Mormon settlers of Bluff, Utah, crossed the high desert of the Colorado Plateau and the Colorado River in 1879 on what is now known as the Hole-In-the-Rock trail. Brigham Young had called a group of southern Utah Mormons to settle southeastern Utah because few Mormon families lived east of the Colorado River. The Mormons organized quickly and decided on a route from Escalante, Utah, to a remote section of southeastern Utah. Desert terrain, canyon country, and the Colorado River all made the journey difficult..

After a relatively easy journey south of Escalante towards the Colorado River, they ran into trouble. The canyon country surrounding the Colorado River had sheer cliffs that were difficult to descend. They sent out scouts and chose a ‘short cut’ through an actual hole, they dubbed Hole-in-the-Rock. At the top of a canyon that descended to the Colorado River, there was a relatively large navigable passageway. The trail was marked by a large hole that was wide and tall enough for a few men, but not wide enough for a wagon to pull through. They sent a group back to obtain dynamite and other equipment. With great effort they blasted away the edges of the hole. The gap opened wide enough for the wagons to travel through.

However, the descent down from the top of the cliff was difficult. The hole opened to a sheer cliff far from the river below. To descend to the canyon floor, they built a ‘floating’ road called a dugway. They bored holes into the cliff to drive metal spikes into the wall, then placed strong tree branches over the spikes and piled up rocks underneath to finish the road. Eventually they made it far enough down the side of the cliff that a dugway was no longer needed, but the terrain was still too difficult for the animals to safely walk over. They carved stairs into the solid rock to make it easier for their horses and cattle to maneuver. The rock stairway was the last part of the trail that led to the water’s edge.

Once the party made it to the bottom of the canyon, they had to cross the Colorado River. Using a ferry that could fit two wagons at a time, they managed to get everyone across. Their journey was not over, but the most difficult phase was done. They proceeded through more canyon country and settled Bluff, Utah.

Today, some of the staircase is under Lake Powell, but most of the dugway along the cliff is still visible. One can hike down the trail from the top of the canyon through the Hole-in-the-Rock. The trail is also accessible below by boat from Lake Powell.

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The white pioneer settlers who trekked to Bluff Utah in 1880 overcame tremendous challenges to simply arrive at their intended destination. The voyage across the state from Salt Lake City was a long and arduous one. Josephine "Aunt Jody" Woods lamented, "The life was frightened right out of us all. I don't know what they call this place but I call it the Devil's Twist & that is a Sunday name for it. For of all the roads on earth, I don't think there is any worse than they are [here]. It is no earthly use for me to try to describe the road or the county. It is the most god forsaken & wild [looking] country that was ever traveled." One stage in the journey required the blasting of a large hole cliffside rocks, and lowering wagons down the steep decline to the Colorado River - a site known as "Hole in the Rock." Despite the difficulties, the journey was made without a single loss of life.

Once they reached the site they would call Bluff, the pioneers had many difficulties that included facing the environment and the Native Americans that were there. The river had to be tamed, resources gathered, and buildings constructed. All of these proved difficult, but possible for the pioneers. Irrigation needed to be erected to create land suitable for farming, but was repeatedly washed away when the floods rose. The early settlers lived in constant fear of the river. "I remember about the river. We used to be so deathly afraid of that river because at that time we had so much flooding. We were scared to death the town was going to be washed away. It just started cutting in so bad that it was almost up to the houses," recalled Nadine Adams.

They were also in constant fear of the Native peoples of the region. Concerning Native theft of livestock, Albert Lyman related, "Eleven of the horses had been stolen from Bluff, and two of them had been gone a year. When the Indians saw the intention of the white men to claim these horses, they sent up a yell, and guns flashed quickly into sight."

The resilient residents continued to face difficulty into the 20th century as their economy faced various boom-bust cycles because of shifts between agriculture, livestock, and mining. Eventually the town's population settled around 300 individuals. The journal entries of these people demonstrate both the trials they faced and their resilient nature in overcoming them.

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