Farnham's Travels in the Great Western Prairies, etc., May 21-October 16, 1839, part 1

On the western side of the stream which we were following down, were a collection of butes or conical peaks clustered around one, the top of which was somewhat in the form of the gable end of an ancient church. This cluster was flanked on each side by vast rolls or swells of earth and rock, which rose so high as to be capped with snow. In the distance to the West, were seen through the openings between the butes, a number of spiral peaks that imagination could have said formed the western front of a vast holy edifice of the eternal hills. On the eastern face of the gable bute were two transverse seams of what appeared to be crystallized quartz. The upright was about sixty feet in length, the cross seam about twenty feet, thrown athwart the upright near its top and lying parallel to the plane of the horizon. I viewed it as the sun rose over the eastern mountains and fell upon the glittering crystals of this emblem of the Saviour's suffering, built with the foundations and treasured in the bosom of these granite solitudes. A cross in a church, however fallen we may suppose it to be from the original purity of worship, excites, as it should, in the minds of all reasonable men, a sacred awe arising from the remembrance of the scene in Judea which spread darkness like the night over the earth and the sun. But how much more impressive was this cross of living rock – on the temple of nature where priest never trod; the symbol of redeeming love, engraven when Eden was unscathed with sin, by God's own hand on the brow of his everlasting mountains.

The trappers have reverently named this peak, the "Mountain of the Holy Cross."133 It is about eight hundred feet in height above the level of the little brook, which runs a few rods from its base. The upper end of the cross is about one hundred feet below the summit. There are many dark and stately groves of pine and balsam fir in the vicinity. About the brooks grow the black alder, the laurel, and honeysuckle, and a great variety of wild flowers adorn the crevices of the rocks. The virgin snows of ages whiten the lofty summits around; the voice of the low murmuring rivulets trembles in the sacred silence: "O solitude, thou art here," the lip moves to speak. "Pray, kneel, adore," one seems to hear softly breathed in every breeze. "It is holy ground."

26th. On march at six o'clock and travelled down the small stream which had accompanied us on the 24th and 25th. As we advanced, the valleys opened, and the trees, pine, fir, white oak, cotton wood, quaking-asp, &c., became larger and taller. The wild flowers and grass became more luxuriant. As we were on an Indian trail, our course was as nearly a right line as the eye of that race could trace among the lower hills. Hence we often left the stream and crossed the wood swells, not hills, not mountains; but vast swelling tracts of land that rise among these vales like half buried spheres, on which, frequently for miles about us, pine and fir trees of the largest size had been prostrated by the winds. To leap our animals over these, and among them, and into them, and out of them, and still among them, floundering, tearing packs and riders – running against knots and tumbling upon splintery stubs and rocks, were among the amusements of getting through them. The groves of small quaking-asp too, having been killed by the elk, in some places had fallen across our track so thickly that it became necessary to raise the foot over one at almost every step.

Here my Puebla mare performed many a feat of "high and lofty tumbling." She could leap the large pines, one at a time, with satisfaction to herself, that was worthy of her blood. But to step, merely step, over one small tree and then over another, seemed to be too much condescension. Accordingly she took a firm unalterable stand upon her reserved rights, from which neither pulling nor whipping seemed likely to move her. At length she yielded, as great men sometimes do, her own opinion of constitutional duty to the will of the people, and leaped among them with a desperation that ought to have annihilated a square mile of such obstacles. But instead thereof, she turned a somersault into about the same quantity of them, and there lay "alone in her glory," till she was tumbled out and set up again.

