceed a few feet.

The canyon filkat the mouth of Piute Creek and at the Thirteenfoot Eapid and in adjacent parts of the river is doubtless deeper than 

the partial depths given above. That the canyon fill is probably 

not great at any place is suggested by the short distances that alluvium was observed to extend up a few tributaries that have no

FIGURE 3. Section and profile running from the Thirteen-foot Rapid up the southern 

tributary creek at this place. Shows the possible depth of the canyon fill at the head 

of the rapid.

waterfalls in their lower courses. The alluvium does not extend 

more than half a mile up Nokai Creek, it apparently does not extend 

much more than a mile up Piute Creek, and it extends 0.7 mile up the 

creek at the Thirteen-foot Eapid.

The fill-covered bed of the last-named creek is composed of .the 

same rock formation (Chinle formation) that occurs along the creek 

for 1.3 miles or more south of the fill. (See fig. 3.) It seem's 

reasonable to assume that the fall of the buried creek bed is much 

the same as the fall of the creek south of the filled bed, because the 

Chinle formation, which is composed largely of marly shale, would 

not here contain resistant beds that would produce waterfalls. If 

this assumption is correct, the fall of the buried bed, 0.7 mile long, 

would be 180 feet, or at the rate of 260 feet to the mile, which is the 

same rate as that in the 1.3 miles south of the filled channel. The 

present fall of the creek in the last 0.7 mile is 100 feet. By this 

reasoning the creek channel at its mouth has been filled to a depth 

of about 80 feet. Yet on account of the tendency of streams to 

flatten somewhat their gradient toward their mouths, this 80 feet 

may be a maximum estimate. This would also be a maximum
SAN JUAN EIVBE AND TRIBUTARY STREAMS 69

estimate for the depth of the fill in the main canyon at this locality, 

because there is apparently no possibility of a buried waterfall at the 

mouth of the tributary. The marly shale of the Chinle formation 

extends fully 200 feet below the river surface.

The bowlder accumulation at the Thirteen-foot Rapid stands 20 

feet higher than the projected slope of the last 10.5 miles of the 

river. The fill at the base of the accumulation is therefore estimated 

to be about 60 feet deep.

The mouth of the San Juan is 73 miles above the proposed dam 

site at Lees Ferry, where recent borings show that the canyon fill is 

78 feet deep. From the San Juan to Lees Ferry the Colorado runs 

continuously between canyon walls of massive uniform-textured 

sandstones (Wingate and Navajo) of even hardness, has a bed rock 

floor of these standstones under the canyon fill, and has a rather 

uniform fall averaging 1.8 feet to the mile. These uniform conditions suggest that the depth of the canyon fill may not differ far 

from 80 feet at all places between Lees Ferry and the mouth of the 

San Juan.

The bedrock floor may roughly parallel the water surface between 

the foot of the Piute rapids and the head of the Thirteen-foot Rapid 

for the floor is everywhere in the soft marly beds of the Chinle formation. The canyon fill through this stretch of 8.5 miles may 

therefore have a somewhat uniform depth, whose maximum is 80 

feet. Then if the fall of the water surface in this stretch is projected 

upstream to the head of the Piute Rapids it is found that the boulder 

bar at the.mouth of Piute Creek stands 25 feet above the projected 

water surface. The logical conclusion from these statements is that 

the canyon fill at the mouth of Piute Creek may be as much as 105 

feet deep. Complete data, such as those used5 for estimating the 

depth of the canyon fill at the Thirteen-foot Rapid, are not available 

for such an estimate at the mouth of Piute Creek. The total distance 

that relatively thick deposits of fill extend up Piute Creek is not 

known. It is at least 1 mile.

That Piute Creek would carry a greater load of rock de"bris to the 

river than the creek joining the river at the Thirteen-foot Rapid 

and that the canyon fill is greater at the mouth of Piute Creek than 

at the mouth of the other creek appear to be supported by the following comparisons of the two creeks.

Both creeks join the river where its valley is comparatively open. 

Both have similar rocks in their drainage basins. Both are so near 

one another and so near Navajo Mountain, about which thunderstorms form in large numbers, that they would probably receive 

the same amount of rainfall. The drainage basin of Piute Creek is 

several times greater than that of the other creek; consequently its 

discharge would be greater than that of the other creek.
70 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

On the other hand, Piute Creek, with its greater discharge, might 

not carry a greater load of debris than the other creek; its fall per 

mile is only 85 feet for the first 9 miles above its mouth, whereas 

the fall per mile of the other creek doubtless exceeds 250 feet for its 

entire length, which is perhaps not more than 9 miles.

