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| Home > Utah White Water Rafting > White River Rafting > White River Rafting Details | ||
About The White River in Utah
Although the Kenny Dam above Rangely, constructed in 1985, influences the White River in Utah it continues to exhibit those characteristics of pre-dam rivers in the West. The highest flow on the White River was 8,160 cfs* on July 15, 1929. Common spring flows are around 400 cfs. In early spring large blocks of ice jam up and scour the banks of the river. Later spring floods bring new sediment rich in nutrients to the river bottoms. * Cubic feet per second (cfs) is a standard measurement of the number of cubic feet of water that pass by a given point on the river. The Foundation: Geology The Interactors: Ecosystem Four endangered or threatened fish depend on the warm, silty river water and spring flooding of the lowlands: Colorado River pike minnow (squawfish), humpback chub, boneytail chub and razorback sucker. Chances are excellent you will see biologists for the Fish & Wildlife Service conducting research to save these fishes. The canyon is an excellent "birding" area, and spring brings a dizzying array of birds. The signature animal of the canyon is the canyon wren, whose melody drifts across the cool shadows of morning and the hot, dry summer afternoons. Waterfowl rest on their way north, or begin setting up their territories. Herons stalk the shores and shallows. The raspy croak of sandhill cranes can often be heard. Dippers, waders and other shore birds are common. Mountain bluebirds flutter by in early spring and late fall. Vultures, and eagles soar on warm summer currents. Peregrine and prairie falcons swoop and dive for a meal or as a mating exhibition. An occasional otter and plentiful beaver ply the waters. The holes of bank beaver are common along the river. Rabbits, ground squirrels, moles, and other small mammals provide the base of the food chain. Coyotes slink quietly through the underbrush. Mule deer graze the bottoms, along with an occasional antelope. It is not uncommon to see wild horses. By 1988 BLM had removed domestic sheep from grazing along this stretch of the river and reintroduced bighorn sheep. The Modifiers: Humans The Paleo (7,500 B.P.) and Archaic (1,500-8,000 B.P.) Peoples followed by the Fremont (1,000 B.P.) Peoples lived in the region. The Fremont left abundant artifacts and petroglyphs for us to ponder. The White River Valley has been home to the Ute (600 B.P.-present), who call it the Smoking Earth River. With its abundant wildlife the White River Plateau was their prized hunting area. Significant Ute cultural sites have been located along this section of the White River. In 1956 an adult male Ute burial, along with the remains of bridle, basket and other articles were discovered near the Bonanza launch site. The first known Europeans to venture into the White River Valley were Spanish Fathers Atenencio Dominguez and Silvestre Velez de Escalante during September, 1776. Escalante named the river San Clemente. Dominguez' journal noted: "there is a middle-sized meadow of good pasturage. This river is middling and flows west through here, and the terrain adjacent to it offers no prospects for settlement". Until the early 1820's the area was disputed over by Spain, Great Britain and the United States, because of that and habitation by Utes not many visitors crossed the region. In the 1824 Etienne Provost began trapping along the White River. In 1825 he met Jedediah Smith at the confluence of the White and Green Rivers. Smith kept detailed records and described the area during the time he trapped it. In 1822 William H. Ashley formed a company to trap the area, but by 1830 beaver hats were no longer in fashion and the beaver had been trapped out. John C. Fremont stood on the summit of the Gore Range in 1854, near today's Vail Pass, and gazed to the White River Plateau and the uncharted peaks, valleys, and rivers extending westward beginning a period of scientific exploration of the region. Fremont traveled down the length of the river to its confluence with the Green River. In the 1850's E.L. Berthoud began a survey for a transcontinental railroad. His route went down the White into Utah. The Civil War intervened and stopped further debate over which route would best open the West. Berthoud was first to describe the "vast coal field..." in the valleys of the Bear (Yampa) and White Rivers. The Ute Peoples resented the encroachment of settlers in the years following the Civil War because they depended on the Plateau for their subsistence, and the valleys for winter ranges. As a result, the White River Valley was to become one of the tragic episodes in the history of the pioneer West. The White was not much further explored until 1868 when John Wesley Powell wintered in "Powell Park," west of