The valley, during the day's journey, had appeared five miles in width.134 On its borders hung dark mountains of rock, some of which lying westward, were tipped with shining ice. Far beyond these appeared the Anahuac ridge. Snow in the south was yet in sight – none seen in the east north. The valley itself was much broken, with minor rocky declivities, bursting up between the "swells," and with fields of large loose stones laid bare by the torrents. The buffalo were seen grazing in small detached herds on the slopes of the mountains near the lower line of snow, those green fields of the skies. Many "elk signs," tracks, &c., were met; but none of these animals were seen. Our guide informed me that their habit is to "follow the snow." In other words, that as the snow in summer melts away from the lowlands, they follow its retiring banks into the mountains; and when it begins in autumn to descend again, they descend with it, and pass the winter in the valley. He also accounted for the absence of the male deer in a similar way; and added that the does, when they bring forth their young, forsake their male companions until the kids are four or five months old; and this for the reason that the unnatural male is disposed to destroy his offspring during the period of its helplessness. Some rain fell to-day.

27th. We commenced our march this morning at six o'clock, travelled, as our custom usually was, till the hour of eleven, and then halted to breakfast, on the bank of the stream. The face of the country along the morning's trail was much the same as that passed over the day before; often beautiful, but oftener sublime. Vast spherical swells covered with buffalo, and wild flowering glens echoing the voices of a thousand cascades, and countless numbers of lofty peaks crowding the sky, will give perhaps a faint idea of it. As the stream that we had been following bore to the westward of our course, we in the afternoon struck across a range of low hills to another branch of it that came down from the eastern mountains, and encamped upon its banks. These hills were composed of hard gravel, covered with two or three inches of black loam. In the deep vales the mountain torrents had swept away the soil, and left the strata bare for miles along their courses. The mountain flax and the large thistle flourished everywhere. The timber was the same in kind as we had passed the three last days. The groves were principally confined to the lower portions of the ravines which swept down from the snowy heights. The Anahuac range in the west appeared to dip deeper in the horizon, and recede farther from us. One half only of its altitude as seen from the dividing ridges was now visible. We were doubtless lessening our own altitude materially, but the difference in the apparent height of this ridge was in part produced by its increased distance. It had evidently begun to tend rapidly towards the Pacific.

An aged knight of the order of horns strode across our path near four o'clock, and by his princely bearing invited our trapper to a tilt. His Kentucky blood could not be challenged with impunity. He dropped upon one knee – drew a close sight – clove the bull's heart in twain, and sent him groaning upon the sand. He was very poor, but as we had reason to fear that we were leaving the buffalo "beat," it was deemed prudent to increase the weight of our pack with the better portion of his flesh. Accordingly the tongue, heart, leaf fat and the "fleece" were taken, and were being lashed to our mule, when an attack of bilious bravery seized our giant in the extremities, and he began to kick and beat his horse for presuming to stand upon four legs, or some similar act, without his permission, in such gallant style, that our mule on which the meat was placed, leaped affrighted from us and dropped it on the sand. We were all extremely vexed at this, and I believe made some disparaging comparisons between the intellects of asses and tyrants. Whether our mule or Smith felt most aggrieved thereby we were never informed. But the matter was very pleasantly disposed of by our benevolent old guide. He turned the meat with his foot and kicked it good-naturedly from him, saying in his blandest manner, "No dirt in the mounting but sand; the teeth can't go that;" and mounted his horse for the march. We travelled twenty miles and encamped.

28th. Eighteen miles down the small valleys between the sharp and rugged hills; crossed a number of small streams running westward. The mountains along our way differed in character from any we had heretofore passed. Some of them were composed entirely of earth, and semi-elliptical in form; others embraced thousands of acres of what seemed to be mere elevations of fine brown gravel, rising swell above swell, and sweeping away to the height of two thousand feet, destitute of timber save a few slender strips which grew along the rills that trickled at long intervals down their sides.135 We encamped again on the bank of the main stream. It was one hundred yards in width; water a foot and a half deep, current six miles the hour.

29th. To-day we struck Grand River, (the great southern branch of the Colorado of the west), twenty miles from our last night's encampment. It is here three hundred yards wide; current, six miles the hour; water, from six to ten feet in depth, transparent, but, like the atmosphere, of much higher temperature than we had met with since leaving the Arkansas. The valleys that lie upon this stream and some of its tributaries, are called by the hunters "The Old Park." If the qualifying term were omitted, they would be well described by their name.136 Extensive meadows running up the valleys of the streams, woodlands skirting the mountain bases and dividing the plains, over which the antelope, black and white-tailed deer, the English hare, the big horn or mountain sheep, the grisly, grey, red and black bears, and the buffalo and elk range – a splendid park indeed; not old, but new as in the first fresh morning of the creation.

