Part One

Not long after coming to Arizona in the summer of 1945, we began visiting the Grand Canyon several times a year. In 1946 we took in Emery Kolb's lecture on the 1911 canyon voyage. At that time Emery gave the talk in person and I felt he was already showing his age. I attended his show ten years later and noted then he had the lecture taped and I thought the taped version came over more smoothly.

I think my first visit with Emery was in 1958. He spent most of the day in a reclining chair in his room below the store, but he could get up and hand out cards promoting the canyon movie and welcome the audience before each showing. He mentioned he had an illness similar to the flu that left him weak. He also said he had symptoms of Parkinson's disease. I wish I had asked him at what age he had this complete reversal of his physical fitness. Merrel Clubb, the foremost hiker in the canyon at the time and Professor of Old English at the University of Kansas said he thought Emery had given up too easily. When Barry Goldwater rediscovered the natural bridge and got the name Kolb accepted, Clubb enticed Emery to go off Point Imperial with him to where they could see the bridge. He must have seen more of Emery than I did. He said he would get Emery started and then he would "let the old man talk".

In years to come I visited Emery a number of times and we talked on various subjects. During my first visit he told me the story of using a canvas boat that he kept near the river west of the Bright Angel Trail. Emery said that on one occasion they went down their short cut to the river midway between Plateau Point and Horn Creek and took the boat down river to Hermit Rapid and then hiked back upriver to the rim in time for the evening show all in one day! I didn't ask what they did at Horn Creek and Monument Rapids, but I assume they carried the boat past these places. Carrying a 100 pound boat over the irregular rocks there would be no mean feat saying nothing of navigating the white water.

The canvas boat played a part in another story when Emery told about his first trip to Shiva Temple. He and John Ivers took the boat past Horn Creek rapid to the mouth of 91 mile Canyon, just upriver from Trinity. Then they hiked up this wash and into Trinity Canyon above the Tapeats where they could go up the Redwall to the saddle between Isis and Shiva. From here it was possible for them to get through the Supai formation and on to the saddle between Shiva and the North Rim. On this trip they found deer tracks going toward Shiva indicating a route to the top. This was about 1908. They walked through the woods to the Old Bright Angel Canyon trail and returned to the South Rim via the river crossing at the mouth of Bright Angel Creek.

I wish I had asked Emery where they stopped each night. When I repeated the exploit, using an air mattress instead of a 100 pound boat to go from Pipe Creek to the north bank above Horn, and down river below Horn to 91 Mile Canyon, I drove from Flagstaff and got to the last of the Tapeats showing in Trinity Canyon the first day. I walked from there to the North Rim Campground the second day. It would have been easy for me to walk across to the South Rim the next day, but I had other plans. When I asked Emery if they had abandoned the boat at the mouth of 91 Mile Canyon, he said they had used it some more, but he couldn't recall how they got it. They could have walked across the Tonto from Bright Angel Creek to where they had left it, but Emery couldn't settle this for me.

[Editor's Note: The canvas boat Harvey mentions was a homemade affair Emery and John Ivers built about 1908. He and Ivers played around with it on the river at the foot of Bright Angel Trail for a while before Ivers and he made the trip to Hermit Rapid. On the trip to the saddle between Shiva and the North Rim Emery related he discovered three large potholes filled with water. They did not have time to find the trail to the top of Shiva on that trip but Emery knew it was possible to climb the temple. John Ivers died in France during World War I.]

Part Two

When I talked to Emery Kolb in 1937, he told me how Harold Anthony, curator of mammalogy for the American Museum of Natural History, had rejected his offer of guiding the museum's expedition to climb Shiva Temple. Emery had in the past achieved some prominence with canyon boating, his trip to Alaska and his lectures in the east. Apparently Anthony did not care to share the glory of climbing Shiva with anyone who might steal his show.

Shiva had been separated from the north rim of the Canyon for nearly 30,000 years and it was thought that in that time there might be some evolutionary changes to the animal life living on top of the monument that would be different from that on the rim. According to E. D. McKee, the park rangers had suggested the project of making a study of this possibility. Anthony took up the idea enthusiastically and made plans for the trip. Journalists gave these ideas worldwide notice and the park rangers, especially Superintendent Tillotson, were giving full support.

After Anthony's rebuff, Emery suggested to McKee that they do a sneak climb of Shiva before the official party. McKee replied that if they found out it would mean the loss of his job. Emery went ahead and proceeded to climb Shiva twice without trying for immediate publicity. Had his trip been known the park service could have closed down his business.

