SALT CREEK CANON AND SEVIER RIVER VALLEY. 
69 
and was as good a judge of natural wagon roads as any one, and was of course familiar with his 
own hunting-grounds. 
Crossing the creek near our camp in the morning, we ascended a low depression in a high 
ridge to the northwest, and descended by a good road for two or three miles, to a narrow ravine. 
Near the head of this ravine, the Spanish trail turns to the west up another small ravine, and passes 
over two series of hills, divided by large depressions and creeks, and then crosses the Sevier river, 
as we are informed, below the junction of its main forks ; thence it ascends the San Pasqual, and 
passes over the west range of the Wahsatch mountains to the vicinity of Little Salt lake “ on a 
route,” Captain Gunnison says, and a large section of it was plainly in sight, “ entirely unsuitable 
for a railroad.” We continued to follow the Indian trail down the first ravine, which was very 
narrow and rocky, with a deep channel winding from side to side, which had constantly to be cut 
to allow the wagons to pass, and for which, rocks, small cedars, and pines had also to be removed. 
White, red, and blue clays, and coarse sandstone, formed the sides of the ravine; and it was 
apparent that, in passing from the district of igneous rocks, we were descending from the fine 
grazing regions of the mountains to the arid districts of the plains. Eight and a half miles from 
camp we again crossed Salt creek, which has united with the other small branches we have 
passed on this slope of the mountains, and is here a fine stream, twenty feet in width, with a 
strong current. “ I have reconnoitred,” says Captain Gunnison, “ much of this mountain and 
hilly region while the party has been engaged in its passage. From a high ridge which I 
ascended on the 14th instant, the valleys of the San Pasqual and Sevier rivers were plainly 
marked out, and to the northwest a broad opening in the mountains, the passage of the Sevier 
river, presented itself. On all sides were mountains, peaks, and ridges, abrupt bluffs with white 
cliffs capping the summits; and the deep canon, which has driven us over a mountain much 
higher than the summit of the pass itself, lay three miles to the north. Through this a railroad 
track might be made, but, owing to the cutting of rock, at a very great expense.” 
The canon which we thus passed around, by a circuit of twenty miles, cannot exceed sixteen 
miles in length; but its walls must be often broken by the entrance of lateral streams, and are 
not generally perpendicular. The altitude of our camp of the 13th instant, two miles above the 
head of this canon, is 6,975 feet, to which seventy-five feet should be added to connect at that 
point with the estimated grade for a road, which will require an average descent of ninety-five 
feet per mile for the eighteen miles intervening between that camp and our present position, 
1,706 feet below it. 
A pleasant sight to us, in crossing this creek, was a few wagon-tracks, after months of toiling 
without a road, and frequently without trails even, in an unexplored and wild country. These 
wagons had been here, as we subsequently learned, to procure salt, which is shovelled from 
the red clay hills, where it is found in the mountains, and is itself red. Following the creek 
for 2.65 miles, with a descent of ninety-one feet per mile, we entered the broad valley of the 
Sevier river, leaving the high mountains we have crossed to the east, a beautiful high peak 
of which, capped with white sandstone or clay, the Indians call Moot-se-ne-ah. To the south, 
perhaps fifty miles, the valley is terminated by a high cross range, from each end of which 
a main branch of the Sevier river descends—the eastern being known as the Se-ki-ber, the 
Indian name of the mountain; on the west a range of the Wahsatch mountains, Un-kuk-oo-ap, 
extends to the north, until broken by the passage of the river, beyond which, in a low range, it 
still extends to the north; to the east of this range, and north of our present camp, a fine valley 
sets off from that of the river, and is watered by several fine mountain streams, tributaries of the 
Sevier, on which there are considerable Mormon settlements. The width of the Sevier River 
valley is from four to seven miles, and its length from fifty to sixty, without a tree, and with but 
little vegetation of any kind, even the sage-bushes being thin and scattered. As we entered it, 
we bore down the river to the north in search of grass, which is very limited, even in the river 
bottom, and is confined almost exclusively to its western bank. We encamped, however, on its 