Here also are found the prairie and the large grey wolf, the American panther, beaver, polecat, and land otter. The grisly bear is the largest and most ferocious – with hair of a dirty-brown colour, slightly mixed with those of a yellowish white. The males not unfrequently weigh five or six hundred pounds. The grey bear is less in size, hair nearly black, interspersed along the shoulders and hips with white. The red is still less, according to the trappers, and of the colour indicated by the name. The black bear is the same in all respects as those inhabiting the States. The prairie dog is also found here, a singular animal, partially described in a previous page; but as they may be better known from Lieutenant Pike's description of them, I shall here introduce it:137 "They live in towns and villages, having an evident police established in their communities. The sites of these towns are generally on the brow of a hill, near some creek or pond, in order to be convenient to water and to be exempt from inundation. Their residence is in burrows, which descend in spiral form." The Lieutenant caused one hundred and forty kettles of water to be poured into one of their holes in order to drive out the occupant, but failed. "They never travel more than half a mile from their homes, and readily associate with rattlesnakes. They are of a dark brown colour, except their bellies, which are red. They are something larger than a grey squirrel, and very fat; supposed to be graminivorous. Their villages sometimes extend over two or three miles square, in which there must be innumerable hosts of them, as there is generally a burrow every ten steps. As you approach the towns, you are saluted on all sides by the cry of "wishtonwish," uttered in a shrill piercing manner."

The birds of these regions are the sparrow-hawk, the jack-daw, a species of grouse of the size of the English grouse; colour brown, a tufted head, and limbs feathered to the feet; the raven, very large, turkey, turkey-buzzards, geese, all the varieties of ducks known in such latitudes, the bald and grey eagle, meadow lark and robin red breast. Of reptiles, the small striped lizard, horned frog and garter snake are the most common. Rattlesnakes are said to be found among the cliffs, but I saw none.

We forded Grand River, and encamped in the willows on the northern shore. The mountains in the west, on which the snow was lying, were still in sight. The view to the east and south was shut in by the neighbouring hills; to the north and north-east it was open, and in the distance appeared the Wind River and other mountains, in the vicinity of the 'Great Gap.'138

During the evening, while the men were angling for trout, Kelly gave me some account of Grand River and the Colorado of the west. Grand River, he said, is a branch of the Colorado.139 It rises far in the east among the precipitous heights of the eastern range of the Rocky Mountains, about midway from the Great Gap and the Kenyon of the south Fork of the Platte. It interlocks the distance of sixty miles with the waters of the Great Platte; its course to the point where we crossed, is nearly due west. Thence it continues in a west by north course one hundred and sixty miles, where it breaks through the Anahuac Ridge. The cliffs of this Kenyon are said to be many hundred feet high, and overhanging; within them is a series of cascades, which, when the river is swollen by the freshets in June, roar like Niagara.140

After passing this Kenyon, it is said to move with a dashing, foaming current in a westerly direction fifty miles, where it unites with Green River, or Sheetskadee, and forms the Colorado of the west. From the junction of these branches the Colorado has a general course from the north-east to the south-west, of seven hundred miles to the head of the Gulf of California. Four hundred of this seven hundred miles is an almost unbroken chasm of Kenyon, with perpendicular sides, hundreds of feet in height, at the bottom of which the waters rush over continuous cascades. This Kenyon terminates thirty miles above the Gulf. To this point the river is navigable.141 The country on each side of its whole course is a rolling desert of brown loose earth, on which the rains and dews never fall.