That the boulder accumulation at the mouth of Piute Creek 

has a considerable depth is indicated by the fact that it has acted 

as a dam, creating a stretch of slack water that extends about 45 

miles upstream, to a point near the mouth of Moonlight Greek. 

(See Plate XXII.) Within this distance the river crosses several 

belts of hard rocks separated by soft rocks, but nevertheless the fall 

of the river is nearly uniform for the whole distance, indicating that 

the fall is not influenced at any place by bedrock. Although the 

river has an average fall of 5 feet to the mile in this distance^ 

it is graded during normal stages and runs continuously over sand 

and minor amounts of other loose material.

The canyon fill between the mouths of Ghinle and MoonMght creeks 

is apparently absent or very thin at the places described in the 

preceding section. The thick fill that occurs between the mouths of 

Piute and Moonlight creeks therefore thins upstream. Whether the 

thinning is gradual or is abrupt at places can not be foretold in 

advance of drilling to bedrock. Yet the belts of hard rock may 

form ridges or high places under the fill, in consequence of whien 

the fill would be thinner at these places than elsewhere.

For a distance of 6.8 miles below the mouth of Slickhorn Gulch 

the fall of the river averages 11.6 feet to the mile, or almost twice 

the average fall (6 feet) of the river between Moonlight Creek and 

the Colorado. A part of the fall for a few miles below Slickhorn 

Gulch is due to the boulder bar at the mouth of the gulch and to thfc 

occurrence of huge boulders at other places, particularly near thd 

mouth of Grand Gulch; but a part of it is probably due to a charige 

in the character of the rocks of the canyon floor.

Between the mouths of Chinle Creek and Grand Gulch the bedrock of the canyon floor consists of the relatively hard limestone 

and sandstone of the Goodridge formation, except for short stretches 

near Mexican Hat and Goodridge. These rocks are harder and more 

difficult to erode than any other rocks found in San Juan Canyon. 

Their westward dip near the mouths of Slickhorn and Grand gulchea 

causes the hard rocks to disappear beneath the surface of the river 

at a point 2 miles below the mouth of Grand Gulch. Below this 

point the bedrock of the canyon floor consists of soft and easily 

eroded rocks (shale and sandstone), which overlie the Goodridge 

formation. Hard rocks similar in age and character to the Goodridge do not again appear at the surface farther down the San Juan
SAN" JUAN" EIVEB AND TBEBTJTARY STREAMS 71

and Colorado canyons until Marble Canyon in northern Arizona is 

reached.

Canyon fill is present at most places between the mouths of Chinle 

and Moonlight creeks. Its depth where present ranges from a 

feather edge to an unknown amount perhaps 50 feet. The depth at 

most places may not exceed 30 to 40 feet.

None of the above estimates of the depth of the canyon fill are 

perhaps more than wild guesses, yet the probable error is almost 

certainly within 100 per cent and is very likely within 50 per cent.

DBIFTWOOD ALONG SAN JUAN RIVER

Although there are few trees in San Juan Canyon, every sand and 

boulder bar has an abundant supply of driftwood that has been 

contributed by the headwaters of the river and by tributary streams 

during flood stages. In fact, the drift is so abundant that the river 

picks up enough fine trash, logs, and stumps to cover much of the 

surface of the stream during rising stages. The drift contains some 

green trees, but consists mostly of seasoned wood, including pine, 

pinon, cedar, and cottonwood. Some drift accumulations are 15 

to 20 feet in height, some were noted as far as 35 feet above the 

water surface, and some occupy areas of several acres. They have 

furnished not only fuel for prospectors and the Indians but poles 

and lumber for the construction of Indian hogans.

SPRINGS AND TRIBUTARY STREAMS

Springs in and near San Juan Canyon are few and small. The 

tributary streams west of Bluff, although rather numerous, are in 

large part intermittent and the flow of all is small except during 

floods, when a single tributary may assume the proportions of a 

river. Little or nothing has been published about most of these 

springs and streams. They are therefore described in the following paragraphs, in geographic order from east to west.

