Bus and the crew
Hatch Expeditions shares the continuation of the discussion of boats used for those first in this interview between Ted Hatch and Elizabeth Sowards from June 20, 1984. It can be fascinating to hear personal accounts and perhaps a bit of hearsay about some of those early players in the rafting game. Read below for some juicy tidbits about the good ol’ days.
E. Sowards: Now, did [Bus Hatch] study about… like, did he read about what John Wesley Powell had done?
Ted: Oh, yes.
E. Sowards: So he would know what to take with him.
Ted: They knew exactly. They talked with Clyde Eddy who had gone about three or four years earlier. (Clyde Langston Eddy went in 1927 with the 10th expedition) Eddy and Galloway went through. Well, Galloway had been arrested by Frank Swain who was the Sheriff over here in Vernal, and they threw Galloway in jail. He had just taken Clyde Eddy through the Grand Canyon, so he told Frank Swain about it. Clyde Eddy owed Galloway two hundred and fifty dollars for taking him through. So, they go the money wired or sent, I don’t know how, to Galloway so that he could put up bail to get out of jail. Then they got Galloway and talked to him and went over all the details about the trip. So when they went down in the canyon they could be prepared…which they did.
I think Galloway went in 1927, and my dad’s expedition went in 1934. They got all the details. They wrote to Clyde Eddy, and they talk to the Kolb brothers down on the South Rim who had run it in 1926. They ran a studio down there. A motion picture studio.
An interesting thing happened. They were neat old fellows. I went down and they showed the early movies of how they ran the river. In Grand Canyon Upset Rapid, was named by the Kolb’s because they tipped over there. I think Emery was something like seventy-four years old, and he was still running the old movies at the South Rim. He his little photography shop and then each day at two o’clock he would come in and run the movie of their exploration of the Grand Canyon in those early days. Well, after he passed away they got a lot of his artifacts and put them in the museum, because it was all historical material. In the upstairs of his garage there was a boat, a canvas boa, and they took it down, and there was a skeleton in it with a hole in the skull. They don’t know whether he found it on the river and brought it out and didn’t tell anyone, or what. It’s a mystery now, and everybody wonders what happened. But Kolb’s ran little boats like these.
Hatch Expeditions hopes guests continue to enjoy these Flashback Friday postings. Sharing the rich history of not only Hatch but Grand Canyon rafting in general can be a fun way to peer into another generation.
Hatch Expeditions Continues on with Flashback Friday Featuring Ted Hatch was last modified: July 22nd, 2015 by
