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C-J 00 c.o ~ 4 GUNNISON RIVER DIVERSION PROJECT continued to take care of the camp and pack train. The party had to go downstream from Grizzly Gulch (within the present Monument area, said by some to be a corruption of "Griswell's Gulch") on the North Rim to Delta, then back up the South Rim until the Grizzly Gulch portion of the canyon was again reached. For about forty days the four ran the transit, the level, both ends of the chain, carried the leveling rod, and took the topography. The river was partially frozen, and the men would have to jump back and forth from ice fringes across swirling, frigid water. Some of the ice bridges which spanned the river would raise the water level from five to eight feet above the downstream side. Robinson was good at working on the ice, so fearless that he often had to be restrained from taking chances. Gunder was good at the wall climbing. After a hard day in the canyon, Wright would often talk in his sleep about imaginary hazards. "Sometimes it was the safety of his transit that troubled him, and sometimes he would dream he had met with an accident and broken an arm or a leg and would give us minute instruc- tions as to how to care for him." The survey was finally completed early in the spring of 1883. From the results, it was evident that use of the canyon downstream from Cimarron for a railway line was impractical. However, this first survey might have suggested to some that water diversion was a feasible idea, and that the canyon could be conquered. Preliminary irrigation investigations, except on a minor scale, were too expensive to be supported by local subscription, despite some interest. In 1894 a man named Richard Whinnerah made a survey for a tunnel along what today is the present line of the Gunnison Tunnel." The next year, Lauzon promoted an election to secure funds for a diversion tunnel from the Gunni- son River, but the vote was against the proposition.'O During this period attempts were made to interest the Colorado legis- lature in supporting a diversion project, but to no availY Inde- pendent surveyors were very naIve about the cost of such a project, one estimating that $75,000 would pay for seven miles 9 Souven.ir Booklet~ Montrose CountYJ Colorado (Montrose, 1905). Copy in the Montrose Public Library, Another account, in part inaccurate, stated that ffWhinerah" and another civil engineer, Walter Fleming (see Footnote No. 14). started out on August 27, 1904 (obviously the wrong year) to run level lines from the Uncompahgre Valley to the Gunnison River to see if a ditch could be taken out from the canyon and how much of the valley could be covered by the water so obtained. Later the men decided that a tunnel was the only answer for diversion and surveyed for one. Barton W. Marsh. The Uncompahgre Valley and the Gunnison TunneZ (Montrose. 1905). pp. 77-78. In the Montrose Enterprise for October 20, 1900, Fleming suggested that the data on the Gunnison tunnel site "made some six or seven years ago" be republicized. His- comment appears to verify the activity of Fleming and Whinnerah in 1894. 10 Souvenir Booklet. Montrose County, Ibid. 11 Fellows, "The Gunnison Tunnel," op. cit" 531.