Butler Wash near its mouth runs in a canyon about 200 feet deep 

in the yellow sandstone of Comb Kidge. On July 18, 1921, when 

the mouth of the wash was seen, no water was flowing in the bottom 

of the canyon. There are at places narrow stretches of sandy loam 

as much as 20 feet deep, in which the wash and its side gullies have 

cut vertical-walled channels.

Comb Wash, as is indicated by its former name, Epsom Greek, 

contains considerable mineral matter. It was not observed by me.

Chinle Creek on July 19 was flowing perhaps 50 second-feet. It 

is stated by Gregory to be a permanent stream during normal 

years.48 It was crossed at a locality three-fourths of a mile above

** Gcegory, H. E., U. S. Geol. Survey Water-Supply P^per 380, p. 36, 1916.
72 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

its mouth, where boulders that project above the water could be 

used for a footing. An earlier attempt was made to cross the stream 

near its mouth. The attempt was not abandoned until after I had 

reached a point in the mud-filled channel where I sank more than 

knee deep into the stiff red mud. Wading deeper into the mud 

would have been hazardous, because I was alone.

A spring of good cold water was found by the Trimble party on 

the north side of the San Juan just east of The Narrows (PL II, A). 

Needless to say, it was used to replace the none too clear river water 

that was being carried in our canteens and water bags.

A spring known as Soda Spring occurs at the water's edge on the 

left bank of the San Juan at the south end of Soda Basin. The 

water is clear but is so heavily charged with mineral salts that it is 

not drinkable. Soda Basin, which is a comparatively wide part of 

the canyon, takes its name from the spring.

Lime Creek was crossed on the morning of July 22, 1921, when it 

was flowing several second-feet of clear water.

Gypsum Creejk, which I did not cross, is said by Gregory to run 

practically all the time, but the water is. so strongly alkaline that it 

is avoided by both man and beast.

The stream draining Johns Canyon has a fall of 60 to 75 feet at 

its mouth, though no water was flowing from the canyon on August 

5, 1921, when it was passed. Beneath the fall there is an elliptical 

pool 70 by 100 feet filled with clear water, which was utilized by the 

party for drinking and bathing. The water in the pool had clarified 

by the settling of the mud to the bottom.

A spring named Sulphur Spring by the Trimble party, from the 

presence of much hydrogen sulphide in the water, issues on the right 

bank of the river at a point 3% miles below the mouth of Johns 

Canyon. The spring, whose flow would fill a 3-inch pipe, issues 

among a jumbled mass of limestone boulders that lie at the base of a 

cliff of shaly, flinty limestone 15 feet high and at the edge of a 

sand bar.

The stream draining Slickhorn Gulch was observed on August 6 

and 7, 1921, when it was flowing a fraction of a second-foot of pure, 

clear water. The last half mile of the stream was mapped by K. W. 

Trimble, and was found to have a fall of 150 feet.

Grand Gulch, which is a narrow and tortuous canyon, with red 

walls several hundred feet high, heads in the slopes south of Elk 

Eidge and runs in a southwesterly direction, joining San Juan 

Canyon at a point 3^ miles below the mouth of Slickhorn Gulch. 

According to earlier maps it joins the San Juan at a point some 10 

miles farther west, near Clay Hill Crossing. At its mouth there 

is a waterfall 50 feet high. On August 8, 1921, a clear stream of 

pure water with a flow of a few second-feet was pouring over the
SAF JUAN RIVEB AND TEIBTJTABY STEEAMS 7

fall. In the upper part of the gulch water is stated to be found at 

most places throughout the year.

Moonlight Creek, according to Gregory, is perennial for the last 4 

miles of its course, and is intermittent for the next 18 miles. The 

cascade waterfall at the mouth of its canyon was passed by the 

Trimble party on August 9, 1921. The creek was then pouring into 

the river a flood of red muddy water, much of which was breaking 

into red spray. The near-by cliffs and boulders had received a coat 

of red mud by the settling of the spray on. them. The canyon could 

not be ascended from the river.

A waterfall, over which a clear stream flowing less than a secondfoot was observed on August 9, 1921, at a point on the north side of 

San Juan Canyon 3*4 miles by river below the mouth of Moonlight 

Creek. A similar waterfall on the same side of the San Juan is 

about iy2 miles east of Clay Hill Crossing.

The fairly large intermittent stream that enters the San Juan from 

the north about half a mile east of Clay Hill Crossing is marked by 

seeps and water-filled potholes, but we found the water so charged 

with mineral salts that we could not use it.