present Meeker. By then the question of what to do with the Utes was settled. An Indian Agency was set up near Meeker to "serve" the region's Utes, whom by treaty were assured they could live along the Yampa and White Rivers. The Agency was to settle the Utes by providing education, rations, and a subsistence economy. Agent Reverend H.E.Danforth (Quaker) was so troubled by the failure of the Utes to embrace the program that he resigned in 1878. Danforth was also deeply disturbed that the government failed to deliver the promised goods. Ferdinand V. Hayden surveyed the area in the 1870's. His descriptive material and photographs are useful in analyzing today's environmental conditions. Although Hayden's descriptions of the area were not very promising for agriculture, settlers were poised to arrive as soon as the "Ute problem" was resolved. In summer of 1878 Nathan C. Meeker was appointed Indian Agent at White River. Meeker planned to lift the "savages" out of their squalor by introducing agricultural techniques that had been so successful at his Greeley colony. It never occurred to Meeker that the Ute might prefer their nomadic hunting to being harnessed to the white-mans plow. Chief Douglas had cooperated with Meeker but his successor, Chief Jack, was not interested in the salvation Meeker intended to bring to the tribe. Gambling was a deeply rooted Ute tradition. When the track where the Utes raced their horses was plowed for wheat, Jack was furious and a confrontation occurred. A couple of warriors roughed Meeker up, and rifle shots were fired. Meeker called for help from Fort Steele at Rawlins Wyoming, and Major Thomas Thornburg left for the White River Agency with 150 men. Chief Jack met Thornburg between the White River and the Yampa (Bear River), on the Reservation boundary, and pleaded that the squabble was over. Thornburg agreed to stop his advance, but on the morning of September 29, 1879, he marched the troops across the boundary at Milk Creek. Immediately warriors in the surrounding hills opened fire. Thornburg was killed and the troops were sieged for four days, finally being rescued by a troop of black soldiers from Middle Park. The Utes then attacked the White River Agency, killing eleven men. Meeker received a bullet through the head, and the agency was burned to the ground. Women and children were taken hostage and moved south to Chief Ouray's village on the Colorado River. The die was cast, and the Ute were taken from their ancestral lands in 1881 and moved to a new and smaller Uintah Reservation in Utah. The fertile bottomlands were given to settlement. Around 1882 C.P. Hill established a trading post at what is today’s Rangely, Colorado. By 1884 Rangely had a school and was the western most village in the region. In 1876 Colorado achieved statehood, followed by Utah in 1896. Frederick Jackson Turner concluded that the frontier came to an end in 1890. The pattern for future development was set. In 1883 the cadastral survey mapped and described much of the region. Historically riparian areas were first to be settled by the oncoming masses of pioneers and European settlers, who followed natural and usually easy routes. Since most were seeking agricultural land, they needed land that could be irrigated. By 1900 the majority of good land along the White River was patented and in private hands. By the surveys of 1905-1907 the bottoms along the White River were almost devoid of cottonwoods. In The Wake: River Runners One of the newcomers to use the river was Indian Agent H.E. Danforth. In 1870 Danforth cut logs near Buford, Colorado and floated them down to the White River Agency to construct buildings. There were no roads into the forested lands and floating the logs was the easiest way to get them to the lands down river. On July of 1871 Frederick Dellenbaugh, F.M. Bishop and J.F. Steward left the 2nd Powell Expedition "...with 5 days' rations on our backs as well as blankets enough for the warm nights and our rifles, started on a journey up the White River to a place called Goblin City by one of the earlier explorers who had crossed the valley." The men bushwhacked through willow thickets, crossed fiery bottoms and climbed the tawny cliffs. At 6 o'clock on the second day they finally came in sight of Goblin City, they then descended and camped along the river. Dellenbaugh "... got dinner while Steward and Cap. with our gun-straps and some buckskin strings made a raft from some cottonwood logs we found on the bank." The next day they launched with Steward and Bishop at either end with long poles while Dellenbaugh sat in the middle taking compass readings. They ate currants from bushes along the river bank as they drifted downstream, and saw tracks of bear in the mud along shore. By seven o'clock were still five miles from camp, near present day Ourray, Utah. As they were out