Traveled down the river 2 miles and camped.
Monday, October 8.
It was thought by many of the company that it might be practical to follow the river down to the Feather River mines, and thus save much time and travel in avoiding the long, circuitous route by the way of the Sacramento valley and Lassen’s Ranch, and consequently, six of us started in the morning with about two days’ rations, pursued a southerly course through the mountains and in six miles of travel came to a small stream. We then crossed a mountain ridge about 9 miles and came into a fine bottom prairie 8 miles in length with a small stream passing through the center. We went down the valley three miles, built a fire by the side of a large pine log, and ate our supper. The meal finished we laid ourselves down for the night—Indian fashion—keeping one at a time of the party on watch during the night to give the alarm should any Indians make their appearance. We discovered fresh Indian signs in the little valley today.
Tuesday, October 9.
The morning was cool and very foggy. We started as soon as it was fairly light, and went on down the little valley to the southern end, where the stream enters a deep, high canyon with high precipitous mountains on both sides. We traveled down the canyon about one mile farther and found the mountains so extremely rough, we became convinced that it would be an impossibility to travel through them with mules and horses. We gave up the expedition and started for camp, where we arrived about one o’clock very much fatigued.
We did not move our camp today.
Wednesday, October 10.
Traveled 10 miles in the forenoon and 8 miles in the afternoon and camped on Deer Creek.
Thursday, October 11.
A part of the night was rainy, which was not very agreeable, as we have not had our tents set for a long time, or since we left Raft River. We traveled 10 miles in the forenoon and halted at a spring where there was no grass. In the afternoon we went on 8 miles farther and camped at a spring. No grass.