A herdsman's headquarters during the grazing season in the winter 

is 25 miles northeast of Clay Hill Crossing, at a place known as Red 

House. Here there is a small building made of red sandstone, a 

spring that was filled with mud at the time of visit (August 11 and 

12), and two ponds that had been filled with red water from recent 

rains. Although the water was still red from fine silt that had not 

settled to the bottom and was the abode of thousands of tadpoles, it 

was a most welcome sight to Bert Loper and me after we had spent 

a day in walking from the San Juan to this place beneath a scorching sun. The water in our. canteens was exhausted two or three 

hours before we reached Red House, and my dry tongue had been 

sticking to the roof of my mouth for more than an hour.

Rockhouse Gulch, so named from a stone hogan 1% miles southeast 

of its mouth, is drained by an intermittent stream. At times we 

found the stream channel marked by potholes of clear pure water, 

and at other times there was a stream flowing several second-feet. 

The next stream to the southwest, entering the river from the east, 

is also intermittent. Its water is charged with considerable mineral 

matter.

The small stream draining Clay Gulch is intermittent. It was 

flowing late in August, 1921, but the water was heavily charged: with 

mineral salts.

A spring flowing a fraction of a second-foot is on the south point 

of a ridge about 2 miles west-northwest of the mouth of Clay Gulch. 

It issues at the base of the Navajo sandstone at an altitude of about
74 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

1,000 feet above the river. This spring and adjoining seeps provide 

water for a small patch of vegetation comprising grass, flowers, oaks, 

cedars, and cottonwoods. The locality has apparently been visited 

at times by herdsmen, for it is truly an oasis in this high barren 

country.

Spring Greek enters the right side of San Juan a quarter of a 

mile north of the mouth of Copper Canyon. It was followed on 

August 31,1921, to a point about 4% miles by stream from the river. 

It was then flowing a few second-feet of clear pure water except along 

the last mile of its course, where the channel was marked by small pools 

of water. Two excellent springs one flowing enough water to fill 

a 2-inch pipe and the other a larger spring 600 feet farther east 

occur on the north side of the stream at a locality about 3 miles above 

its mouth. The canyon drained by this stream is followed by a poor 

trail. It contains many cottonwoods especially in the part of the 

canyon above the springs.

Copper Creek was followed on September 2,1921, to a point about 

5 miles in a straight line above its mouth. Through much of this 

distance its bed contained a stream flowing a few second-feet of 

usable water, though it tasted strongly of mineral matter.

Nokai Creek was followed on September 9,1921, to a point about 

7% miles in a straight line above its mouth. At that time the creek 

was flowing a fraction of a second-foot at some places, but at other 

places its bed was marked simply by pools. The water, although it 

contains considerable mineral matter in solution, is usable.

A stream that was followed for 4 miles in a northeasterly direction enters the river from the north at a point opposite Spencer 

Camp. About 2 miles from the river there is a large spring of excellent water, which issues near the base of the Wingate sandstone. 

The water from it runs about a mile down the gulch before it disappears among boulders and other loose material. Near the spring 

the bottom of the gulch is covered with a- tangled mass of jagged 

boulders, vines, shrubs, and cottonwoods. The gulch is impassablefor horses, and even walking is difficult.

The part of the canyon in the Great Bend is joined by several 

side canyons, all of which probably contain small perennial streams.. 

None of them could be ascended except Alcove Canyon, near the west 

end of the bend. No trails lead up the canyon, and no sign wasf ound that it had been visited previously by man. The canyon was ascended to a point 1^ miles away from the river, beyond which a high 

waterfall prevents further progress. In the distance traversed it 

contains a small perennial stream fed by several springs of excellent 

water and by rivulets that leap from the tops of the high cliffs.
SAN JUAN RIVER AND TRIBUTARY STREAMS 75

Several springs and seeps flowing a fraction of a second-foot each 

occur along San Juan Canyon at and near the west end of the Great 

Bend. The springs issue at different altitudes on the sandstone cliffs.

Piute Creek was ascended on September 22, 1921, to a point 9 

miles from the San Juan. It was then flowing a clear stream of 

perhaps a few second-feet at some places, but at other places the creek 

bed was marked by pools separated by stretches of loose stream 

material through which the water seeped. The water was usable, 

though at places it tasted rather strongly of mineral- matter. 

