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Hole-in-the-Rock Expedition
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O. Ned Eddins
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Utah's Hole-in-the-Rock expedition to settle the San Juan area in the four corners of the United States is a feat unparalleled in American colonization. The Hole-in-the-Rock trail passed through present-day Grand Staircase Escalante, crossed the Colorado River and Grey Mesa, and then up San Juan Hill to reach the area of present-day Bluff Utah. The roughly two hundred and fifty mile Hole in the Rock Trail took the Mormon pioneers over six months to complete. The Hole in the Rock narrative is more than men and women colonizing a new area. It is the “can do”, or as Jens Nielson would say "stickie-ta-tudy", attitude of the American pioneer. Building the Hole in the Rock trail and the settlement of Utah's San Juan country is a fitting epitaph to the determination and the perseverance of the American colonist throughout American westward expansion.
The uncompromising determination of the Hole in the Rock trail settlers was exemplified by the leader of the Cedar City group, Jens Nielson. A member of the Willey Handcart Company, the rescue party did not have big enough shoes to fit Jens' rag-bound feet. Struggling over Rocky Ridge, his feet froze to the point he could go no farther...Jen's right foot remained at a right angle the rest of his life. Jens dropped in the snow and begged his wife, Else, to leave him. Without hesitation, the less than a hundred pound Else loaded Jens on the handcart and pulled him the rest of the way to Rock Creek—in history, the man is usually given all the credit, but in this case and countless others, without Else there may not have been a Jens. Bodil Mortenson cared for young Jens Nielson Jr. while Else pulled his father in the handcart. When Bodil reached the camp, she gathered sage for a fire. Exausted from the ordeal of Rocky Ridge, she leaned against one of the cart wheels to rest. She died--the sage still in her hand. Bodil and Jens Jr. are buried at the Rocky Ridge gravesite.
The Mormon Church wanted to settle the San Juan area in part to protect southern Utah settlements from non-Mormons, outlaws, and to create better relations with the Indians. April 13, 1879, Silas Smith and an exploratory party left Paragonah (near Cedar City, Utah) to blaze a trail to the four-corners area of the San Juan River The exploratory party consisted of twenty-six men, two women, eight children, eight wagons, eighty horses, and sixty-six head of cattle--two of the members were Jens Nielson's son Joe and his son-in-law Kumen Jones. The two families with the party intended to settle on Montezuma Creek just above where it emptied into the San Juan River.
The Smith party crossed the Colorado River at Lee’s Ferry. Before reaching the Moenkopi Indian village, Smith had lost a third of the cattle. Indians informed Smith wagons could not reach the San Juan River area—the rough terrain had little forage and water. Smith left the cattle and the Davis family at the Indian village—Mrs. Davis was expecting a baby within a few weeks.
The Three Sisters - Monument Valley
After reaching Montezuma Creek, four men went back after the Davis family and the cattle. The rest of the men built two cabins and worked on irrigation ditches for the Harrison H. Harriman and James L. Davis families. Five other families were located not far away on McElmo Creek—four of the families were non-Mormon.
Wilson Arch
- Moab
The Smith party returned by way of Moab. At the edge of the La Salle Mountains, they found the old Spanish Trail and followed it back to Paragonah.
Old Spanish Trail
The Smith Expedition took five months to travel one thousand miles—roughly five hundred miles either way. With a favorable report, the San Juan Mission was established, but it was decided to search for a more direct route. Charles Hall of Escalante was sent to find a wagon route to the Colorado River. Fifty-five miles southeast of Escalante, Hall found a narrow cleft in the canyon rim.
Charles Hall reported to Church Authorities he found a fissure in the canyon wall with a series of steep benches to the Colorado River. He estimated the distance to the river as three quarters of a mile with a two thousand foot drop—the first forty-five feet of the cleft was virtually perpendicular.
Hole-in-the-Rock Fissure - Google Images - NPS.Gov
Hole-in-the-Rock - Lake Powell
Andrew Schow and Rueban Collett were sent to explorer a possible trail on the other side of the Colorado River. A few miles above the Hole-in-the-Rock opening, the two men lowered a wagon box off the cliff. Using the wagon box to cross the river, the men climbed up high enough to see the San Juan and Colorado River junction. Satisfied, the two men returned to Escalante and reported it could be done.
The Cleft - BLM Photo
The canyon rim route was chosen because it was shorter than the northern alternative and safer than the southern route through Navajo Indian lands. The distance from Escalante to the San Juan was estimated at two hundred and fifty miles and would require about six weeks.
San Juan Mission Route
A call to fill the San Juan Mission was issued by the Mormon Church. Settlers from Iron, Washington, Millard, and Garfield counties answered the call, including several non-Mormons wanting safe passage to the Colorado gold fields.
