First Women To Travel The Colorado River Through The Grand Canyon

By Kristy McCaffrey

In 1938, Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter became the first women to descend the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

Elzada Clover

Elzada Clover was a botany instructor and assistant curator of the botanical gardens at the University of Michigan. She believed the Grand Canyon would reveal many species that would help to round out their collection. Originally, she had planned to descend the canyon by pack mule, but after meeting river runner Norm Nevills, he convinced her that a boat trip would be better. He proposed a 660-mile trip from Green River, Utah, to Lake Mead. If successful, it would make Clover the first botanist to catalog plants along the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter

Clover invited 24-year-old Lois Jotter, a close friend and former roommate of Clover's who was a graduate student in botany at the same university, and Eugene Atkinson, a zoology major. Also accompanying them were Bill Gibson (a commercial artist from San Francisco hoping to further his photography career) and Don Harris (a USGS engineer).

Three boats were constructed for the expedition—sixteen feet long, four feet across the stern, five feet amidship, and tapered to a pointed bow. The boats were called the Wen (Norm Nevill’s father’s initials), the Botany (in honor of the expedition), and the Mexican Hat (a rock formation in Utah near where Nevills lived).

By 1938, several men had navigated the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, but only one woman had attempted it. Unfortunately Bessie Hyde had disappeared with her husband Glen before finishing, and while it was never clear what happened to the couple, it’s believed that they drowned somewhere near Diamond Creek.

The trip launched on June 20, 1938, on the Green River, with plans to reach Lake Mead by the end of July. It wasn’t easy, but they succeeded, the trip taking 43 days. It would be Elzada Clover’s only trip through the Grand Canyon. She often gave talks about her adventure, as well as spoke to her classes about being the first woman to run the Grand Canyon. A complete report of her and Lois’s botanical findings appeared in the November 1944 American Midland Naturalist under the title “Floristic Studies in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River and Tributaries.” Clover led an active life until her death in 1980 at 83.

Lois Jotter returned to Michigan to complete her Ph.D, during which time she married. She stepped back from academics to raise two children but following her husband’s death in 1963 she joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina as an assistant professor of botany. In 1984, she retired. Lois returned to the Colorado River in 1994 to participate in a Legends Trip, a group of “old-timers” whose purpose was to compare river conditions before and after the construction of Glen Canyon Dam. In 2013, she died at the age of 99.

Though the botanical collections were not as comprehensive as originally planned, Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter made history by becoming the first females to successfully descend the Colorado River through its major rapids.

Come along with Texas Ranger Nathan Blackmore and Emma Hart as they journey through Grand Canyon in 1877.
Click here to learn more about THE SPARROW.

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Women Of The Grand Canyon

By Kristy McCaffrey

Elzada Clover (standing) and Lois Jotter (facing
the camera).

In 1938, Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter became the first women to descend the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Clover, a botany professor at the University of Michigan, and Jotter, a close friend and former roommate of Clover's who was a graduate student in botany at the same university, planned the trip to “botanize” underexplored parts of the canyon. The journey lasted 43 days and covered over 650 miles. Though the botanical collections were not as comprehensive as originally planned, the two women made history by becoming the first females to successfully descend the Colorado River through its major rapids.

Georgie White was the first woman river guide in the Grand Canyon. In 1955 she began taking customers down the Colorado River in a large rubber raft of her own design. These rigs were 37 feet long, 27 feet wide and consisted of strapping three large inflatable boats together, then mounting a 10-horsepower outboard motor on the rear of the middle boat. This mode was controversial, as those who ran the rapids in wooden dories held disdain for her methods. However, she was able to take paying customers en mass, introducing the rapids and the Grand Canyon to an entirely new group of people. Her effect on the river was tremendous. In 1955 only 70 people floated down the Colorado. By 1972, the number had risen to an astounding 16,400.

Georgie White, first woman river guide
in the Grand Canyon.

Twice divorced, White first ventured into the canyon after the tragic death of her 15-year-old daughter in a hit and run accident. She kept her river-guiding business going for 45 years. At the age of 73, she could be seen holding her motor rig’s tiller with one hand and a beer with the other, wearing a full-length leopard-pattern leotard.

A famous and unsolved mystery in the Grand Canyon involves a young couple named Glen and Bessie Hyde. They married in 1928 and shortly thereafter embarked on a grand adventure—a boat trip on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon on a homemade scow. Bessie would be the first woman to attempt to ride the river. In November of 1928, about a month after they had set out, their scow was found floating and empty. No trace of them has ever been found.

Glenn and Bessie Hyde, who disappeared on the
Colorado River in 1928. Their bodies were never
found.

Several theories have been put forth as to what may have happened. It was said that Glen was a controlling husband and that perhaps Bessie had killed him, then hiked out of the canyon to start a new life. Some thought the famous river-runner Georgie White was Bessie Hyde, fueled when friends went through White’s belongings after her death in 1992. They found the marriage certificate of Glen and Bessie Hyde, along with a pistol similar to one they’d carried on their journey. This theory has been disputed because Bessie didn’t like river-running, so it’s unlikely she would return to Grand Canyon and make it her vocation. The most likely outcome was that Glen and Bessie drowned, and the bodies simply disappeared.

And now, a fun snake story. In There's this River... Grand Canyon Boatman Stories edited by Christa Sadler, river guide Teresa Yates Matheson describes a trip she took on the Colorado River with her mother. Having set up camp along the shoreline earlier in the day, Teresa was shocked to find a guest at the bottom of her sleeping bag that evening. What felt like a coiled rope soon began moving up the length of her body. In an effort not to alarm her mother, and possibly startle the snake, she remained still and quiet until the reptile exited her bag, the rattles brushing past her face. Thankfully, they soon corralled the critter and moved him upstream.

Kristy McCaffrey has been writing since she was very young, but it wasn’t until she was a stay-at-home mom that she considered becoming published. She’s the author of several historical western romances, all set in the American southwest. She lives in the Arizona desert with her husband, two chocolate labs, and whichever of their four teenaged children happen to be in residence. 

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