Gregory ** says, " In July, 1910, the estimated flow of Piute Creek 6 

miles above its mouth was 0.20 second-foot, and the average of two 

estimates made in June, 1913, at points near the head of the canyon 

was 0.15 second-foot. A sulphur spring of small size occurs in the bottom of a tributary canyon near a cluster of cottonwoods at a distance 

of 2^ miles from the river. Much evidence was observed to indicate that the creek had been in flood one or more times in 1921 prior 

to our visit. Such floods had reached a height of 15 to 20 feet in 

the narrower parts of the canyon and had swept away all vegetation 

in their path, including grass, trees, and shrubs. Very few cottonwoods are found along the bed of the canyon, and these stand in elevated places that are not reached by floods.

Five perennial streams enter the south side of the San Juan west 

of Piute Creek. They all run in deep canyons and apparently head 

in the north base of Navajo Mountain. Their names were not 

learned by our party, because we saw no Indians west of Piute 

Creek and could not identify them with certainty from Gregory's 

map. To three tributary creeks of the San Juan he applied the 

names Desha, Cha, and Junction, but his usage differs from that 

given on maps in recent articles by Morris 45 and Bernheimer.49 

It is therefore not advisable to apply names to the five streams 

mentioned above until their identification can be established.

The first southern tributary west of Piute Creek is a stream of 

clear, good water with a flow of less than a second-foot. It descends 

over a waterfall 20 to 30 feet high half a mile south of the river. 

The canyon drained by it was not ascended beyond the waterfall, 

for a ladder 20 to 30 feet long would have been required to climb a 

cliff at the east end of the fall. The creek had discharged one or 

more floods in 1921 prior to our visit in that vicinity, which was 

late in September of that year.

** Gregory, H. E., U. S. Geol. Survey Water-Supply Paper 380, p. 87, 1916. 

45 Morris, E. H., An unexplored area of the Southwest: Natural History, vol. 22, No. 6, 

pp. 499-51-5, 1922.

* Bernheimer, C. I*, Encircling Navajo Mountain with a pack train: Nat Geog. Mag., 

vol. 43, No. 2, p. 198, February, 192S.

96640 24 6
76 TIJE SAJST JUAN CAN YON

The southern tributary entering the river 3 miles in a straight 

line west of the mouth of Piute Creek was flowing a little less than 

a second-foot of clear excellent water when it was visited September 28 and 29, 1921. It was ascended by the Trimble party for a 

distance of 2^/4 miles in a straight line above its mouth. The 

canyon in which it flows has numerous water-filled potholes of small 

and large size, around some of which it is difficult to pass. One or 

more floods were discharged by this stream in 1921 prior to September .28. These floods reached a height of 15 to 20 feet in the 

narrower parts of the canyon and swept away practically all the 

cottonwood trees. The few battered trees still standing are 10 years 

or more old, suggesting that the floods of 1921 were more violent 

than any others for a period of fully 10 years preceding 1921.

Wilson Creekx a perennial stream, runs in a crooked, deep, and 

very narrow canyon whose floor is forested with many trees, especially cottonwoods. It is so wild and inaccessible that the trail 

leading north from the river at this locality does not follow up the 

bottom of the canyon but ascends the canyon wall near the mouth 

of the creek. Christensen, who ascended the canyon for a short 

distance, found the tracks of a mountain lion. The creek when it 

was visited on September 29 and 30 was flowing about half a secondfoot of clear, exceptionally good water. A spring whose water 

enters the creek is in the head of a small canyon half a mile northeast of the mouth of the creek; its location is marked by a dense 

growth of trees and grass.

The first canyon on the south side of the river below Wilson Creek 

is comparatively short, probably not much over a mile in length, 

and is drained by an intermittent stream. No water was flowing 

rfrom it when its mouth was passed on September 30, 1921.

A perennial stream flowing a fraction of a second-foot enters 

the river at the Thirteen-foot Rapid, 2*4 miles in a straight Mne 

below the mouth of Wilson Creek and 11% miles by stream above 

the mouth of the river. The canyon in which it runs was follow.ed 

by me to the forks 2 miles away from the river and then the west 

fork was followed for almost 2 miles more. This fork, which heads 

in the north base of Navajo Mountain, presents some of the wildest 

scenery found on the tributaries of the San Juan. The canyon, like 

most others in the vicinity, is narrow; its walls are vertical, inaccessible cliffs and boulder-strewn slopes; the canyon floor is dotted 

here and there by dense thickets of shrubbery and trees; and the 

creek draining it has two low falls from which it plunges into large, 

deep pools. A person who traverses such canyons must use extreme 

caution with every step to guard against falling and serious injury. 

