The Very True Story of the Hole-In-The-Rock Journey

Regardless of what one might think about the Mormon religion, including the zeal with which Joseph Smith and his followers “converted” others, or the fact that his golden plates, at a diameter of 6 x 6 x 8 would weigh 200 pounds apiece, with Smith stating he found two sets of them, which then somehow disappeared after he translated them; or what one might think about the horrors of the years that the Mormons, led by Brigham Young, Smith’s successor, masqueraded as Indians, murdering landowners who wouldn’t sell to them, then led merciless raids to slaughter the very Indians who had, in fact, done nothing.

Regardless of all that, what is actually admirable and amazing (to me) is the story of how a small group of Mormon families in 1879, led by Silas S. Smith,

 headed east through the challenging and often deadly desert near Escalante, Utah to establish a new colony for future Mormons who would be arriving after being told to do so.

It is a distance of 180 miles from Escalante to Bluff, their destination.

The trail they forged crossed sand washes, slick rock sandstone canyons,

seasonal water flows, high Mesas (which needed cuts made to traverse from one ledge to another,) until finally,  the big challenge: a narrow crevice in the high mountains overlooking Glen Canyon for a descent to the Colorado River below, (which would then need to be crossed)

83 wagons, carrying 236 men, women, and children, accompanied by 1000 head of livestock, left Escalante. Remarkably, every one of those people survived as did 40 of the wagons.

When the group had travelled 65 miles,  just six miles short of the crevice, the Hole-In-The-Rock, the key to their “shortcut,” they had to stop.

Winter was hard upon them (they didn’t leave Escalante until November).

A group of half of the men climbed to the top and spent the next two months hand cutting and widening the natural crevice so the width of a wagon could fit through it.

They did this with pick-axes, shovels, and a very limited amount of blasting powder. It was dangerous work.  The drop to the river below them is almost 2000 feet with a 25 percent grade, though some places were as steep as 45 percent.

At last, the work was finished.

The builders created an obstacle, a sort of “crib” from logs, rocks, and brush, at the bottom of the steep path they’d opened up, to catch the wagons before they might careen into the mighty Colorado River.

Forty wagons were selected to make the precarious descent.

Elizabeth Morris Decker, one of the travelers, described the journey in a later letter to her parents, “If you ever come this way it will scare you to death to look down it. It is about a mile from the top down to the river and it is almost straight down, the cliffs on each side are five hundred ft. high and there is just room enough for a wagon to go down. It nearly scared me to death. The first wagon I saw go down they put the brake on and rough locked the hind wheels and had a big rope fastened to the wagon and about ten men holding back on it and then they went down like they would smash everything. I’ll never forget that day. When we was walking down Willie looked back and cried and asked me how we would get back home.”

Silas Smith, the leader of the group of men, was relieved when he saw that all of the wagons made it safely down that grade. However, his own was not among them. He climbed all the way back up to the top to discover his wagon, with his wife and children, had been left behind. There was no one to help brake the wagon’s descent,  lower them down.

Smith’s wife, Belle (who sounds a remarkable woman), insisted that they could do it themselves. She said that she and their horse, Nig, would go behind and restrain the wagon which Smith would drive down.  He did not like this idea but she insisted and settled her three children on a quilt at the top, telling them to stay put until their father came back for them.

Together, the young couple began taking the fully loaded wagon down the steep incline. In the first deep cut, the poor horse stumbled and fell, then was dragged behind the wagon as it picked up speed. Belle, too, fell, and was dragged over 100 feet, deeply cutting her leg with a gash of over 6 inches into her thigh.

Once the wagon had safely stopped at the bottom, Smith treated his wife’s wound then climbed back up the long slope to get his children. They were sitting where they’d been told to, waiting patiently.

Smith guided them down the slick road and they all got back in the wagon, pulled by the traumatized and bruised horse.

After they’d almost reached the river where the rest of the party was waiting, a small group who’d realized they were missing, finally reached them.

Lucky for everyone, the Colorado was flowing slower this time of year. They created a ferry and made it across.

They still had miles and miles of challenging terrain to cross.  Another descent had to be cut into the Chute at Grey Mesa (though nothing like the Hole-In-The-Rock), they couldn’t get through the steep Comb Ridge, (Comb Ridge today, with road)

so had to find a passage.

This meant they had to build another road, this one to climb the solid slick rock of San Juan hill. Their route

The group arrived at last, exhausted but jubilant, in Bluff, in April, five months after they’d departed Escalante. Bluff

I’d stopped at the museum in Bluff a couple of weeks ago,  where I first learned of this remarkable journey.

When I found myself in Escalante, after a drive through Dixie Wilderness and the Grand Staircase,

I decided I had to try to follow that historical trail as far as I could.

I drove out east following the sandy trail road which now heads almost to the Hole (the construction of Glen Canyon dam put the actual site under water), but after 40 miles I had to turn back. The road was just becoming too primitive with very soft sand.

If I’d had a four-wheel drive, I could have made it.

But remember, these folks were traveling by wagon, with wooden wheels, pulled by horses or oxen, across that punishing landscape. It boggles the mind to contemplate

In memory of Nig, that valiant horse (of which we have no description)