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<br />190 '.....,.......~..&. 't.
<br />
<br />COLORADO MAGAZINE
<br />
<br />continued to take care of the camp and pack train. The party
<br />had to go downstream from Grizzly Gulch (within the present
<br />Monument area, said by some to be a corruption of "Griswell's
<br />Gulch") on the North Rim to Delta, then back up the South
<br />Rim until the Grizzly Gulch portion of the canyon was again
<br />reached.
<br />
<br />For about forty days the four ran the transit, the level,
<br />both ends ,of the chain, carried the leveling rod, and took the
<br />topography. The river was partially frozen, and the men would
<br />have to jump back and forth from ice fringes across swirling,
<br />frigid water. Some of the ice bridges which spanned the river
<br />would raise the water level from five to eight feet above the
<br />downstream side.
<br />
<br />Robinson was good at working on the ice, so fearless that
<br />he often had to be restrained from taking chances. Gunder was
<br />good at the wall climbing. After a hard day in the canyon,
<br />Wright would often talk in his sleep about imaginary hazards.
<br />"Sometimes it was the safety of his transit that troubled him,
<br />and sometimes he would dream he had met with an accident
<br />and broken an arm or a leg and would give us minute instruc-
<br />tions as to how to care for him,"
<br />
<br />The survey was finally completed early in the spring of
<br />1883. From the results, it was evident that use of the canyon
<br />downstream from Cimarron for a railway line was impractical.
<br />However, this first survey might have suggested to some that
<br />water diversion was a feasible idea, and that the canyon could
<br />be conquered,
<br />
<br />Preliminary irrigation investigations, except on a minor
<br />scale, were too expensive to be supported by local subscription,
<br />despite some interest. In 1894 a man named Richard Whinnerah
<br />made a survey for a tunnel along what today is the present line
<br />of the Gunnison TunnelY The next year, Lauzon promoted an
<br />election to secure funds for a diversion tunnel from the Gunni-
<br />son River, but the vote was against the proposition.'" During
<br />this period attempts were made to interest the Colorado legis-
<br />lature in supporting a diversion project, but to no avaiL" Inde-
<br />pendent surveyors were very naive about the cost of such a
<br />project, one estimating that $75,000 would pay for seven miles
<br />
<br />~ So'uvenir Booklet) .Montrose County, Colorado (Montrose, 190&). Copy in
<br />the Montrose Public Library. Another account, in part inaccurate, stated that
<br />"Whinerah" and another civil engineer, \Valter Fleming (see Footnote No. 14).
<br />started out on August 27. 1904 (obviously the wrong year) to run level line~
<br />from the Uncompahgre Valley to the Gunni!';on River to see if a ditch could be
<br />taken out from the canyon and how much of the valley could be covered by the
<br />water so obtained. Later the men decided that a tunnel was the only answer for
<br />diversion and surveyed for one. Barton W. Marsh, The Uncompahgre Valley and
<br />the Gunnison. Tunnel (.l\fontrose, 1905), pp. 77-78. In the Monh'ose Enterprise for
<br />October 20, 1900, Fleming suggested that the data on the Gunnison tunnel site
<br />"made some six or seven years ago" be republicized. His comment appears to
<br />verify the activity of Fleming and Whinnerah in 1894.
<br />10 Souvenir Booklet, Montrose County, Ibid. ."
<br />11 Fellows, "The Gunnison Tunnel," 01). eit., j31.
<br />
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