The water in the stream is clear and is drinkable. Several springs
WATEE SUPPLIES 7T

or seeps of sulphur water, whose odor is strong at some places, join 

the creek below the forks of the canyon. One or more floods were 

discharged by the creek in 1921 prior to the time of our visit, October 1, 1921. Although the torrents did not exceed a depth of 6 or 

7 feet, they toppled over some of the fairly numerous cottonwoods. 

The uniform age of most of the cottonwoods apparently 10 to 15 

years suggests that one or more violent floods swept practically all 

the trees from the canyon some 10 to 15 years ago.

A short box canyon on the south side of the river, which is S1/^ 

miles by stream above the mouth of the San Juan, could not be 

ascended more than several hundred feet on account of a waterfall a 

few hundred feet high. "The stream draining the canyon was discharging into the river less than a second-foot of clear, pure water* 

when it was observed on October 2, 1921.

The last perennial tributary enters the river at a point 5% miles by

On October 3, 1921, it was discharging 

into the river a few second-feet of pure, clear water. It was followed for a distance of a most 2 miles by stream above its mouth. 

Water was then running not only in its main canyon but also in its 

two forks, though no wa 

miles away from the river 

sufficient to fill a 1-inch p 

feet east of the junction.

several flowing wells, four

depths of 800 feet and less

;er was found in them farther than

A spring of excellent water with a flow 

pe occurs in the east fork a few hundred

It issues from a joint in the steep north 

canyon wall at 60 feet above the bottom of the canyon. The water in 

running down the wall keeps alive a small patch of luxuriant grass 

and shrubs that literally cling to the steep, smooth wall, although 

it is solid sandstone.

WATER SUPPLIES

Water for the inhabitants of the village of Bluff is obtained from

of them 800 feet deep, one 1,085 feet deep,

and another 1,165 feet dee] >. The water-bearing beds, which occur at

, are probably in the Wingate sandstone.'1

Water for the few families at the village of Mexican Hat and the 

Spencer trading post is hauled in wagons from the San Juan and 

then placed in large tanks, where it clarifies by the settling of the 

silt. Water for Mexican Hat was for a number of years pumped 

from the San Juan to a ste.ndpipe near the village.

Drinking water for the Trimble party was obtained mostly from 

the San Juan, though some was obtained from springs, some from 

tributary streams, and so^ne from rock " tanks." The water thus 

obtained was generally fifee from noticeable quantities of mineral 

matter in solution, but it all was charged with so much silt that the

** Gregory, H. E., U. S. Geol. Survey Water-Supply Paper 380, p. 182, 1916.
7'8 THE SAN JUAN CANYON

bottoms of our two water pails, a^fter being filled with water, could 

seldom be seen. In faqty the river was m^ddy at all times during the 

descent of the canyon, jfrom July l&to October 3,1921, yet the river 

water left standing in the pails over nig^t would clarify by the complete settling of the silt. Water clarified in this way was used as 

much as possible in filling our canteens and water bags when it could 

not be had from other sources. Constant use was made of our canteens and water bags, even during the descent of the river, but notwithstanding this precaution the supply of clear water frequently 

became exhausted, requiring the use of muddy water.

On July 18 and 19 and from about September 10 to 30 the river 

water, though muddy and with a gray and grayish-buff color, was 

free enough from silt to permit its use for drinking after the sand 

had been permitted to settle to the bottom of the pails or drinking 

cups. During these periods it could also be used for washing clothes. 

From July 20 to about September 10 and from October 1 to 3 the 

river was so laden with silt that water obtained directly from it was 

used very little for these purposes. It was used for bathing, but the 

body of the bather on emerging from the river would be covered with 

red and dark stripes and splotches, depending on the color of the 

muddy water. During these periods a hole was dug deep enough in 

sand or gravel near the water's edge to permit water to seep into it 

from the river and thereby be filtered naturally by the sand and 

gravel. Such holes required a crude lining of stones to keep the wet 

creeping sand from completely filling them. The rapid and frequent fluctuations of the river made it necessary to dig several such 

holes at a camp within a single day. During rises they would be 

flooded, but during recessions they would be drained and thus left 

high and dry.

