From Orion:
Two miles further on saw for the first time, snow on the mountains, glittering in the sun like settings of silver. Near the summit of the South Pass appears in sight Fremont’s Peak. The wind river mountains, in which we first saw snow, are about 50 miles distant. About 6 miles beyond the very summit of the South Pass of the Rocky mountains, is Pacific station, in Utah Territory, near the Nebraska line., where we got an excellent dinner. Near this Station are the Pacific Springs, which issue in a branch, taking up its march for the Pacific Ocean. The summit of the Rocky mountains, or the highest point of the South Pass, is 902 miles from St. Joseph.
Roughing It:
"Two miles beyond South Pass City we saw for the first time that mysterious marvel which all Western untraveled boys have heard of and fully believe in, but are sure to be astounded at when they see it with their own eyes, nevertheless—banks of snow in dead summer time. We were now far up toward the sky, and knew all the time that we must presently encounter lofty summits clad in the “eternal snow” which was so common place a matter of mention in books, and yet when I did see it glittering in the sun on stately domes in the distance and knew the month was August and that my coat was hanging up because it was too warm to wear it, I was full as much amazed as if I never had heard of snow in August before. Truly, “seeing is believing”—and many a man lives a long life through, thinking he believes certain universally received and well established things, and yet never suspects that if he were confronted by those things once, he would discover that he did not really believe them before, but only thought he believed them.
In a little while quite a number of peaks swung into view with long claws of glittering snow clasping them; and with here and there, in the shade, down the mountain side, a little solitary patch of snow looking no larger than a lady’s pocket-handkerchief but being in reality as large as a “public square.”
And now, at last, we were fairly in the renowned SOUTH PASS, and whirling gayly along high above the common world. We were perched upon the extreme summit of the great range of the Rocky Mountains, toward which we had been climbing, patiently climbing, ceaselessly climbing, for days and nights together—and about us was gathered a convention of Nature’s kings that stood ten, twelve, and even thirteen thousand feet high—grand old fellows who would have to stoop to see Mount Washington, in the twilight. We were in such an airy elevation above the creeping populations of the earth, that now and then when the obstructing crags stood out of the way it seemed that we could look around and abroad and contemplate the whole great globe, with its dissolving views of mountains, seas and continents stretching away through the mystery of the summer haze.
As a general thing the Pass was more suggestive of a valley than a suspension bridge in the clouds—but it strongly suggested the latter at one spot. At that place the upper third of one or two majestic purple domes projected above our level on either hand and gave us a sense of a hidden great deep of mountains and plains and valleys down about their bases which we fancied we might see if we could step to the edge and look over. These Sultans of the fastnesses were turbaned with tumbled volumes of cloud, which shredded away from time to time and drifted off fringed and torn, trailing their continents of shadow after them; and catching presently on an intercepting peak, wrapped it about and brooded there—then shredded away again and left the purple peak, as they had left the purple domes, downy and white with new-laid snow. In passing, these monstrous rags of cloud hung low and swept along right over the spectator’s head, swinging their tatters so nearly in his face that his impulse was to shrink when they came closet. In the one place I speak of, one could look below him upon a world of diminishing crags and canyons leading down, down, and away to a vague plain with a thread in it which was a road, and bunches of feathers in it which were trees,—a pretty picture sleeping in the sunlight—but with a darkness stealing over it and glooming its features deeper and deeper under the frown of a coming storm; and then, while no film or shadow marred the noon brightness of his high perch, he could watch the tempest break forth down there and see the lightnings leap from crag to crag and the sheeted rain drive along the canyon-sides, and hear the thunders peal and crash and roar. We had this spectacle; a familiar one to many, but to us a novelty."
