From the Yuma villages at the mouth of the Gila,
Garcés in 1776 traveled up the Colorado River to the
Mojave villages near the southern tip of present
Nevada. Then with Indian guides he made his way
westward across the desert and reached the sink of the
Mojave River. Up the course of this stream to its
source in the San Bernardino Mountains, the Father
traveled. He then wound down into the Santa Ana
River valley and pushed westward to San Gabriel
Mission. His trail along the Mojave and thence to San
Gabriel was to become the route of the New Mexican
caravans of the 1830s and '40s, and of the '49ers of our
present study.

Indomitable Garcés did further notable exploring.
After going north into the San Joaquin Valley beyond
the site of Bakersfield, he followed another route back
to the Colorado, going over Tehachapi Pass, across
the desert to the Mojave River, and then back to the
Mojave villages. His further exploring tour, across
northern Arizona to the Hopis, who turned him back,
is beyond the scope of our present interest.

Father Escalante, who had lived in Zuni and visited
the Hopis, had learned from these Indians about the
impassable Grand Canyon and of the peaceable Ute
Indians to the north. He concluded that the most feas-
ible path to Monterey, California, was by a route
through the Ute country. Accordingly, he and his
companions set out on horseback from Santa Fé in
July, 1776. ³

They journeyed northwestward, up the Chama River
valley, crossed the San Juan River and its affluents,
then climbed the divide to the Dolores River. Reaching
dry and rugged terrain in the country of the lower

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