Water was frequently obtained from basins in sand where it was 

left during recessions of the river. The mud in such water would 

gradually settle on the bottoms and sides of the basins, thus making 

a relatively impervious lining. Such ponded water, after standing a 

few days, becomes rather strongly charged with mineral salts; this is 

apparently due to the evaporation of the water and the consequent 

concentration of the salts.
INDEX

Page

Access to the canyon-...__.. . 26-33 

Acknowledgments for aid.....__.,___.. 4

Alcove Canyon, description of.------- 13-14

Alhambra Rock, plate showing---__ 4 8 

Alter, J. CecU, cited -J 31-32

Animals of theregioa...--.______j_ 20-21 

Archaeology of the region.---.-- ... 25-26

B I

Balance Bock, near Nokai Creek, features of. 12-13

plate showing...__.________ 8

Bluff, Utah, description of.--.-.._..--__ 1,23

nature of San Juan River valley near.... 7-8

plate showing..._..._____..__ 8

..routes to...._____________-_ 27

Boulders, accumulation and removal of-.-... 62-64

Bridge over San Juan River, location of_.-- 27

Bridges, natural, below Piute Creek___.. 15

Butler Wash, features of.-..-._.____ 71

Camps, locating of.._______._____ 5

Canyon, abandoned, near Colorado River... 15

Canyon fill, deposition and removal of- 58-59,60-64

depth of _ _ . 67-71

sources of......____-------____ 59-60

thin deposits of..__.___________ 64-67 

Cedar Point, features of the canyon near.... 8-10

Channel of San Juan River, character of_.. 48-50 

Chinle Creek, description of. ............. 71-72

features of the canyon near..______ 7-9 

Chinle formation, nature and occurrence of.. 37 

Clay Gulch, features of the canyon near__ 12 

views of San Juan Canyon below mouth

of, plates showing..._.___ 8 

Clay Hill Crossing, features of the canyon

near._____-__._ _. 9-11 

View toward the south near, plate shpwing-- ... . , 34 

view toward the west near, plate showing. .. 12 

Clay Hill Pass, view toward the east from,

plates showing....-____. 34

Cliff dwellings, ruins of....--..------.-.,--- 25-26

Climate of the region-...-------.--------.--. 16-18

Coconino sandstone, occurrence of __ 35-36 

Colorado'River, depth of canyon fill in, below

mouth of San Juan River..___ 69 

junction of San Juan River with, plate

showing-__------_..._.-- 50

Colors of the rocks..--..----.-------..----. 8-9,12

Comb Ridge, gorge through. __.__. __ 7-8 

Copper Creek, descripton of...._--------- 74

Course and drainage basin of San Juan River. 41-42 

Current of San Juan River...___.__- _ 47-48

D

Depth of the canyon..-.._______ 8,9,13,14

Difficulties of navigating San Juan River^... 3,

42,49-50, 51, 53-54,55-56

tPaga 

Discharge of San Juan River...... 42-46

Driftwood, accumulation of... 71

E

Entrance to San Juan Canyon, plate showing. 8 

Explorations, previous.... 2-3

Fall of San Juan River......-. ..... 47-48

of tributaries of San Juan River.. 60 

Farming along the canyon... 24-25 

Farmington, N. Mex., discharge of San Juan

River at.__....--.___...... 45-46

Field work, record of.______ 1-2 

Fish, exhausted, catching of, plate showing.. 50 

killed by silt in river...________. 57 

Flood-swollen river at Piute Farms, plate

showing 50 

Floods in San Juan Canyon, height and force

of....____.____....__.. 55-56

O

Geology of the region_________ 33-41 

Gilbert, G. K., cited...._.__.__..._ 54 

Gold, prospecting for.... _ . 21-22 

Goodridge, Utah, description of..........'. 1,23

discharge of San Juan River near. 43

roads from..... 27 

Goodridge formation, nature and occurrence

of.... . - 33-35 

Gorges in San Juan River.---.--- ----- 65-66 

Grand Gulch, features of....__.__ 10

stream in... _ 72-73

Gravel, deposits of..... _ 39-40

Great Bend, location and length of.. 14

views of San Juan Canyon in, plates

showing.___..-_---.. 12

views toward the south from lower end of,

plates showing.... 12 

Gregory, H. E., cited.. 5-6,19

H

Hole in the Rock, on Colorado River, plate

showing... ... 34 

Honaker Trail, view from hepd of, plate

showing.. ... ... 8 

view looking downstream near, plate