From Burton:
But we have not yet reached our destination, which is two miles below the South Pass. Pacific Springs is our station; it lies a little down the hill, and we can sight it from the road. The springs are a pond of pure, hard and very cold water surrounded by a strip of shaking bog, which must be boarded over before it will bear a man. The hut would be a right melancholy abode, were it not for the wooded ground on one hand and the glorious snow peaks on the other side of the "Pass." We reached Pacific Springs at 3 PM and dined without delay; the material being bouilli and potatoes - unusual luxuries. About an hour afterward the west wind, here almost invariable, brought up a shower of rain, and swept a vast veil over the forms of the Wind River Mountains. Toward sunset it cleared away, and the departing luminary poured a flood of gold upon the majestic pile - I have seldom seen a view more beautiful.
From the south, the barren rolling table land that forms the Pass trends northward, till it sinks apparently below a ridge of offsets from the main body, black with timber, - cedar, cypress, fir, and balsam pine. The hand of Nature has marked, as though by line and level, the place where vegetation shall go and no farther. Below the waist the mountains are robed in evergreens; above it, to the shoulders, they would be entirely bare, but for the atmosphere, which has thrown a thin veil of light blue over their tawny gray, while their majestic heads are covered with ice and snow, or are hidden from sight by thunder cloud or the morning mist. From the south on clear days the cold and glittering radiance may be seen at a distance of a hundred miles. The monarch of these mountains is "Fremont's Peak"; its height is laid down at 13,570 feet above sea level; and second to it is a hoary cone called by the station people Snowy Peak.
That evening the Wind River Mountains appeared in marvelous majesty. The huge purple hangings of rain cloud in the northern sky set off their huge proportions, and gave prominence, as in a stereoscope, to their gigantic forms, and their upper heights, hoar with the frosts of ages. The mellow radiance of the setting sun diffused a charming softness over their more rugged features, defining the folds and ravines with a distinctness which deceived every idea of distance. And as the light sank behind the far western horizon, it traveled slowly up the mountain side, till, reaching the summit, it mingled its splendors with the snow - flashing and flickering for a few brief moments, then wasting them in the dark depths of the upper air. Nor was the scene less lovely in the morning hour, as the first effulgence of day fell upon the masses of dew cloud, - at this time mist always settles upon their brows, - lit up the peaks, which gleamed like silver, and poured its streams of light and warmth over the broad skirts reposing upon the plain. (p 164)
This unknown region was explored in August 1842, by Colonel, then Brevet Captain, JC Fremont, of the United States Topographical Engineers; and his eloquent descriptions of the magnificent scenery that rewarded his energy and enterprise prove how easily men write well when they have a great subject to write upon. The concourse of small green tarns, rushing waters, and lofty cascades, with the gigantic disorder of enormous masses, the savage sublimity of the naked rock, broken, jagged cones, slender minarets, needles, and columns, and serrated walls, 2,000 to 3,000 feet high, all naked and destitute of vegetable earth; the vertical precipices, chasms, and fissures, insecure icy passages, long moraines, and sloping glaciers - which had nearly proved fatal to some of the party; - the stern recesses, shutting out from the world dells and ravines of exquisite beauty, smoothly carpeted with soft grass, kept green and fresh by the moisture of the atmosphere, and sown with gay groups of brilliant flowers, of which yellow was the predominant color: all this glory and grandeur seems to be placed like a picture before our eyes. The reader enjoys, like the explorer, the fragrant odor of the pines, and the pleasure of breathing, in the bright, clear morning, that "mountain air which makes a constant theme of the hunter's praise," and which causes man to feel as if he had been inhaling some exhilarating gas. We sympathize with his joy in having hit upon "such a beautiful entrance to the mountains," in his sorrow, caused by accidents to barometer and thermometer, and in the honest pride with which, fixing a ramrod in the crevice of "an unstable and precarious slab, which it seemed a breath would hurl into the abyss below," he unfurled the Stars and the Stripes, to wave in the breeze where flag never waved before - over the topmost crest of the Rocky Mountains. And every driver upon road now can tell how, in the profound silence and terrible stillness and solitude that affect the mind as the great features of scene, while sitting on a rock at the very summit, where the was absolute, unbroken by any sound, and the stillness and solitude were completest, a solitary "humble bee," winging the black blue air his flight from the eastern valley, alit upon knee of one of the men, and helas! "found a grave in the leaves of the large book, among the flowers collected on the way." (p 165)
