The country in this vicinity is broken and mountainous; soil is rocky, sandy and not very productive.
Tuesday, July 31.
Weather fine—warm days and cool nights. Break camp at a late hour and leave the Sweetwater River, and in 16 miles’ travel we intersect it again, where we unpack our mules and dine. Grouse are very plentiful in this region. Remain two hours, after which we travel up the river six miles and camp where we find good grass. The Sweetwater is a fork of the Platte and derives its name from the peculiar taste of the water.
Wednesday, August 1.
We are now near the summit of the Rocky Mountains, at an elevation of about 7,000 feet above the Gulf of Mexico.
There was a heavy frost this morning.
Traveled up the river 11 miles in the forenoon. In the afternoon we traveled up the river five miles farther and camped on a small branch of the Sweetwater. We left the road today with the intention of taking a straight course through the mountains to Fort Hall, thereby avoiding the circuitous route by the way of Fort Bridges.
Captain Thing, our guide, states that he once traveled the route and in his opinion we shall find good grass and water, and that there is an Indian trail through which he thinks he can follow. The main road is now several miles to the south of us. This is known as the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains. Many suppose it to be a narrow, precipitous pass with high mountains on either side; but it is directly the reverse, it being almost a level plain, extending many miles to the north and to the south; and were it not that the waters divide near this place, and a portion flow to the Gulf of Mexico, and another portion to the Pacific Ocean through the Colorado River and the Gulf of California, any one would not believe that they were standing on the summit of the Rocky Mountains.