The settlers assigned to the San Juan Mission were carefully selected. The average age of adults was twenty-eight. The eighty-three wagons carried plows and seed grains—tied to the sides of the wagons were water barrels, cages of ducks, chickens, rabbits, and boxed bee hives. These settlers did not plan to return—the San Juan country was their new home.
On October 22, 1879, men, women, and children started for Escalante. The wagons were pulled primarily by horses, but a few had oxen. The first company consisted of Mormons from Cedar City, with Jens Nielson the leader. Other groups joined the Cedar City group from Parowan and Paragonah. Wagon groups from various place met southeast of Escalante at Forty-mile Spring. A road would have to be built from Forty-mile Spring to the Colorado Rim.
By the twentieth of November, two hundred people with eighty-three wagons and well over a thousand head of horses and cattle were at Forty-mile Spring. While camped at Forty-mile Spring, dances were often held at nearby Dance Hall Rock.
Dance Hall Rock
Jens Nielson sent four men to explorer from the Colorado River to the San Juan River. Gone a week, only one of them, George C. Hobbs, thought it was possible to continue with wagons. The other three men believed wagons could not reach the San Juan area.
A meeting was held on the fourth of December, and after a long deliberation, the vote to continue was nearly unanimous. By the tenth of December, the Forty-mile camp had moved to Fifty-mile Spring.
On the seventeenth of December, a scouting party was sent to Montezuma Creek with two horses and two pack mules. Enough food was packed for eight days. By the time the party reached present-day Bluff, the men had not eaten for four days. The men were surprised to find a Mormon family there from Colorado. The Harris family was not much better off than the weary travelers. All they had left to eat was a small sack of wheat.
The next morning, the explorers continued on to the Harriman and Davis families on Montezuma Creek—like the Harris family, they had little to eat. Due to the heat and lack of water, the settlers were unable to grow sufficient crops.
The four men from the Hole-in-the-Rock group obtained forty-eight pounds of flour for twenty dollars from Peter Shirts—an old trapper living on Montezuma Creek since 1877. Leaving Montezuma Creek, the party followed an ancient Indian trail around Grand Gulch. Thirty miles beyond Grand Gulch, they climbed onto Grey Mesa—the men marked the trail with rock cairns. The exploratory party returned on the ninth of January to report a road would be difficult, but possible.
Two camp sites were established--one at the rim and one at Fifty-mile Spring. Half of the men stayed at Fifty-mile spring and the other half established a camp near the rim. The company was divided into five work groups: one to work at the crevice—one to build a road from the crevice to the river—one to build the ferry—one to cross the river and work on the Cottonwood Gulch road—another small group herded the horses and cattle. The animals ranged up to fifty miles from the camp to find enough feed and water.
While workers were carving out the Hole-in-the-Rock road, Charles Hall worked on the ferry. Lumber for the ferry was cut in Escalante and hauled to the Rim—by this time, the opening was wide enough to carry and lower the timber to the river. Charles Hall’s workers built a ferry wide enough to carry two wagons at a time. Men with a pair of oars moved the ferry across the slow water.
Part of the ferry group also helped the Fifty-mile camp workers build a road from the river up a two hundred and fifty foot rock bank into Cottonwood Canyon.
The Fifty-mile cottonwood canyon workers walked about six miles to the rim, crossed the river, worked on the road during the week, and returned on Saturday. At both camps, especially the rim camp, water was always a problem, but worse was lack of firewood.
The Rim
With two blacksmith forges established at the rim camp, blacksmiths kept the tools sharp for drilling into the solid rock. In half barrels, workers were lowered over the rim. While dangling from ropes the men drilled holes in the cliff and filled them with blasting powder or water. In areas of sandstone, the water froze and broke off chunks of rock.
Broken Off Rocks
Not far below the first drop was another shear wall of fifty foot. At this point, it was decided to tack a road to the cliff wall. A narrow ledge for the inside wagon wheels was chiseled out along the wall. Below this narrow ledge, holes were drilled every foot and a half parallel and about five feet below the ledge. The holes were two and a half inches in diameter and about ten inches deep. Cedar stakes were brought from Kaiparowits Plateau and pounded into holes. The stakes formed a base for logs, brush, and then rocks and gravel to build a road wide enough for a wagon. With only picks and shovels, the work was slow and tedious. This section of road was called Uncle Ben’s Dugway for a Welch miner, Benjamin Perkins.
Uncle Ben's Dugway - BLM Photo
The black arrows point at the stake holes. With a square and level, it was determined the roads angle of decent for the first two steep sections varied from forty-five to fifty degrees. The final grade down the upper portion of the road dropped one foot for every two feet forward which resulted in a thirty-three degree slope. Below Uncle Ben’s Dugway, the road to the river was on a steep talus slope.