of food and the river meandered on the slackened current, the men abandoned the raft and went to the Expedition camp on foot. Thus ended the first recorded descent of the lower White River by non-natives. Around 1884-1885 a flat-bottom log ferry operated two miles east of Meeker. Besides local commerce, people traveling from Denver to Leadville used the ferry. In 1887 J.H. Cotharp floated spruce logs cut on Spring Creek to build his cabin in Rangely. When Nat Galloway from Vernal, Utah, set off from Meeker in 1901 to journey down the White River, he sought neither adventure nor fame. A trapper by trade, he merely wanted to make a living. Galloway traveled in one of his patented "cataract" boats. A rockered hull allowed the boat to be maneuverable. Decked, watertight fore and aft compartments allowed him to take waves head on safely. He rowed facing forward, which allowed him to see what was coming and maneuver using ferry angles. Galloway's success on the White to its confluence with the Green is unknown, but it is reasonably clear he was one of the first to traverse the Meeker to confluence section of the river. Nat repeated the trip with his son Parley in 1903. The Boom & Bust: Settlers & Developers When the ice breaks up in the spring, especially after severe winters, it plugs the river and causes flooding. The winter of 1910 was extremely cold, and the following spring saw one of the largest ice jams ever seen on the White River. John Scott, working for the old Uintah Railway Stage and Freight Company, lived at the Ignacio stage station with his family. When the ice started breaking up they watched as a big jam began forming upstream from the wooden bridge, located upstream from the present old steel girder bridge. Scott moved his family to safety and sent to Dragon for explosives to blow the jam loose. Late that night the jam broke with a deafening thunder and destroyed the bridge. The Teddy Longhurst family lived a few miles below Ignacio Station. Scott saddled his horse in a drizzling rain and headed for the Longhurst home, arriving at daybreak. Although the house was located up and away from the river bottom they wasted little time in moving themselves and valuables to even higher ground. Fortunately, because of the many loops in the river, the ice and water had dispersed by the time it reached the Longhurst homestead. Ice was a valuable commodity in the days before mechanical refrigeration. Many homes had iceboxes that had to have ice replenished during the summer. Cutting and storing of ice was a significant business along the river. During winter families cut the river ice with long saws and hauled it to their storage area. The ice was stored in ice houses, in caves hacked into the rock, or into covered pits dug into the ground. It was important to keep these storage structures cool, dark and tightly sealed. The ice was covered with sawdust, straw, or near the gilsonite mines a fine powder of gilsonite was used. For those people living on Willow Creek it took a full day by team and wagon to go to the river, cut a load of ice and return home. Many of the ranches that sprang up along and near water sources in the remote region eventually failed. The growth of manufacturing spurred by the automobile after the turn of the century greatly expanded prospecting. By the opening of World War I in 1914 important oil producing areas had been located near the White River. Oil, gas, coal and gilsonite mining brought an ever-increasing wave of wealth to the area in the mid-1900’s. Coal, oil, uranium, natural gas and other mineral development began almost unimpeded by oversight. Rock formations along the White harbor vast reserves of hydrocarbons in the forms of oil, gas, tar sand, oil shale, coal and gilsonite. The White River borders the richest oil shale deposits in the world, and the only commercial gilsonite mining operation in the world. In the 1970's the boom turned to bust, and a major oil shale - tar sands project was abandoned. Oil shale development needs 4 barrels of water for each barrel of oil extracted, and the White River is a logical source for that water. A once proposed dam would have flooded 14 miles in the White River Canyon, and ended river running on one of the West's most remote and beautiful rivers. It would also be another step in eliminating four endangered fishes. Natural gas wells permeate the rim and the sections near Rangely, Bonanza Bridge, Mountain Fuels Bridge and below to the confluence. Once considered for Wilderness and Wild and Scenic River designation, the region - much like Goblin City - has faded from public knowledge and interest. Now new development threats loom upon the horizon. This may be a limited opportunity for you to travel through, understand and love the “way the west was when it was young.”
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