The Adventures of Pike and His Men on the Arkansas River

Pike and his men were forced to travel down the Arkansas River in 1807. The river is no more than 30 feet across, with canyon walls a thousand feet high on both sides. Travel was treacherous as the route turned into a series of narrow canyons. At one point Pike had some of his men attempt to follow the canyon's rim, only to have things become so treacherous that one of the horses fell off the ledge. It was here that the river, which was not frozen at this point, filled up the entire canyon. He, along with two of his men, were forced to climb a wall of ice to escape the canyon. On January 4th, 1807,