showing..___... 34 

view toward the northwest from head of,

plate showing... .. 34

Indians of the region.. ___________ 5,23,24 

Inhabitants of the region... 22-24

Johns Canyon, view of rapid near, plate

showing.__..____-.____ 34 

views of San Juan Canyon near, plates

showing.____.__ 8

79
80 INDEX

Kayenta, Ariz., routes through 

L

Page 

26,27,29-30

Location and surroundings of the canyon. _ 1 

M

McEImo formation, occurrence of______ 39 

Map, geologic, of San Juan Canyon and

adjacent country... 34 

Mexican Hat, Utah, description of_.._... 1,23 

roads from__________________ 27 

view of canyon looking south toward,

plate showing_....._...__ 8 

Moenkopi formation, occurrence and correlation of.____________.. 36-37 

Moonlight Creek, flow at mouth of. ____ 73 

San Juan Canyon below mouth of, plate

showing____________.... 8

Mormons, road built by___________ 31-32

road built by, plates showing______ 34

N

Narrows, Second, plate showing_______ 8

The, plate showing. ___________ 8

in San Juan Canyon, descriptions of 65-67

Navajo Indians, services of___._____.. 5

Navajo Mountain, height of._________ 6,11

Navajo sandstone, features of........ ..... 39

rock sculpture in..__.________.. 38-39 

Nokai Creek, description of_________ 74 

trails along and across. __________ 28,29 

view toward the north near, plate showing-.....-.......-...-..... ... 12

view toward the south near, plate showing.............................. 12

view toward the west near, plate showing.... ....................... 12

O

Oil, formation yielding....__________ 34-35

prospecting for____ .._________ 21

Oljeto, route through_____________ 28

Organ Rock, plate showing_________ 8

Pierce, R. C., cited ..______.... 54-55,57-58

Piute Creek, canyon fill at mouth of____ 67-70

description of_______________ 75

mesa of marly shale near, plate showing. 12

view near mouth of, plate showing___ 34

Piute Farms, features of San Juan River

valley near.. _...___ 11-12 

Piute Indians, character of__________ 5 

Population of the region ..__.. 22-24 

Profile of San Juan River between mouth of 

Chinle Creek and junction with 

Colorado River_________ 64

Q

Quicksand, accumulation of-..._______ 61

R

Tage 

Rainfall of the region.._____._........ 16

Rapids in San Juan Canyon, descriptions

of... ..... . 47-48, 50-52

plates showing__________._._ 34

Red House, pools at________.. .. 73

Roads and trails of the region_______... 26-33

I, accumulation Of ___________ 61,62 

Sand waves, plates showing...____...... 50

Shinarump conglomerate, nature and occurrence of__________...... 37

Shiprock, N. Mex., discharge of San Juan

River near____________.. 43-45 

Silt in San Juan River_____________ 56-58 

Slickhorn Gulch, stream in._____... 72

view of San Juan Canyon near mouth

of, plate showing.. . 8 

Soils of the region____________ 18 

Spencer Camp, features of the canyon near.. 13-14

view toward the east near, plate showing.................. . 12

Spring Creek, description of...._ . 74

Springs, locations of......__._.... . 71-77

Structure of the rocks 40-41 

Supai (?) formation, occurrence of.. 35 

Surface features of the region.... 6-15

T

Tabernacle, The, plate showing 8 

Temperature of the region......... 16-17

Thirteen-foot Rapid, tributary at, canyon

fill at mouth of.. _______ 67,68-69 

tributary near, description of 76-77 

view looking upstream toward, plate

showing _______ . 34 

Thundershower, plate showing; . 8 

Thunderstorms, prevalence and violence of.. 16 

Todilto (?) formation, nature of_.. 38 

Train Rock, plate showing-. 8 

Travel in the region. 4-6 

Tributaries of San Juan River, descriptions .

of.. .. ..__ 42,71-77

Vegetation of the region..___. 18-20 

W

Water supplies, sources of. 77-78

Waves, nature and causes of. 52-55

of swift water, plate showing . 50

sand, plates showing.. 50

Width of San Juan River____.. ....... 8,11

Wilson Creek, description of 76 

Wilson Mesa, features of 11-12 

Windstorms, description of. 17-18 

Wingate sandstone, nature and occurrence of. 38

Zahns Camp, features of the canyon near 13

O