The Wind River Range has other qualities than mere formal beauty to recommend it. At Horseshoe Creek I was shown a quill full of large gold grains from a new digging. Probably all the primitive masses of the Rocky Mountains will be found to contain the precious metal. The wooded heights are said to be a very paradise of sport, full of elk, and every kind of deer; pumas; bears, brown as well as grizzly; the wolverine; in parts the mountain buffalo - briefly, all the noble game of the Continent. The Indian tribes, Shoshonees and Blackfeet, are not deadly to whites. Washiki, the chief of the former, had, during the time of our visit, retired to hilly ground, about forty miles north of the Foot of Ridge Station. This chief - a fine, manly fellow, equal in point of physical strength to the higher race - had been a firm friend, from the beginning, to emigrant and settler; but he was complaining, according to the road officials, that the small amount of inducement prevented his affording good conduct any longer, that he must rob, like the rest of the tribe. Game, indeed, is not unfrequently found near the Pacific Springs; they are visited, later in the year, by swans, geese, and flights of ducks. At this season they seem principally to attract coyotes, - five mules have lately been worried by the little villains, - huge cranes, chicken hawks, a large species of trochilus, and clouds of musquetoes, which neither the altitude, the cold, nor the eternal wind storm that howls through the Pass, can drive from their favorite breeding bed. Near nightfall a flock of wild geese passed over us, audibly threatening an early winter. We were obliged, before resting, to insist upon a smudge, without which fumigation, sleep would have been impossible. (p 165)
The shanty was perhaps a trifle more uncomfortable than average; our only seat was a kind of trestled plank, which a certain obsolete military punishment, called riding on rail. The station master was a bon enfant; but his help, a Mormon lad, still in his teens, had been trained to go in a "sorter" jibbing and somewhat uncomfortable "argufying," "highfalutin'" way. He had the furor for fire arms that characterizes the ingenuous youth of Great Salt Lake City, and his old rattletrap of a revolver, which always reposed by his side at night, was as to his friends as to himself. His vernacular was peculiar; like Mr Boatswain Chucks (Mr D--s), he could begin a sentence with polished and elaborate diction, but it always ended like the wicked, badly. He described himself, for instance, as having lately been "slightly inebriated"; but the euphuistic periphrasis concluded with an asseveration that he would be "Gord domned," if he did it again.
The night was, like the day, loud and windy, the log hut somewhat crannied and creviced, and the door had a porcelain handle, and a shocking bad fit - a characteristic combination. We had some trouble to keep ourselves warm. At sunrise the thermometer showed 35d Fahrenheit . (p 166)
Roughing It:
At midnight it began to rain, and I never saw anything like it—indeed, I did not even see this, for it was too dark. We fastened down the curtains and even caulked them with clothing, but the rain streamed in in twenty places, notwithstanding. There was no escape. If one moved his feet out of a stream, he brought his body under one; and if he moved his body he caught one somewhere else. If he struggled out of the drenched blankets and sat up, he was bound to get one down the back of his neck. Meantime the stage was wandering about a plain with gaping gullies in it, for the driver could not see an inch before his face nor keep the road, and the storm pelted so pitilessly that there was no keeping the horses still. With the first abatement the conductor turned out with lanterns to look for the road, and the first dash he made was into a chasm about fourteen feet deep, his lantern following like a meteor. As soon as he touched bottom he sang out frantically:
“Don’t come here!”
To which the driver, who was looking over the precipice where he had disappeared, replied, with an injured air: “Think I’m a dam fool?”
The conductor was more than an hour finding the road—a matter which showed us how far we had wandered and what chances we had been taking. He traced our wheel-tracks to the imminent verge of danger, in two places. I have always been glad that we were not killed that night. I do not know any particular reason, but I have always been glad.
