Into the belly of the beast... Nevills expedition

(This is the last of a three-part story. The first two are in the October 1 and 15 issues of the San Juan Record.)
Bill Gibson, the crew’s official photographer, screamed, “There goes the Mexican Hat!” They all froze in their tracks, just in time to see the empty boat gracefully navigate the first rapid, stern first, as Nevills had intended when he designed it. He had a split second to marvel at the elegant way it rode the rough current before despair overwhelmed him.
They had stopped to locate an inscription on a large rock left by the Powell party in 1869.
After finding and photographing it, the men left the two women to take more photographs while they went to examine the first rapid. It was short, but potentially troublesome, generating 15-foot waves before ending in an eddy that Nevills was certain would stop the boat from going farther. It didn’t.
They then saw the “Mexican Hat” heading straight into the throat of the second rapid, all realizing instantly that the expedition was a hair’s breadth from total catastrophe at the beginning of Cataract Canyon. Losing one of three boats this close to the start of the most treacherous stretch of the river would no doubt doom the expedition.
It was late afternoon, and by the time they located the Mexican Hat lodged in an eddy and safe at the foot of rapid #7, the long, late afternoon shadows had almost surrendered to twilight. The boat successfully navigated one of the most hazardous sections of the entire trip without a helmsman.
Nevills sent a couple of crew members to secure the Mexican Hat to the bank while the others made camp and prepared what meager supper they could without the food and gear still in the Mexican Hat, more than a mile away.
All the boats emerged undamaged, and no one was injured. In hindsight, it was a valuable learning experience. Nevills would be the first to admit that he underestimated the danger of this stretch.
The day’s events reinforced what he had known from the outset: that his crew was inexperienced, and unless he made safety his top priority, the expedition would most likely fail, and with it his dream of building a successful river guide service.
From that point on, he redoubled his effort to study each rapid before committing his crew and passengers. Those areas deemed too risky would be “lined,” which involved tying a rope to the bow and stern of each boat for the crew to hold while they walked the boat around any boat-eating holes or drops.
Still, this approach wasn’t popular with the young crew members. They were no different than we all were in our twenties, convinced of our own invincibility. In response, Nevills adopted the persona of a drill sergeant, making him unpopular at times.
Even though Nevills planned to “line” them, he sometimes had no choice but to run dangerous sections when they appeared in quick succession. They endured several more mishaps, yet the crew had learned to handle them without major incident.
Shortly after completing the last rapid in Cataract, they reached Hite, where the Chaffin family, from Green River, operated a ferry service. There, Mrs. Chaffin fed them their first lunch in days that didn’t come from a can rolling about the storage hold of a boat.
Next came the calm waters of Glen Canyon between Hite and Lee’s Ferry, where the crew enjoyed a few days of uneventful travel.
They seized the luxury of stopping to see Rainbow Bridge and other stops to explore ruins, or add specimens to the two botanists’s plant collection.
Like the start in Green River, a large crowd of reporters, well-wishers, and naysayers greeted them at Lee’s Ferry, where they repainted the boats, took on food and supplies, and swapped crew members who could no longer continue for various reasons.
From Lee’s Ferry, they ran the upper part of the Grand Canyon, taking in its stunning views from one of the deepest natural cracks on Earth. The next stop at the Phantom Ranch was the last resupply point before Lake Mead.
They left Phantom Ranch on July 23 and arrived at the head of Lake Mead a week later to sweltering heat and no current to push them toward the finish line at Boulder City, still miles away.
Luckily, a search plane spotted them and sent a motorboat to tow the three boats and crew to Boulder City. They arrived on August 1, where Nevills recorded in his journal a temperature of 139 degrees in the shade and 92 degrees in the lake. While there is reason to suspect the accuracy of his thermometer, let’s just say it was hot.
Their safe arrival allowed Norman Nevills to smile at his critics, who were so sure the trip would end in disaster as they watched his departure from the bridge in Green River six weeks earlier. No one suffered injury other than the occasional sunburn.
Nevills went on to build a successful river guide service before his tragic death in a 1949 plane crash. That service is still in operation today, almost 90 years later, under the name Canyoneers, Inc., which his descendants own in Flagstaff.
Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter, the two botanists, emerged with what is considered the only comprehensive pre-dam study of the flora of the Colorado River corridor, which included several previously unknown species.
Hats off to Nevills’s descendants for honoring their roots by offering Spring trips called “Botany Tours”, featuring talks by notable botanists about the flora of the canyon as they descend the Grand Canyon.
The two supposedly frail women, who weren’t supposed to live more than two weeks into their journey, outlived their critics. Elzada lived to 83, and Lois Jotter to the ripe old age of 99.
[Correction: the correct year of the Powell Expedition was 1869, not 1859 as printed in parts 1 and 2.]