Finding more than remnants at The Hermitage

We’ve searched for Bert Loper’s Hermitage three times. The first was during the summer of 2020. We explored Blue Notch Canyon, found the remnants of old mines, and hiked to a cliff overlooking Lake Powell and Good Hope Bay but saw no evidence of the ranch, long submerged under Lake Powell.
Since the lake has dropped 75 feet over the past two years, we searched again a few weeks ago. Ted drove our ATV down the Blue Notch Road and then took a side trail, pulling over and parking when the trail petered out.
We scrambled down to the lake over tumbled boulders and trekked across tumbleweed flats, the prickly weeds leaving tiny punctures in my hiking pants, but the hike to the lake was worth it because I was fascinated by the quest and Bert Loper’s life.
Bert Loper, who became a famed river runner and died of a heart attack while running the Grand Canyon at age 80, was born in 1869 and grew up in Bowling Green, MO.
According to Brad Dimock in The Very Hard Way, his mom and dad divorced when he was two, and his mother died when he was three.
His brother Jack went to live with an aunt and uncle while Bert stayed with his grandmother, a strict Baptist who believed in disciplining the old-fashioned way. Her discipline was mild, Loper later wrote in his journal, compared to his uncle’s.
After she died, he had to move in with that uncle, but the abuse was so severe, even “inhuman,” that Loper and his brother ran away when they were 13 and 14 years old, respectively. They worked for two years at menial jobs to survive, but another uncle, Benjamin Mettler, soon asked him to come to Durango, so Loper headed over the Rockies.
In southwestern Colorado, he dug ditches, herded sheep, hauled freight, and mined. He said, “I have breathed enough gass [sic] and powder smoke and air to have killed a horse.”
He ended up in Bluff in 1895, hoping to find gold. Instead, he made bricks. That seemed to form the pattern of his life—he worked hard to survive, but loved the landscape with a passion.
In 1907, Loper joined two other men who planned to explore the Colorado River on a voyage from Green River, WY through the Grand Canyon.
Loper’s boat and camera took a hit in Cataract Canyon, so he dropped out of the expedition. He promised to catch up at Lee’s Ferry after he repaired his boat and camera. The repairs took much longer than expected, and the other two had left by the time he arrived.
In Canyon Country Place Names, Steve Allen recounts the decision Loper made not to attempt the Grand Canyon alone. Instead, he started upriver from Lee’s Ferry, a difficult feat without a motor, stopping 24 days later at Red Canyon.
Once there, he leased the Red Canyon Ranch, which he renamed The Hermitage, from A. P. Adams, owner of the Happy Jack Mine.
Loper planned to placer mine, farm, and pay for the lease with royalties from the gold, but he recorded later he made so little money that Adams never asked him to pay.
“I had a very nice little ranch,” he said, “I raised about 80 bushels of peaches, about a ton of grapes, some apples, and enough hay for 4 horses... The cabin was built when I took the ranch over and was built of black willow logs.”
On our second search to find Loper’s home, we looked for any evidence of his placer bin, skeletons of the cottonwood trees by his cabin, or even black willow logs washed up against the cliffs, but found nothing.
My hubby determined we were too far east, so we decided to try again the next week. As I looked over the landscape, I wondered how Loper managed to raise crops all alone on a river bench isolated from the world.
Farming definitely had its challenges, including his dam washing out from Red Canyon flood waters, a badger killing half his chickens, and his horse falling off the cliff.
He lived alone for seven years at The Hermitage, assuaging his loneliness by trips to Hite and Hanksville and visits to his friend Cass Hite in Ticaboo Canyon.
When Hite died in 1914, Loper wrote, “I don’t know if I can stand the lonliness [sic] since Cass is gone. Feeling very blue tonight.”
He finally decided his operation wasn’t worth the blues and traded The Hermitage, eventually finding the work he loved most—guiding on the Green and Colorado Rivers.
On our third search, we hiked past straggly tamarisks, gigantic tumbleweeds, and over millions of tiny clam shells, spotting old bottles, and buckets half buried in the sand.
We ended up near Good Hope Bay, and, because the mesas across the lake matched those in a photograph taken from The Hermitage in the 1950s, we felt positive we were overlooking the actual site even though we couldn’t see any signs of the ranch.
Loper’s words seemed especially apt: “I lived with that river so much, it pretty near became part of me.”
He might not have minded, then, that waters from that great river submerged his old home since he, too, after his heart attack, literally became part of it.
In searching for the Hermitage, we found much more than the remnants of an old farm. We found evidence of a humble, hard-working man who lived life with supreme courage and passion.