When I ask Emery if he had left any signs of his preceding the scientists to the top of the temple, I was expecting him to mention the empty Kodak cartons as he told Edwin Corle. Instead, Emery said they had left rock pile cairns on each of the four corners of Shiva. [Editor's note: Emery makes no reference to leaving cairns in any other records or interviews] When Allyn Cureton and I climbed the monument, we looked for these on two of the four corners and found none. The Anthony party could have scattered these rocks. Emery spoke to me with assurance that his recollection was clear, but he wasn't straight on who his companions were on these two trips. He told me that his daughter went with him on his first trip and another young woman for the second. Something that had impressed him was a nearly fatal accident. While he was climbing he caught hold of a 200 pound rock that came loose and nearly took him along as it crashed down the cliff.

In one of our conversations Emery told me how he had volunteered to deliver a cablegram addressed to a millionaire tourist who was on a guided horseback trip to the North Rim. It was conjectured that some big financial deal might depend on the prompt delivery of this message. Emery volunteered to take the message. At that time there was only a cable car crossing the Colorado River at the foot of Bright Angel Trail and when Emery arrived the car was on the north side. Attracting someone's attention at Rust's Camp to aid in getting the car to the south bank of the river was impossible. Emery found some canvas bands used in securing the load of a packhorse and made a sling with a loop to sit in to fit over the cable. Moving and sliding along in this manner would be slow and hard enough, but the metal wire stretched across the river was too hot for his bare hands. Emery solved this difficulty by removing his shoes and using them for gloves he hung with one hand inside a shoe, while slipping the band a few inches. It took time to cross, but Emery made it. He was crestfallen when the millionaire glanced at the cablegram, stuffed it into his pocket and went ahead with his trip with no big reward for Emery.

I checked with Emery three other times. On one occasion four of us had made our way from the rim to the river at the foot of Sockdolager Rapid. We thought that the Kolbs might have landed there on their 1911 trip, and hiked back there later. When I asked Emery whether they had been there on foot, he replied he hadn't but that he thought Ellsworth had. I got precisely the same reply when I later checked to see if the Kolbs had been to the top of Diana Temple before I climbed it. This gave me the impression that Ellsworth must have been on quite a few hikes without Emery.

Another time that I was inspired to check with Emery was when Allyn Cureton found a daring climber's route to the south side of the river at Horn Creek. I had been stopped by a 40 foot fall about a quarter mile from the river, and so had ranger, Dan Davis, foremost park service hiker for nine years. When I asked Emery whether he had ever been to the bench at the mouth of Horn, he snapped back "That's impossible." I explained that Cureton had soloed a way down starting with a move where it was necessary to trust to the friction of his shoe soles to cross a sloping slab, a move that I had rejected. I produced my pictures to show that Cureton had guided me down to the beach.

One other time Emery knew exactly how to help me. I had been looking for some pictographs mentioned by G. W. James and located under a ledge that he named 'Mallery Grotto'. I had been looking under overhangs all the way to Maricopa Point. Finally I thought of asking Emery. I first asked the Hopi workman sweeping the sidewalk in front of the studio. He told me about some petroglyphs about 40 feet up from the trail perhaps 200 yards below the top water station. I found these later, but they were not under the overhang. Emery told me right away where to look, but he thought the prehistoric pictures might be completely gone. I came down from the railing at the head of Bright Angel Trail and found them exactly where Emery said they would be. Quite a display of deer pictures remained though some irresponsible tourists had visited the site with cans of spray paint leaving graffiti on the wall.

In 1966 the park superintendent organized a birthday dinner honoring Emery's 85th birthday. It was held at the community center and attended by Grand Canyon buffs from all over. I remember that Otis (Doc) Marston a noted river runner and historian from Berkely, California, and Bill Belkamp, another river runner, from Boulder City ,Nevada, were present. A representative of the National Geographic Society presented Emery with a special bound copy of the August 1914 issue of their magazine featuring Ellsworth's article on their 1911 river trip through the canyons of the Green and Colorado rivers and their trips to Supai and the little Colorado River Gorge. During the same evening the president of the company installing the pipeline from Roaring Springs to Indian Gardens presented Emery with a voucher entitling him to a helicopter ride to wherever he wanted to go over the canyon.

It was regrettable that Emery's talk accepting these honors was hesitant and faltering. His voice would trail off in the middle of a sentence and his daughter, Edith had to prompt him.

In addition to expressing his appreciation for the verbal and other tributes he contributed his unsolicited opinion of various park superintendents, but not by name. He said that the park had had some fine heads but there had been some very unreasonable ones. Also unsolicited was his rendition of Lincoln's Gettysburg address. He seemed a little proud that he could still get through it without faltering.

Used by permission of the Grand Canyon Pioneers Society.

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