The horses were dead.

The canyon was quiet.

The canyon is still quiet, in the early morning, before the day-use visitors arrive.

The rock walls are the same color.

The Prairie Dog Town Fork runs the same direction.

The juniper trees are where they have always been.

What has changed is everything that was human about the place in 1874 — the lodges, the horses, the specific people who camped there through that summer, the specific choices that brought them there and the specific choices that ended their time there.

The geology persists.