In the morning, the tenth day out, we crossed Green river, a fine, large, limpid stream—stuck in it, with the water just up to the top of our mail-bed, and waited till extra teams were put on to haul us up the steep bank. But it was nice cool water, and besides it could not find any fresh place on us to wet.
At the Green river station we had breakfast—hot biscuits, fresh antelope steaks, and coffee—the only decent meal we tasted between the United States and Great Salt Lake City, and the only one we were ever really thankful for. Think of the monotonous execrableness of the thirty that went before it, to leave this one simple breakfast looming up in my memory like a shot-tower after all these years have gone by!
Chapter 12: Paragraph 22," in Roughing It : an electronic text. 2016
To Green River, August 21st
We rose early, despite the cold, to enjoy once more the aspect of the Wind River Mountains, upon whose walls of the rays of the unrisen sun broke with a splendid effect; breakfasted, and found ourselves en route at 8 AM. (p 166)
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At the Pacific Creek, two miles below the springs, we began the descent of the Western water-shed, and the increase of temperature soon suggested a lower level. We were at once convinced that those who expect any change for the better on the counter slope of the mountains labor under a vulgar error. The land was desolate, a red waste, dotted with sage and greasebush, and in places pitted with large rain drops. But looking backward we could admire the Sweetwater's Gap heading far away, and the glorious pile of mountains which, disposed in crescent shape, curtained the horizon; their southern and western bases wanted however one of the principal charms of the upper view, the snow had well nigh been melted off. Yet, according to the explorer, they supply within the space of a few miles the Green River with a number of tributaries, which are all called the New Forks. We kept them in sight till they mingled with the upper air like immense masses of thunder cloud gathering for a storm. (p 166-7)
From Pacific Creek the road is not bad, but at this season the emigrant parties are sorely tried by drought, and when water is found it is often fetid or brackish. After seventeen miles we passed the junction of the Great Salt Lake and Fort Hall roads. Near Little Sandy Creek - a feeder of its larger namesake - which after rains is about 2.5 feet deep, we found nothing but sand, caked clay, sage, thistles, and the scattered fragments of camp fires, with large ravens picking at the bleaching skeletons, and other indications of a halting ground, an eddy in the great current of mankind, which, ceaseless as the Gulf Stream, ever courses from east to west. After a long stage of twenty nine miles, we made Big Sandy Creek, an important influent of the Green River; the stream, then shrunken, was in breadth not less than five rods, each=16.5 feet, running with a clear swift current through a pretty little prairillon, bright with the blue lupine, the delicate pink malvacea, the golden helianthus, purple aster acting daisy, the white mountain heath, and the green Asclepias tuberosa, a weed common throughout Utah Territory. The Indians, in their picturesque way, term this stream Wagahongopa, or the Glistening Gravel Water. We halted for an hour to rest and dine; the people of the station, man and wife, the latter very young, were both English, and of course Mormons; they had but lately become tenants of the ranch, but already they were thinking, as the Old Country people will, of making their surroundings "nice and tidy." (p 167)
Beyond the Glistening Gravel Water lies a mauvaise terre, sometimes called the First Desert, and upon the old road water is not found in the dry season within forty nine miles - a terrible jornada for laden wagons with tired cattle. We prepared for drought by replenishing all our canteens - one of them especially, a tin flask, covered outside with thick cloth, kept the fluid deliciously cold - and we amused ourselves by the pleasant prospect of seeing wild mules taught to bear harness. (p 168)
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Rain-clouds appeared from the direction of the hills: apparently they had many centres, as the distant sheet was rent into a succession of distinct streamers. A few drops fell upon us as we advanced. Then the fiery sun “ate up” the clouds, or raised them so high that they became playthings in the hands of the strong and steady western gale. The thermometer showed 95° in the carriage, and 111° exposed to the reflected heat upon the black leather cushions. It was observable, however, that the sensation was not what might have been expected from the height of the mercury, and perspiration was unknown except during severe exercise; this proves the purity and salubrity of the air. In St. Jo and New Orleans the effect would have been that of India or of a Turkish steam-bath. The heat, however, brought with it one evil—a green-headed horsefly, that stung like a wasp, and from which cattle must be protected with a coating of grease and tar. Whenever wind blew, tourbillons of dust coursed over the different parts of the plain, showing a highly electrical state of the atmosphere. When the air was unmoved the mirage was perfect as the sarab in Sindh or Southern Persia; earth and air were both so dry that the refraction of the sunbeams elevated the objects acted upon more than I had ever seen before. A sea lay constantly before our eyes, receding of course as we advanced, but in all other points a complete lusus naturæ. The color of the water was a dull cool sky-blue, not white, as the “looming” generally is; the broad expanse had none of that tremulous upward motion which is its general concomitant; it lay placid, still, and perfectly reflecting in its azure depths—here and there broken by projecting capes and bluff headlands—the forms of the higher grounds bordering the horizon.