A few years since, two Catholic Missionaries and their servants, on their way from the mountains to California, attempted to descend the Colorado. They have never been seen since the morning they commenced their fatal undertaking.142 A party of trappers and others made a strong boat and manned it well, with the determination of floating down the river to take the beaver, which they supposed to live along its banks; but they found themselves in such danger after entering the kenyon, that with might and main they thrust their trembling boat ashore, and succeeded in leaping upon the crags, and lightening it before it was swallowed in the dashing torrent. But the death which they had escaped in the stream, still threatened them on the crags. Perpendicular and overhanging rocks frowned above them; these they could not ascend. They could not cross the river; they could not ascend the river, and the foaming cascades below forbade the thought of committing themselves again to their boat.

Night came on, and the difficulty of keeping their boat from being broken to pieces on the rocks, increased the anxieties of their situation. They must have passed a horrible night; so full of fearful expectations, of the certainty of starvation on the crags, or drowning in the stream. In the morning, however, they examined the rocks again, and found a small projecting crag some twenty feet above them, over which, after many efforts, they threw their small boat-rope and drew the noose tight. One of their number then climbed to explore. He found a platform above the crag, of sufficient size to contain his six companions, and a narrow chasm in the overhanging wall through which it appeared possible to pass to the upper surface. Having all reached the platform, they unloosed their lasso, and, bracing themselves as well as they could, with their rifles in the moving, dry earth beneath their feet, they undertook the ascent. It was so steep that they were often in danger of being plunged together in the abyss below. But by digging steps in the rocks, (where they could be dug with their rifle-barrels), and by making use of their lasso where it could be used, they reached the upper surface near sunset, and made their way back to the place of departure.143

This is a mountain legend, interesting, indeed, but —

"I cannot tell how the truth may be,I tell the tale as 'twas told to me:"

At daylight, on the 30th, our cavalcade was moving across the woody ridges and verdant valleys between the crossings of Grand River and its great north fork.144 We struck that stream about ten o'clock. Its water was beautifully clear, average depth two feet, and current four miles the hour. It is said to take its rise in the mountains, near the south side of the 'Great Gap,' and to flow, in a south-westerly course, through a country of broken and barren plains, into Grand River, twenty miles below the crossings. We ascended rapidly all the day. There was no trail to guide us; but our worthy guide knew every mountain-top in sight. Bee lines through immense fields of wild sage and wormwood, and over gravelly plains – a short halt for a short breakfast – constant spurring, and trotting, and driving, deposited us at sunset, at the foot of a lofty mountain, clothed with heavy timber. This was the dividing ridge between the waters of Grand and Green Rivers. It was necessary to cross it. We therefore, turned out the animals to feed, ate a scanty morsel of dried meat, and went to our couches, for the strength requisite for the task. About the middle of the night the panthers on the mountain gave us a specimen of their growling capacities. It was a hideous noise: deep and broken by the most unearthly screams! They were gathering for prey; for our horses and ourselves. We drove up the animals, however, tied them near the camp, built a large and bright fire, and slept till daylight.

At sunrise, on the morning of the 31st, we stood on the summit of the mountain, at the base of which we had slept the previous night.145 It was the very place from which I wished to view the outline of the valley of Grand River, and the snowy ridge of the Anahuac; and it was as favourable an hour for my purpose as I could have selected from the whole day. The sun had just risen over the eastern heights, sufficiently to give the valley of the Grand River to the south-east of me, those strong contrasts of light and shade which painters know so well how to use when sketching a mountain scene at early morning, or when the sun is half hidden at night. The peaks were bright, the deep shadows sprang off from the western sides, above faintly, and deepening as they descended to the bases, where the deep brown of the rocks and earth gave the vales the semblance of undisturbed night.

