"The days of final packing passed quickly with the unpacking of innumerable boxes and bundles, the checking off each article against our lists, and with a long and careful overhauling of our photographic outfit.

This was a most important task. for the success of our expedition depended on our success as photographers.

We could not hope to add anything of importance to the already existing scientific or topographic knowledge of the canyons.

And merely, to come out alive at the other end, did not make a strong appeal to our vanity.

We were going there as scenic photographers in love with their work, who were determined to reproduce the marvels of the Colorado River's canyons, as far as we could do it.

In addition to three roll film cameras, we had 8x10 and 5x7 plate cameras, a plentiful supply of plates and films, a large cloth darkroom tent, and whatever chemicals we should need for tests.

Most important of all, we had brought a motion picture camera We had no real assurance that so delicate an apparatus, always difficult to use and regulate, could even survive the journey - much less, in such inexperienced hands as ours - reproduce it's wonders.

This nevertheless, was our secret hope, hardly admitted to our most intimate friends - that we could bring out a record of the Colorado, as it is, a live thing - armed as it were with teeth ready to crush and devour."

- Ellsworth Kolb, 1912