After twelve miles driving we passed through a depression called Simpson's Hollow, and somewhat celebrated in local story. Two semicircles of black still charred the ground; on a cursory view they might have been mistaken for burnt out lignite. Here, in 1857, the Mormons fell upon a corraled train of twenty three wagons, laden with provisions and other necessaries for the federal troops, then halted at Camp Scott awaiting orders to advance. The wagoners, suddenly attacked, and as usual, unarmed, - their weapons being fastened inside their awnings, - could offer no resistance, and the whole convoy was set on fire except two conveyances, which were left to carry back supplies for the drivers till they could reach their homes. (p 168-9)
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As sunset drew near we approached the banks of the Big River. The bottom through which it flowed was several yards in breadth, bright green with grass, and thickly feathered willows and cotton wood. It showed no sign of cultivation; absence of cereals may be accounted for by its extreme cold; it freezes there every night, and none but the hardiest grains, oats and rye, which here are little appreciated, could be made to grow. We are now approaching the valley of the Green River, which, like many of the rivers in the Eastern States, appears formerly have filled a far larger channel. Flat tables and elevated terraces of horizontal strata, - showing that the deposit was made in still waters - with layers varying from a few lines to a foot in thickness, composed of hard clay, green and other sandstones, and agglutinated conglomerates, rise like islands from barren plains, or form escarpments that buttress alternately either bank of the winding stream. Such, according to Captain Stansbury, is the formation of the land between the South Pass and the "Rim" of the Utah Basin. (p 169)
Advancing over a soil alternately sandy and rocky - an iron flat that could not boast of a spear of grass - we sighted a of coyotes, fittest inhabitants of such a waste, and a long distant line of dust, like the smoke of a locomotive, raised by a herd of mules which were being driven to the corral. We were met by the Pony Express rider; he reined in to exchange news, which de part el d'autre were simply nil. (p 169)
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At 6 30 PM we debouched upon the bank of the Green River. The station was the home of Mr Macarthy, our driver. The son of a Scotchman who had settled in the United States he retained many signs of his origin, especially freckles, and hair which one might almost venture to describe as sandy; perhaps also at times he was rather o'er fond of draining "a cup o' kindness yet." He had lately taken to himself an English wife, the daughter of a Birmingham mechanic, who, before the end of her pilgrimage to "Zion on the tops of the mountains," had fallen considerably away from grace, and had incurred the risk of being buffeted by Satan for a thousand years - a common form of commination in the New Faith - by marrying a Gentile husband. The station had the indescribable scent of a Hindoo village, which appears to result from the burning of bois de vache and the presence of cattle: there were sheep, horses, mules, and a few cows, the latter so lively that it was impossible to milk them. The ground about had the effect of an oasis in the sterile waste, with grass and shrubs, willows, and flowers, wild geraniums, asters, and various cruciferce. A few trees, chiefly quaking asp, lingered near the station, but dead stumps were far more numerous than live trunks. In any other country their rare and precious shade would have endeared them to the whole settlement; here they were never safe when a log was wanted. The Western man is bred and perhaps born - I believe devoutly in transmitted and hereditary qualities - with an instinctive dislike to timber in general. He fells a tree naturally as a bull terrier worries a cat, and the admirable woodsman's axe which he has invented only serves to whet his desire to try conclusions with every more venerable patriarch of the forest. Civilized Americans, of course, lament the destructive mania, and the Latter Day Saints have learned by hard experience the inveterate evils that may arise in such a country from disforesting the ground. We supped comfortably at Green River Station, the stream supplying excellent salmon trout. The kichimichi, or buffalo berry, makes tolerable jelly, and alongside of the station is a store where Mr Burton (of Maine) sells "Valley Tan" whisky. (p 170)
