In the fall of 1879 volunteers for the expedition assembled their wagons, supplies, and livestock at a spring at the head of
Fortymile Gulch, just south of the deep
canyons of the Escalante River Basin, and just north of the cliffs of the
Kaiparowits Plateau. A smaller group went ahead to find and prepare a crossing for
Glen Canyon and the
Colorado River. At Cottonwood Canyon they saw a tempting route up from the far side of the river and, on the near side, a narrow crevice that might allow a descent into the canyon. Naming it
Hole-in-the-Rock, they proceeded to spend several months widening it for the passage of wagons, and building anchor points and tracks to assist with the descent. The main expedition proceeded on what is now the
Hole in the Rock Trail and, on January 26, 1880, began their descent to the river. People and livestock climbed down the crevice, and wagons descended with brakes locked and as many as 10-20 men holding ropes to slow the descent. A wooden trackway near the bottom provided access around a gulch filled with boulders. A wooden ferry was built at the river by Charles Hall, and was used to cross the river. Despite the perilous nature of this route, all of the expedition made the descent (a third of it on the first day). A member of the expedition, Kumen Jones, wrote:
After about six weeks work and waiting for powder, etc., a start was made to move the wagons down the hole. I had a well broken team and hitched it on to B. Perkins wagon and drove it down through the hole. Long ropes were provided and about 20 men and boys held on to the wagons to make sure that there would be no accidents, through [brakes] giving way, or horses cutting up after their long lay off, but all went smooth and safe, and by the 28th, most of the wagons were across the river and work had commenced again on the Cottonwood Canyon another very rough proposition. However, the expedition found much greater difficulty on the east side of the river. A maze of canyons, mesas, and cliffs extending from the Colorado and San Juan Rivers makes this area almost impassible. The deep canyons of
Grand Gulch had to be bypassed completely, forcing the expedition far to the north. Finally, they arrived at Salvation Knoll, atop
Cedar Mesa near present-day
Natural Bridges National Monument. They could now see an easier slope that would lead them down into
Comb Wash, through which they could travel back south to the San Juan River. After traveling further east, and just twenty miles from their original goal, the exhausted expedition halted in April 1880 and founded the community of
Bluff. A journey planned for six weeks had instead taken six months. There were no deaths, and three children were born. The expedition's route was used as a supply road for just a year, and then Charles Hall moved his ferry to an easier
crossing further north, one that was accessed by easier routes on both sides of the river. ==In popular culture==