Marble Canyon Damsite

Our guides see that we are well fed . . .

and entertained around the campfire . . .

with legends and humor far into the night..

Considered the one uncovered Peralta mine and for 20 years kept the then small frontier towns of Florence, Phoenix, and Tucson on edge with his wild tales backed up by mule loads of highgrade ore running as much as one third pure gold. We heard how the many attempts to follow him on his occasional trips into the mountain to replenish his wealth all failed and in 1891 he died after revealing directions too sketchy to follow.

with such a brief try. But there was other gold that we did find; in the bright Arizona sunshine, in the clear desert air, in the sparkling freshness of a welcome water hole, in the everchanging majestic scene, the ring of laughter around a friendly campfire, the stories and legends, the removal of When we finally rolled up in our blankets on the ground that night, perhaps on one of the Dutchman's very own old campsites, dreams about Indians and gold were surely a dime a dozen.

Sharing cactus spines from one another, the sharing of tape for patching blisters, a gorgeous sunset and an equally breath-taking sunrise. The bringing together of twelve strangers from twelve different worlds into a warm mutual 48 hour friendship had been a beautiful experience. Yes, there is gold in those Superstitions and we found it. It wasn't the heavy yellow nugget kind with a per-ounce We were a tired bewhiskered bunch of brush-snagged, foot-sore treasure-seekers by the second evening when we reached base camp and joined in on the main celebration. Soon we would split up, each going his own way, our paths probably never to cross again. We had returned empty value but a priceless, spendproof kind which made each of us rich in memories. Please, Senor Dons, when you make up the list of next spring's two days trek, save room for my name. I wouldn't miss it for a whole sack of the Dutchman's gold.

handed as far as material gold was concerned but then not one of us had really expected to solve this century old riddle (The Dons Club annual trek to the Superstitions in 1951 is scheduled for March 4th.) and the interesting base camp activities at the trails end are a welcome sight.

Practically eliminated. Soon the crew and equipment was swooping in and out of the canyon on a custom made cable system with the ease of a city dweller riding the elevator to and from his office high atop a Manhattan skyscraper; the main difference being in that their view was not encased within four elevator walls but extended as far as the eye could sweep in a scenic extravaganza of colorful canyon and sky. With this system the job that might have taken years to complete could better be figured in months.

The first step was the construction of 25 miles of roadway through the Navajo Reservation to the canyon rim from Cedar Ridge, an Indian trading post on U. S. Highway 89 about midway between Cameron, Arizona, and Navajo Bridge. Next a base camp was established near the rim and then the problem of canyon access was tackled.

It is very likely that the first thought to enter the minds of the field engineers when they peered into the chasm to see the proposed site some 2,500 feet below was the fundamental theorem; "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line" for they came pretty close to installing just such a line, but they greatly decreased the tension by allowing it to sag in the center approximately 270 feet.

Before the canyon cableway was designed and constructed a search was made for a type in use elsewhere that would be applicable. None of the ski lifts or other cableways in the United States or in foreign countries that were checked would meet the requirements of this project. This system called for a single length, specially manufactured cable nearly three quarters of a mile in length anchored only at the two terminal ends on the rim and on the canyon floor, as there was no practical way to use intermediate supports.

Specifications for such a system were created on paper and contracts were placed with various manufacturers. When all the parts arrived, like a giant Erector Set, they were assembled and installed by the reclamation crew. It was necessary to first lower a smaller messenger cable down the steep canyon walls to the lower anchor point. Once pulled into position, this temporary cableway served as a guide to lower the one and threeeighth inch locked coil 3,667 foot long permanent track cable. This cable was attached at the upper end to a twenty foot structural steel tower and at the lower end to a forty-foot system to take-up blocks which allow for expansion and contraction adjustments and for tension control. Both the tower and the blocks are anchored by back stays to three-inch U shaped bars embedded four feet in solid rock. The track cable weighs 4.75 pounds per foot, a total weight including terminal attachment sockets of approximately 18,000 pounds. It has a breaking strength of 105 tons and an allowable load capacity of 2,000 pounds including the 500 pound weight of the cage. The raising and lowering of the carriage and its load is accomplished at the rate of 350 feet per minute by an attached five-eighth inch load-line cable and a power hoist on the canyon rim. A one-way trip takes from twelve to fourteen minutes.

pulled into position, this temporary cableway served as a guide to lower the one and threeeighth inch locked coil 3,667 foot long permanent track cable. This cable was attached at the upper end to a twenty foot structural steel tower and at the lower end to a forty-foot system to take-up blocks which allow for expansion and contraction adjustments and for tension control. Both the tower and the blocks are anchored by back stays to three-inch U shaped bars embedded four feet in solid rock. The track cable weighs 4.75 pounds per foot, a total weight including terminal attachment sockets of approximately 18,000 pounds. It has a breaking strength of 105 tons and an allowable load capacity of 2,000 pounds including the 500 pound weight of the cage. The raising and lowering of the carriage and its load is accomplished at the rate of 350 feet per minute by an attached five-eighth inch load-line cable and a power hoist on the canyon rim. A one-way trip takes from twelve to fourteen minutes.

With the cableway completed, a lower camp was set up in the canyon and all the equipment used there has floated in seemingly out of the sky. This includes such heavy items as compressors, pumps, drill machines and barges, building supplies, a refrigerator, stoves etc. Every ten days the crew soars to the rim to spend four days in the upper world.

A smaller cableway almost identical in its basic design has been constructed from the rim of the inner gorge bench on which the lower camp is located to the river level 350 feet below. This 693 foot seven-eighth inch track cable, in descending, crosses over the river to the exact location the proposed dam where diamond drilling is underway. A series of 25 two inch holes are being drilled 100 to 500 feet deep on both sides of the river and in the bed from anchored barges. The rock cores removed from these holes are packed and catalogued in proper sequence for careful analysis of strata and rock formation at this point before it can be approved as a suitable