| Summary: | Correspondence between Harry Aleson and Dick Sprang. Harry writes about trips taken and activities and research in northern Arizona and southern Utah. Includes Aleson's Vacationing in the Great Southwest, a 25 page narrative description of traveling to Lake Mead, Rampart Cave and Separation Canyon. He explains that they wanted to hike up Separation Canyon and to meet up with the Nevills Expedition, 1940. Aleson mentions encounters with various people on his travels, including Barry Goldwater. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Richard "Dick" Sprang was born on July 28, 1915 in Fremont, Ohio to William and Hannah (Hintz) Sprang. After graduating from Fremont High School, Sprang lived in Toledo, Ohio and later New York City working as a newspaper artist, Western pulp fiction writer, and as one of the first Batman cartoonists. In October 1950, Sprang, along with his companion, Dudy Thomas, and Sedona local, Elmer Purtymun, launched a six week trip on the Colorado River in Glen Canyon. On this trip, they met a lone boatman, Harry Aleson. Sprang and Aleson became fast friends and would remain so for two decades. Sprang, Thomas, Purtymun, and Sedonan Bill Towne repeated their trip in 1951. Not long after this trip, Sprang proposed a plan to Aleson that would entail forming a research team designed to conduct a study of Glen Canyon in half mile increments. Aleson accepted and Canyon Surveys began its first river reconnaissance in October 1952. On this first reconnaissance trip the team of Aleson, Sprang, and Thomas explored an unnamed canyon to its head. They discovered perfectly preserved ruins and a large pictograph they named "Three Warrior." Thomas called the canyon "Forgotten Canyon." The pictograph and ruins were later named "Defiance House. Canyon Surveys conducted trips in 1953 and again in 1955; however, by then the group's goal of recording geology, ruins, and endemic flora and fauna had petered out in favor of long hikes and relaxing days spent in camp. Sprang would go on two more Glen Canyon river trips (1959 and 1962).
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