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Washburn-Langford-Doane August 30-31 1870 Campsite

Cascade Creek Campsite

Historic Campsite in Yellowstone NP, Rocky Mountains near Canyon Village, WY

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Washburn-Langford-Doane September 1-2, 1870 Campsite

Washburn-Langford-Doane August 29, 1870 Campsite

Leaving their campsite on Mount Washburn, the expedition quickly reached the Cascade Meadows area near today’s Canyon Village. For 2 days, they camped, dispersed, and explored the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and its waterfalls. (Doane 1873, 11-14; Hedges 1870, Helena Daily Herald)

Even Lt. Doane, with his chronically swollen and infected thumb that continued to physically torture him, he endured the pain to experience the surrounding landscape.

As we approached the Grand Canyon a dull roaring sound warned us that the falls were near at hand. I had been suffering greatly during the forenoon, being obliged to gallop from one spring to another to keep wet the wrappings of my hand. Following this canyon kept me away from water so long that the pain became utterly unsupportable. I abandoned my horse, and have no distinct recollection of how I got to the water’s edge, but presently found myself with my arm up to the elbow in the Yellowstone a few yards below the foot of a graceful cascade. In a few minutes, the pain becoming allayed, I proceeded to explore the locality. I had descended the canyon at a point where the creek joined the river, precipitated into a gorge just above its juncture in a lovely cascade of three falls, in the aggregate 100 feet in height. This was named Crystal Cascade, and the stream Cascade Creek. (Doane 1873, 12)

— Doane

Continually over 2 days, the geology of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, its sheer size, vivid colors, and volcanic past amazed Doane. (1873, 12)

At the foot of the gorge and on the margin of the Yellowstone stood a high promontory of concretionary lava, literally filled with volcanic butternuts. Many of these were loose, and could be taken out of the rock with the hand; broken open they were invariably hollow, and lined with minute quartz crystals of various tints. This formation is rare, but occurs frequently in the great basin.

— Doane

The combinations of metallic lusters in the coloring of the walls is truly wonderful, surpassing, doubtless, anything of the kind on the face of the globe.

— Doane

Langford credited Cornelius Hedges for naming Crystal Falls located downstream from their campsite in the twisted gorge referred to as “The Devil’s Den” that Cascade Creek had carved on its steep descent to the Yellowstone River. (Langford 1905, 27-28)

Mr. Hedges gave to this succession of cascades the name “Crystal fall.” It is very beautiful; but the broken and cavernous gorge through which it passes, worn into a thousand fantastic shapes, bearing along its margin the tracks of grizzly bears and lesser wild animals, scattered throughout with huge masses of obsidian and other volcanic matter – the whole suggestive of nothing earthly nor heavenly – received at our hands, and not inaptly as I conceive, the name of “The Devil’s Den.”

— Langford

Washburn summarized for the Helena Daily Herald his stay at the Grand Canyon with its Upper and Lower Falls.

Crossing above the Upper Falls of the Yellowstone you find the river 100 yards in width, flowing peacefully and quiet. A little lower down it becomes a frightful torrent, pouring through a narrow gorge over loose bowlders and fixed rocks, leaping from ledge to ledge, until, narrowed by the mountains and confined to a space of about 80 feet, it takes a sudden leap, breaking into white spray in its descent 115 feet. Two hundred yards below the river again resumes its peaceful career. The pool below the falls is a beautiful green capped with white. On the right-hand side a clump of pines grow just above the falls, and the grand amphitheater, worn by the maddened waters on the same side, is covered with a dense growth of the same. The left side is steep and craggy. Towering above the falls, halfway down and upon a level with the water, is a projecting crag, from which the falls can be seen in all their glory. No perceptible change can be seen in the volume of water here from what it was where we first struck the river. At the head of the rapids are four apparently enormous bowlders standing as sentinels in the middle of the stream. Pines are growing upon two of them. From the Upper Fall to the Lower there is no difficulty in reaching the bottom of the canyon. The Lower Falls are about half a mile below the Upper, where the mountains again, as if striving for the mastery, close in on either side, and are not more than 70 feet apart. And here the waters are thrown over a perpendicular fall of 350 feet. The canyon below is steep and rocky and volcanic in its formation. The water, just before it breaks into spray, has a beautiful green tint, as has also the water in the canyon below. Just below, on the left-hand side, is a ledge of rock from which the falls and canyon may be seen. The mingling of green water and white spray with the rainbow tints is beautiful beyond description.

— Washburn

On the expedition’s last day at the Grand Canyon, Hedges journaled he viewed the Lower Falls from several spots along the North Rim, and “Passed an old camping ground, poles in trees [wickiups],” on his way back to camp to rest. Feeling nauseated, he didn’t hike to the “upper falls at all,” but did note “Hauser reported falls [Silver Cord Cascade] on little stream [Surface Creek] from east side [South Rim] one thousand feet high.” Hedges also added, “Lieut. D.[Doane] in pain all night. Langford and Washburn up all night with him.”

Artistic Representations

Expedition member, Private Charles Moore pencil sketched (1870), the Upper Falls and Lower Falls. See below.

Upper Falls (above) by Charles Moore (1870)

Lower Falls (above) by Charles Moore (1870)

Expedition member, Walter Trumbull also sketched (1870), the Upper Falls and Lower Falls. See below.

Upper Falls (above) by Walter Trumbull (1870)

Lower Falls (above) by Walter Trumbull (1870)

Further Research and Reading

Scott, K.A. Yellowstone Denied: The Life of Gustavus Cheyney Doane. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007.

Sources

Cramton, Louis C. Early History of Yellowstone National Park and Its Relation to National Park Policies. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1932. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/yell/cramton/index.htm.

Doane, Gustavus Cheyney. Letter from the Secretary of War, Communicating the Report of Lieutenant Gustavus C. Doane upon the so-Called Yellowstone Expedition of 1870. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1873. http://archive.org/details/letterfromsecret1873unit.

Everts, Truman C. “Thirty-Seven Days of Peril.” Scribner’s Monthly, November 1871. http://archive.org/details/scribnersmonthly31newy.

Haines, Aubrey L. “Yellowstone National Park: Its Exploration and Establishment,” 1974. http://npshistory.com/handbooks/historical/yell/haines/index.htm.

Hedges, Cornelius. “Journal of Judge Cornelius Hedges.” In Contributions to the Historical Society of Montana, 1904 Edition. Vol. 5. Helena, MT: Independent Publishing Company, 1876. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Contributions_to_the_Historical_Society/yt4UAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1.

Hedges, Cornelius. “The Great Falls of the Yellowstone, A Graphic Picture of Their Grandeur and Beauty.” Helena Daily Herald, October 15, 1870, in Cramton, Louis C. Early History of Yellowstone National Park and Its Relation to National Park Policies. Appendix H. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/yell/cramton/apph.htm.

Langford, N. P. “The Wonders of the Yellowstone.” Scribner’s Monthly, May 1871. http://archive.org/details/scribnersmonthly02newy.

Langford, N. P. “The Wonders of the Yellowstone.” Scribner’s Monthly, June 1871. http://archive.org/details/scribnersmonthly02newy.

Langford, Nathaniel Pitt. Diary of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870. St. Paul, Minn., [c1905]. http://archive.org/details/diaryofwashburne00langrich. However, Langford’s “Diary of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870” or “The Discovery of Yellowstone National Park” material, which was published 35 years after the expedition, and used bearing that in mind.

Trumbull, Walter. “The Washburn Yellowstone Expedition.” The Overland Monthly, 1871. California State Library. http://archive.org/details/overlandmonthly06hart.