A hard looking country

Marble Canyon from New York Public Library

Traveling from Utah to the Northern Arizona Mormon colonies was more than an adventure. Of the few accounts that survive Daniel McAllister's is a study in understatement. This account starts in Salt Lake City in 1876 with teenager McAllister's narrative:
[Spelling as in the original]

Feb. 2: We rolled out at 8 a.m. ox very lame. p.m. ox better we went 18 miles, camped at Smith's on willow creek, got hay there fore nothing.
Feb. 3: We rolled out early traveling 17 miles and camped at Gleasons near Pleasant Grove got our supper for us and hay for our cattle for nothing.
Feb. 7: We reached Levan at dusk. Cattle very tired.
Feb. 19: we travelled 13 miles the last half heavy snow.
Feb. 20: We traveled 5 miles, very heavy snow all day, the snow was from 2 to 3 feet deep.
Feb. 22: We traveled 4 miles some men and teams from Panguitch came to help make the roads the snow very deep.
Feb. 23: Bro. H. 0. Spencer of Orderville and Bro. Fletcher of Mt. Carmel with a lot of other men and teams came to help us out of the snow.
Feb. 25: We traveled 8 miles to Orderville . . . Bro. Spencer told us to make ourselves at home while we staid there.
Feb. 26: We started for Kanab and went as far as the foot of the dugway on our road to Kanab and while going up the dugway we tiped over. I went back to Mt. Carmel for help. I got 3 men to come to help me.
March 3, 1876: we went 26 miles in all that day. The reason we made that big drive was to catch up to Bro. Smith and Allen.
March 5: The 16th Ward boys broke the tung out of their wagon.
March 7: I with some others went down to Soap Creek Gulch to look at the scenery. It was the grandest sight I ever saw.
March 8: I with a lot of others went down to the Colorado to get the first sight of the river, but the river was so far down that we could not get down to the water, a lot of the boys tried to shoot into the water with their revolvers, but couldent do it.
[This is in Marble Canyon about 12 or 15 miles below the bridge.]
March 9: We traveled 8/2 miles to the ferry Lee's' when our wagons was ferryed over the river the wind blew us up stream and grounded us and we had to pull our wagon off the boat onto the shore by hand. The roads were terribal rugh over the mountain. One of the horses give out.
March 17: Went about 9 miles to the Little Colorado . . . The water in the river was very muddy we filled a 7 gallon kettle to settle over night and in the morning there was only an inch of clear water so we had to make the best of it.
March 18: One of Wm. Hardys horses got in the quick sand and got mires, but we got him out all right.
March 23: Nooned at Grand Falls. They were very pretty. Rone Shipman and I night-herded the stock.
March 26: When we drove the stock to water, a lot of them got mired, we had quite a time getting them out.
March 28: We traveled about 5 miles to the ford known as sun set crossing the river was high and we had a hard time to get across.
March 30: We whent about 4 miles to the place designed for a settlement [Allen's Camp].
April i: I have been choping trees down for house foundations to day. This is a hard looking country.

As reported in
Tanner, George S., and J. Morris Richards. Colonization on the Little Colorado: The Joseph City Region. Flagstaff: Northland Press, 1977.