The Green River is the Rio Verde of the Spaniards, who named it from its timbered shores and grassy islets: it is called by the Yuta Indians Piya Ogwe, or the Great Water, by the other tribes Sitskidiagf, or "Prairie grouse River." It was nearly at its lowest when we saw it: the breadth was not more than 330 feet. In the flood time it widens to 800 feet, and the depth increases from three to six. During the inundation season a ferry is necessary, and when transit is certain the owner sometimes nets $500 a week, which is not unfrequently squandered in a day. The banks are, in places, thirty feet high, and the bottom may average three miles from side to side. It is a swift flowing stream, running as if it had no time to lose, and truly it has a long way to go. Its length, volume, and direction entitle it to the honor of being called the head water of the great Rio Colorado, or Colored River, a larger and more important stream than even the Columbia. There is some grand exploration still to be done upon the line of the Upper Colorado, especially the divides which lie between it and its various influents, the Grand River and the Yaquisilla, of which the wild trapper brings home many a marvelous tale of beauty and grandeur. (p 171)
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We passed a social evening at Green River Station. It boasted of no less than three Englishwomen, two married and one, the help, still single. Not having the Mormonite retenue, the dames were by no means sorry to talk about Birmingham and Yorkshire, their birthplaces. At 9 PM arrived one of the road agents, Mr Cloete, from whom I gathered that the mail wagon which once ran from Great Salt Lake City had lately been taken off the road. The intelligence was by no means consolatory, but a course of meditation upon the saying of the sage, "in for a penny in for a pound," followed by another visit to my namesake's grog shop, induced a highly philosophical turn, which enabled me - with the aid of a buffalo - to pass a comfortable night in the store. (p 172)
Horace Greeley:
Twelve miles further on, we crossed Dry Sandy—not quite dry at this point, but its thirsty sands would surely drink the last of it a mile or so further south. Five miles beyond this, the old and well-beaten Oregon Trail strikes off to the northwest, while our road bends to the southwest. We are now out of the South Pass, which many have traversed unconsciously, and gone on wondering and inquiring when they should reach it. Seven miles further brought us to Little Sandy, and eight more to Big Sandy, whereon is the station at which, at four p. m. we (by order), stopped for the night. All these creeks appear to rise in the high mountains many miles north of us, and to run off with constantly diminishing volume, to join the Colorado at the south. Neither has a tree on its banks that I have seen—only a few low willow bushes at long intervals—though I hear that some cotton-wood is found on this creek ten miles above. Each has a “bottom” or intervale of perhaps four rods in average width, in which a little grass is found, but next to none on the high-sandy plains that separate them. Drouth and sterility reign here without rival.
Fort Bridger, Utah, July 8, 1859.
We crossed Big Sandy twice before quitting it—once just at the station where the above was written, and again eighteen miles further on. Twelve miles more brought us to Green River—a stream here perhaps as large as the Mohawk at Schenectady or the Hudson at Waterford. It winds with a rapid, muddy current through a deep, narrow valley, much of it sandy and barren, but the residue producing some grass with a few large cotton-woods at intervals, and some worthless bushes. There are three rope ferries within a short distance, and two or three trading-posts, somewhat frequented by Indians of the Snake tribe.