DOWN the ESCALANTE RIVER w/Ken Sleight —By Edna Fridley (ZX#63)

NOTE: THE ZEPHYR posts old photographs like these every day on the Zephyr Facebook page. In addition to Edna, look for the magnificent Kodachrome images by HERB RINGER and CHARLIE KREISCHER. If you’re not already a Zephyr Facebook follower, click here, and sign up, to see what you’re missing…JS

At first glance, Edna Fridley didn’t look much like an intrepid explorer, who would wade hip deep in fast moving river current, or scale arduous cliffs, just to get a better view. But that was Edna. She grew up in Ohio but her husband Charles was an early day computer whiz and was transferred to a Hercules Aerospace facility in Brigham City, Utah in the late 1950s. Both stayed for the rest of their lives. Charles later went to work for Morton-Thiokol and almost from the time they arrived, Edna started exploring the wild and remote country of southeast Utah. She signed on with both Harry Aleson and Ken Sleight, to float Glen Canyon. In fact, her last trip would be one of the last Glen Canyon river trips before the completion of Glen Canyon Dam and the rising waters of Lake Powell.

The new reservoir ended river running for human powered water craft. Ken Sleight especially wondered what to do next. The best way to explain the “next” is to let Ken Sleight tell it himself. In an excerpt from a longer story that you can access here, Follow these excerpts from Ken, along with Edna’s remarkable images and travel in your mind to time long ago…JS

FROM KEN SLEIGHT:

“At this point, I moved my family to the town of Escalante, one of the most out-of-the-way places in Utah, to be closer to an incredible river canyon system. Abandoning my former transport of river rafts, I climbed astride my horse to see the remaining enchanting canyons not yet affected by the rising waters. I carried the food, gear and personal duffel by horse and mule pack.

“Edna soon came to Escalante and met many of the town folk. Coming and going from trips, we spent a lot of time at cousin Mohr Christensen’s Moqui Motel. My clients met there and at the other rustic-looking motels in Escalante when coming on trips.

“Edna loved Escalante Canyon and became intimately familiar with its features. We frequented Coyote Gulch more than any other canyon. It contains Jacob Hamblin and Coyote natural bridges and Jug Handle Arch. At its mouth and across the river, Stevens Arch looms high on the skyline. Negotiating this country often came hard. Going down Coyote Gulch on one trip, a giant part of the wall broke away and crashed into the creek bottom below, forming a natural dam. My old intrepid friend Vaughn Short, who helped me a lot through those years, aided me in fashioning a detour around the slide and I got our horses and mules around the long pool of water. Edna followed that trail on numerous occasions, as it led to Indian wall writings.

“Also, we often visited the wondrous Broken Bow Arch in Willow Gulch, one of her favorites. Downstream, we’d hike and climb into the narrow confines of 40-mile Creek.

“When I first went overland into Davis Gulch, Lloyd Gates drew me a crude map. With pencil in hand, he directed me to a point on a mesa where the stock trail quickly dropped into the canyon. Edna loved following old trails like that. She joined an April 1963 trip into Escalante Canyon and she followed it up with another in a different part of the canyon. She loved exploration. We chatted about Everett Reuss for hours. Everett Ruess, the young, wandering poet, left several ‘Nemo’ inscriptions in Davis Gulch, and his graffiti became a destination favorite because he vanished there in 1934. He left his traces in the ruins and writings on the walls and so the “Everett Ruess Natural Window” became a testament to his memory.“

To read Ken’s entire remembrance of Edna, click here.

“Edna loved following old trails like that. She joined an April 1963 trip into Escalante Canyon and she followed it up with another in a different part of the canyon. She loved exploration. We chatted about Everett Reuss by the hours. Everett Ruess, the young, wandering poet, left several ‘Nemo’ in Davis Gulch, and his graffiti became a destination favorite because he vanished there in 1934. He left his traces in the ruins and writings on the walls and so the “Everett Ruess Natural Window” became a testament to his memory.

“During the next couple years, she took a Green River trip through Desolation Canyon and a Cataract Canyon trip. Then she signed up for hiking trips into Escalante Canyon, The Standing Rocks, and the Kaiparowits Plateau”—Ken Sleight

“She came to know most of the boatmen guides and wranglers who worked with me during the 1960s and 70s. Besides myself, there were river guides Jack Brennan, Harry Aleson, Brad Dimock, Cliff Rayle, Bob Shelton and Den Lehman. Among the wranglers and guides were Reeves Baker, Mac LeFevre, Bill Adams, Owen Severance, Vaughn Short, and Pete Steele. And, of course, our infamous pilot, Bill Wells, the Flying Bishop of Hanksville, must be included. We were all essentially her students. As an intrepid de facto guide, on meeting at the motels, Edna would often pull out some of her slides from her camper, set up her projector and show pictures of other trips she had taken to the guests. She helped greatly to entice the people to go on them and kept my business alive. On one occasion, she even came to Green River, where I lived in my small warehouse, and she helped me get my records up to date.” Ken Sleight

“We took varied wilderness trips to the Waterpocket Fold, Horseshoe Canyon, the San Juan River, Paria Canyon, The Big Bend country on the Rio Grande, Powell Plateau in Grand Canyon, Havasu Canyon, Desolation Canyon on the Green River, and the Hole-in-the-Rock. Then we took a backpacking trip, with inner tubes tied to our packs, through the Black Box of the San Rafael River. A later letter read, “I’m so grateful to have gotten into & through the San Rafael.” That was some kind of trip. Whenever I’m driving past the Swell, I always grin—and sometimes give a “yippee!” now that it’s in the past & I survived; a couple of times there, I wasn’t so sure I would.” —Ken Sleight

“In February 1973, Edna dropped me a note that she heard that the Sierra Club was to take a trip into Grand Gulch in April. Edna wrote, “Ye Gods—poor Gulch will be worn out—It’s mine!”

“By 1979 her health diminished. Sugar diabetes hampered her activities and it was more difficult for her to get around. From time to time she did get to drive about, but it was a growing problem. She had taken her last trip with me.”

—Ken Sleight

“In February 1984, Edna entered the hospital for the removal of a colon tumor. She refused chemotherapy treatments and bemoaned the fact that she couldn’t take any more trips. While recuperating, she wrote: “It’s mighty hard to refrain from getting behind that wheel and rolling down the road on a sunny day.”

“She wrote to me once, “When you’re looking at Broken Bow, think of me.” When I last visited it a couple or so years ago, I did think of her and her wonderful arch. She died about that same time, expressing to the end her great love for the canyons.” —Ken Sleight

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