The Colorado Plateau encompasses 130,000 square
miles of the Four Corners states, including Utah's southeastern quarter. To
date, it is still arguably the least-tamed country remaining in the lower
forty-eight states. This land of outstanding natural beauty and ecological
diversity is filled with rugged plateaus, slot canyons, mountains, river gorges
with whitewater rapids, the Grand Canyon, and nearly every conceivable type of
desert landscape.
Traces of human history in the river canyons of
the southwest go back thousands of years. Prehistoric societies left behind
artifacts as simple as spear points 10,500 years old, and as sophisticated as
the great 1,000-year-old stone villages of the Anasazi culture, along with
petroglyphs and pictographs on the canyon walls. In more recent history, Utes,
Paiutes, and Navajos moved in, and remain an important part of the modern
culture of the area.
In 1836, 33 years before Major John Wesley
Powell's famous expedition, Denis Julien, a French speaking fur trapper left,
inscriptions on the cliff wall along both the Green and Colorado Rivers in what
is now Canyonlands National Park. It is still not known for certain what
Julien's mode of transportation was, however, most historians believe he must
have traveled by boat, based upon where many of his inscriptions were found.
His last known inscription was dated 1844 and is located in what is now Arches
National Park.
American explorers pushed into the Colorado
Plateau, often in grave danger due to the weather and hostile Native Americans.
The most daring expeditions were those of John Wesley Powell. In 1869, John
Wesley Powell and a crew of nine men provided the first-ever thorough
investigation of the Green and Colorado rivers, including the first known
passage through the Grand Canyon. On May 24, 1869 the expedition pushed their
boats from shore in Green River, Wyoming, and headed down the Green River.
Although they took enough provisions for ten months, the expedition only lasted
approximately 3 months and endured incredible hardships and dangers as they
traveled down the river. Only five of the original crew along with their Civil
War hero leader emerged from the depths of the Grand Canyon.
Throughout the last half of the nineteenth
century, gold miners, settlers, ranchers, missionaries, soldiers, and outlaws
pushed into the wilderness of the Colorado Plateau. The most legendary outlaw
in the area was Butch Cassidy, born Robert LeRoy Parker in Beaver, Utah in
1866. Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch may have roamed all over the west
rustling and committing robberies, but Butch's home was Utah. Robbers' Roost,
located in a wild stretch of land between the Colorado, Green, and Dirty Devil
Rivers was one of several hideouts along the "Outlaw Trail," and was a favorite
of Cassidy's. Brown's Hole, along the Utah-Colorado border and near the launch
site of the Gates of Lodore on the Green River was another temporary refuge
and/or semi-permanent Wild Bunch headquarters.