Afraid of the dark deep slot, the wagon teams had to be forced into the slot—the best team was a pair of horses blinded by pinkeye. With the back wheels locked, and up to twenty men and boys hanging back on long ropes, the first wagon started down on the twenty-sixth of January. Kumen Jones is generally credited with driving the first wagon down.
Original wagon - Bluff Fort Historic Site
David Miller claimed a chain was around the blocked rear wheels to dig in the ground—Lee Reay claimed this was tried, but the chain was discontinued because the chain dragged off to much dirt. As the wagons went down dirt and gravel was pushed off the road. In places, the roadbed became like a toboggan run.
Milton Dailey described going down Hole-in-the-Rock:
The first 40 feet down, the wagon stood so straight in the air it was no desirable place to ride. (The) channel was so narrow the barrels had to be removed from the sides of the wagon to (let it) pass through.
Twenty-six wagons were taken down the first day. On the steepest slopes, horses fell and were dragged, or pushed, but none were seriously injured.
When Stanford Smith went back after his wagon, no one noticed him leave and went with him to help. Smith left his children on the rim and drove the last wagon down with his wife and one horse tied on backwards to help hold the wagon back. His wife and the horse fell and were dragged down the chute for about one hundred and fifty feet. Other than scrapes and bruises, neither his wife or the horse were seriously hurt.
Once across the Colorado River, several people scratched their names on a prominent rock in Cottonwood Canyon. Reay stated Register Rock was a mile up the canyon. The names on Register Rock are covered by Lake Powell.
In small bunches, the cattle and horses were forced into the steep narrow Hole-in-the-Rock road. One rider reported crossing the Colorado River twenty times before the cattle, oxen, and horses were across the river.
Cottonwood
Canyon - Google Images
By the thirtieth of January, all of the wagons had reached a level area with cottonwood trees and a good stream. This was the first opportunity for the women to wash clothes. The wagons remained in the Cottonwood Canyon camp for ten days while the road was built out of the canyon—it was still five miles to Grey Mesa.
Trail out of Cottonwood Canyon - BLM Photo
By the tenth of February, the Cottonwood Hill road was ready. It took seven teams to pull wagons up the steep grade. Despite men above the road with ropes attached to the wagons, two wagons tipped over in areas of blown sand on the make-shift road. On one wagon, a box with a hive of bees was broken. The cold lethargic bees were gathered up and put back into the repaired box.
Top of Cottonwood Canyon to Hole in the Rock
The road out of Cottonwood Canyon followed a "relatively" flat ridge before dropping down into Wilson Canyon. The wagons waited there while road crews built a road to Grey Mesa. The Wilson Canyon camp was called Cheese Camp—supplies brought there from Panguitch contained forty pounds of cheese along with two hundred pounds of pork. George Hobbs left Cheese Camp with a pack string to haul supplies to the Harris’s at Bluff and the Harriman and Davis families on Montezuma Creek...Mrs. Harriman was Hobb's sister.
At Cheese Camp, the cattle owners wanted to send the cattle ahead. This was agreed to after the herders promised to push the cattle across Grey Mesa as fast as possible— wagon owners were afraid there would not be enough feed left for the draft animals.
From the bottom of Wilson Canyon, the wagons started up the Chute onto Grey Mesa.
The Chute
From the bottom of the Chute to the top is approximately 290 feet. The change in elevation is 238 feet. The distance is taken with Delorme Topo 9 software, and is hard to measure accurately over such a short distance. The point is...it was steep...81 degrees based on the Delorme Topo map. Sand was spread on the slick rock to provide better traction for the six to seven span of horses required to pull one wagon up the Chute.
Top of the Chute
At the top of the Chute, a two mile ridge led to Grey Mesa. A foot of snow covered the ridge.
Ridge to Grey Mesa
The next two pictures are from the ridge between the Chute and Grey Mesa. The "road" across the ridge is now followed by black skid marks on slick rock. The present-day road is probably close to the Hole-in-the-Rock trail because deep canyons and gullies leave no where else to go.
The settlers wagons crossed the sandy Grey Mesa with little difficulty until they reached a steep sandstone cliff between Grey Mesa and Cedar Mesa. Workers created a series of steps and grooves to hold sand to provide better footing for the teams. The smooth, oily, sandstone surface become known as the Slick Rocks—a third of the road was carved out before road workers from Panguitch went home with the belief a road could not be built on the slick surface.
