It was not an exaggeration that, up to that point, they all survived on borrowed time, given all the accidents and close calls that they encountered along the way while running the rapids, rowing, portaging the four heavy boats with all their food, utensils, instruments, and clothes, and other needed supplies.
The raid of a Native American garden left unattended, not far from the Uinta Indian Agency, from which they stole potatoes, vines and all, almost killed them. Sick of dried beans, bacon, and hard tack, they decided to eat the greenery too. How bad could it be, they wondered? Unbeknownst to them, a ragtag of ten Civil War veterans and adventurers, potato greens are a relative of the deadly nightshade. Both plants contain the hallucinogen solanine.
To say that they were deadly sick in the middle of nowhere, far from any civilization and medical remedies, is an understatement. As they all recovered, there is no doubt that they were quite tough and resilient. A mile down the river from the garden, the thieving gang must have regretted their crime. Sumner wrote, "such a gang of sick men I never saw before or since." Hall wrote that "he had coughed up a potato vine a foot long, with a potato on it as big as a goose egg." Even the tough Powell was in bad shape.
The boats pulled to shore and "we tumbled under the trees, groaning in pain, and I feel a little alarmed, lest our poisoning be severe," wrote Hall. By supper time, most of them recovered and Sumner wrote that he "didn't think potato tops made good greens for the sixth day of July." Bradley comically remarked on the poisoning incident, "we shan't eat any more potato-tops this season."
Two days later the expedition found itself in such a bleak canyon that they named it Desolation Canyon. Grey and brown rocks surrounded them everywhere and shut up hundreds of feet. Not having any ropes, safety gear, and missing one arm which he had lost in the Civil War, Powell decided to climb up with Bradley and a barometer to measure the elevation.
They started from a gulch, passing broken rocks, crevices, benches, until they ascended six or eight hundred feet and then suddenly found themselves in front of sheer precipice.
Inching their way up a couple of feet at a time and passing the barometer back and forth, the pair found themselves suddenly in dire straits. Powell wrote, "I gain a foothold in a little crevice and grasp an angle of the rock overhead. I find I can get up no further and cannot step back."
Powell had no choice and called Bradley for help. Bradley was on a ledge above Powell but could not reach him nor could he stretch any stick to haul him up. If the one-arm Powell let go, he would fall. As it was, he was standing on his toes and his muscles began to tremble, an involuntary spasming called today "sewing machine leg."
Powell wrote, "If I lose my hold, I shall fall to the bottom, and then perhaps roll over the bench, and tumble still further down the cliff." The top of the cliff was at about 1,000 feet altitude. One cannot imagine that today anyone would attempt climbing such a sheer cliff without ropes and gear, especially while missing one arm.
Bradly devised a "desperate scheme." He stripped his tattered drawers and dangled them for Powell to catch from below. The problem was that the rock was hanging above Powell's head and the drawers dangled behind him.
To grab this unusual lifeline, the one-arm Major Powell had to let go of his handhold, lean back into empty space, grab the drawers with his left arm, and pray that he would not lose his grip and tumble hundreds of feet below to his death.
Bradley, weighing in at 150 pounds, was able to hold onto his drawers from which 120-pound Powell was dangling with all his might.
The pair continued their climb as if nothing had happened and once they reached the summit at 1,000 feet above the river, they were rewarded with a view of "wild and desolate outlook, with sharp, jagged peaks in all directions."
Bradley and Powell lived another day and their three-boat expedition on the Colorado River inside the Grand Canyon continued.
NOTE: The two stories were told in the 2001 book, Down the Great Unknown, by Edward Dolnick.
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