The depression of the valley, as I have termed it, was in truth a depression of a vast tract of mountains; not unto a plane or vale; but a great ravine of butes and ridges, decreasing in height from the limit of vision in the north-east, east and south – and falling one below another toward the stream, into the diminutive bluffs on its banks. The valley below the crossing was less distinctly seen. Its general course only could be distinguished among the bare hills upon its borders. But the great main chain, or Anahuac range, came sweeping up from the Arkansas more sublime, if possible, in its aspect than when viewed from the heights farther south. It was about one hundred miles distant, the length of the section in view about one hundred and sixty; not a speck on all its vast outline. It did not show as glaciers do; but like a drift of newly-fallen snow heaped on mountains, by some mighty efforts of the elements; piled from age to age; and from day to day widening and heightening its untold dimensions. Its width, its height, its cubic miles, its mass of rock, of earth, of snow, of ice, of waters ascending in clouds to shower the lowlands or renew its own robes of frosts, of waters sent rushing to the seas, are some of the vast items of this sublimity of existence. The light of the rising sun falling upon it through the remarkable transparent atmosphere of these regions, made the view exceedingly distinct. The intervening space was thickly dotted with lesser peaks, which, in the lengthened distance, melted into an apparent plain. But the elevation of the great Anahuac ridge, presenting its broad, white side to the morning light in that dry, clear, upper air, seemed as distinctly seen as the tree at my side. In the north-west it manifestly tended toward the north end of the Great Salt Lake. But I must leave this absorbing scene for the journey of the day. The ascent of the dividing ridge, from which I took this extensive survey of all this vast, unknown, unexplored portion of the mountains, was comparatively easy. We threaded, indeed, some half dozen precipices in going up, within an inch of graves five hundred feet deep. Yet, as none of us lost our brains on the rocks below, these narrow and slippery paths can not be remembered in connexion with incidents either remarkable or sad.

With this notice of mountain turnpikes, I shall be obliged to my readers to step along with me over the bold summit and look at the descent, yes, the descent, my friends. It is a bold one: one of the men said "four miles of perpendicular;" and so it was. Or if it was not, it ought to have been, for many very good reasons of mathematical propriety that are as difficult to write as to comprehend. It was partially covered with bushes and trees, and a soft vegetable mould that yielded to our horses' feet, but we, by dint of holding, bracing, and sliding, arrived safely at the bottom, and jogged on merrily six or seven miles over barren ridges, rich plains, and woody hills to the head of Tumbleton park. We had turned out our animals to eat, hung our camp-kettle over the fire to boil some bits of grisly meat that we had found among the rubbish of our packs, and were resting our wearied frames in the shade of the willows, conversing about the tracts which we had seen five miles back; one supposing that they were made by Indians, the Arrapahoes or the Shoshonies, while our old guide insisted that they were made by white men's horses! and assigned as a reason for this opinion, that no Indians could be travelling in that direction, and that one of the horses had shoes on its fore feet; when the Arrapahoe war-whoop and the clattering of hoofs upon the side hill above, brought us to our feet, rifle in hand, for a conflict. Kelly seemed for a moment to be in doubt as to his own conclusions relative to the tracks, and as to the colour of those unceremonious visitors. But as they dashed up, he leaped the brook, and seized the hands of three old fellow-trappers. It was a joyful meeting. They had often stood side by side in battle, and among the solemn mountains dug the lonely grave of some slaughtered companion, and together sent the avenging lead into the hearts of the Blackfeet. They were more than brothers, and so they met. We shared with them our last scraps of meat.

They informed us that they had fallen in with our trail, and followed us under a belief that we were certain friends whom they were expecting from St. Louis with goods for the post at Brown's Hole; that the Arrapahoes were fattening on buffalo in the Bull Pen, on the north fork of the Platte;146 that the Shoshonies or Snakes were starving on roots on Great Bear River; that the Blackfeet and Sioux were in the neighbourhood; that there was no game in the mountains except on the head waters of Snake River; and that they themselves were a portion of a party of white men, Indians, and squaws, on their way to Bent's Fort on the Arkansas, to meet Mr. Thomson with the goods before named; that we might reasonably anticipate starvation and the arrows of the Sioux, and other kindred comforts along our journey to Brown's Hole. Mr. Craig, the chief of the party, and part owner with Mr. Thomson, assured us that the grass on the Columbia was already dry and scarce; and if there should prove to be enough to sustain our horses on the way down, that the snows on the Blue Mountains would prevent us from reaching Vancouver till the spring, and kindly invited us to pass the winter at his post. After two hours' tarry with us he and his party returned to their camp.