Slick Rocks
- BLM Photo
Below the Slick Rocks, the wagons stopped at Lake Pagahrit. Drifting sand had blocked off Lake Canyon to form the lake. The lake was a half-mile long and about a quarter mile wide with good feed around it...the sand dam washed out in 1915. Lake Pagahrit provided a resting place for the people and the livestock. The wagon train camped there several days while work crews worked on the Clay Hills Pass road.
Despite the jeep pictures, it is hard to visualize the difficult terrain the pioneers faced. This next picture, although not part of the pioneer trail, helps put it in perspective. State road 261 goes between highway 163 and highway 95. Just as the Clay Hills road did, the Moki Dugway road drops 1100 feet in three miles of twisting dirt road. Built by a uranium company, Moki (Moqui) Dugway is west of Clay Hills road.
Moki Dugway
The thousand foot drop off of Clay Hills Pass required a three mile switchback road. Off of Clay Hills Pass, the trail paralleled State Highway 276 and then around the northwest end of Grand Gulch and the northwest end of Fish and Owl Canyons. The trail proceeded east between Owl and Road Canyon...Snow Flat Road.
Snow Flat Road
In this area, Pottery shreds and Anasazi rock dwellings were seen beneath rock overhangs.
Pottery Shreds
Anasazi Cliff Dwellings
Part of the road across Cedar Mesa to Comb Wash is referred to as The Twist.
The Twist
Whirlwind Bench to Comb Wash
The settlers traveled several miles down Comb Wash before locating a place to build a road onto Comb Ridge.
Comb Ridge
A road was built between the south end of Comb Ridge and the San Juan River. The pioneers called it San Juan Hill.
San Juan Hill Road
Charles Redd, whose father Lemuel Redd was a member of the mission group, later wrote about the climb up San Juan Hill:
Aside from the Hole-in-the-Rock, itself, this was the steepest crossing on the journey. Here again seven span of horses were used, so that when some of the horses were on their knees, fighting to get up to find a foothold, the still-erect horses could plunge upward against the sharp grade. On the worst slopes the men were forced to beat their jaded animals into giving all they had. After several pulls, rests, and pulls, many of the horses took to spasms and near-convulsions, so exhausted were they.
By the time most of the outfits were across, the worst stretches could easily be identified by the dried blood and matted hair from the forelegs of the struggling teams.
Top of San Juan Hill
Not far from where the pioneers camped while building the road up Comb Ridge was an Anasazi ruins on the bank of the San Juan River.
River House Ruins
Off of Comb Ridge and across Butler Wash, the settlers reached the Bluff area on April 6, 1880. Though several miles short of the original destination on Montezuma Creek, the weary travelers could go no farther—a six week journey had stretched into six months.
Navajo Twin Peaks
- Bluff Utah
The settlers found new homes at the current site of Bluff, Utah. Despite the difficulties, no lives were lost and two babies were born on the journey...another was stillborn. The settlement of Bluff is just south of the Navajo Twin Peaks.
After arriving in Bluff, Platte Lyman returned to Escalante for flour and other supplies. Lyman followed the same route. Westward traffic up Hole-in-the-Rock required each wagon to have a six-horse hitch. The road created by this pioneer company served as the route in and out of the San Juan area for about one year.
Trying to irrigate cropland from the fluctuating flow of the San Juan River was a problem, and many of the original settlers moved on to settle Blanding and Monticello. The Jens Neilson family remained in Bluff. Jens died in 1906 and Elsie in 1914. They are buried in the tiny cemetery overlooking Bluff, Utah---these Danish immigrants exemplify the driving force behind America's western expansion.
Elsie and Jens Nielson
The Charles Hall family built a cabin and remained at the Hole-in-the-Rock ferry crossing. When an easier route from Escalante down Harris Wash to the Colorado River was found, Charles Hall moved the ferry upriver to present day Hall’s Crossing on Lake Powell. Hall’s Crossing is across the lake from Bullfrog Basin.
The Hole in the Rock article was written by O. Ned Eddins of Afton, Wyoming. Permission is given for material from this site to be used for school research papers.
Citation: Eddins, Ned. (article name) Mountainsofstone.com. Afton, Wyoming. 2002.
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Related Articled: Willey Martins Handcart Company Mormon Trail Oregon Trail Oregon Country Historical Landmarks Hovenweep Monument Valley Cedar Mesa-Grand Gulch
Miller, David E. Hole-In-The-Rock. University of Utah Press. Salt Lake City, Utah. 1966.
Reay, Lee. Incredible Passage Through in the Hole-in-the-Rock. Meadow Lanes Publication. Provo, Utah. 1980.
Personnel Communication: LaMar Helquist great grandson of Jens Nielson. First Vice-President of the Hole in the Rock Foundation.
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