September 5

Journal Description for September 5th

On the 5th we left Santa Rosalía, headed northwest, and went up an incline without troublesome rocks but extremely steep and dangerous when approaching the top, because there are winding turns where the path is no more than a third of a yard wide. The footing is of very loose white dirt, and so it is very easy for some horse to slip; and should it happen to lose its footing it would not be able to keep itself from reaching the level ground below. The ascent must be somewhat more than a quarter league long, counting the half already covered. We descended it through a spreading narrow valley which in places produces nothing but scruboak and chokecherry, and in others ponderosa pine and white poplar; then, after going a little more than four leagues to the northwest, we entered a small wood of juniper while swinging half a league north-northwest, and after a short stretch of sagebrush arrived at a river which our own call San Rafael¹⁶⁴The Colorado River. The expedition went from the campsite of Santa Rosalía up Jerry Gulch and across the top of Battlement Mesa at a point about ½ mile east of Castle Peak, then down Alkali Creek to a place where it reaches the plain on the south bank of the Colorado River. There the trail turns northward to the point of crossing. The party camped on the north bank of the Colorado River approximately 1¼ miles downstream from the present Una bridge. and the Yutas Red River.
We crossed it and halted by its northern edge on a meadow of good pastures and a middling poplar grove. On this side there is a chain of high mesas which are of white earth from the top down to the middle and from the middle down evenly striated with yellow, white, and not too deeply tinged red ochre. This river carries more water than El Norte; it comes down, according to what they told us, from a great lake which lies in the high Sierra de los Sabuaganas¹⁶⁵On August 20 the expedition had decided to turn eastward from Dolores River to the land of the “Sabuagana Yutas,” whom they later located on Grand Mesa. This is a vague reference to the headwaters of the Colorado River, one branch heading at Grand Lake just west of the Continental Divide in a segment of the Rocky Mountains lying north of the area where the Dolores and San Miguel rivers were said to head. See note 91 for earlier reference to Sabuagana Utes. next (toward the north) to La Grulla. Its course along here is to the west-southwest, and it enters the Dolores. At the ford it splits into two branches,¹⁶⁶This must have been a temporary island in the river at that time. and the water reached the mounts above the shoulder blades. Some which crossed farther up from the ford swam in places. Everywhere we could see, the river has many rocks, and big ones; hence, whenever some party should find it necessary to cross it, it would be better to ford it before this on good horses. Today five leagues.¹⁶⁷Slightly over 13 miles.

Tonight we observed the latitude and found ourselves at 40° 4′.¹⁶⁸Actually closer to 39° 30′. Figuring that we had not come up that much since Santa Mónica, and fearing some defect in the observation, we decided to make it by the sun the following day, halting at the hour best suited so as not to detain ourselves here where the Sabuaganas might disturb us.

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