Any typos are mine...sorry. December 16, 1843 “We traveled this morning through snow about three feet deep, which, being crusted, very much cut the feet of our animals. The mountain still gradually rose; we crossed several spring heads covered with quaking asp, otherwise it was all pine forest. The air was dark with falling snow, which everywhere weighted down the trees. I found that it required some exertion of constancy to adhere steadily to one course through the woods, when we were uncertain how far the forest extended, or what lay beyond; and on account of our animals it would be bad to spend another night on the mountain. Toward noon the forest looked clear ahead, appearing suddenly to terminate, and beyond a certain point we could see no trees. Riding rapidly ahead to this spot, we found ourselves on the verge of a vertical and rocky wall of the mountain. At our feet-more than a thousand feet below- we looked into a green prairie country, in which a beautiful lake, some twenty miles in length, was spread along the foot of the mountains, it shores bordered with green country below, while around us the storm raged fiercely. Not a particle of ice was to be seen on the lake, or snow on its borders, and all was like summer or spring. The glow of the sun in the valley below brightened up our hearts with sudden pleasure, and we made the woods ring with joyful shouts to those behind; and gradually, as each came up, he stopped to enjoy the unexpected scene. Shivering on the snow three feet deep, and stiffening in a cold north wind, we exclaimed at once that the names of Summer Lake and Winter Ridge should be applied to these proximate places of such sudden and violent contrast. We were not immediately on the verge of the forest land, in which we had been traveling so many days; and looking forward to the east, scarce a tree was to be seen. Viewed from our elevation, the face of the country exhibited only rocks and grass, and presented a region in which the artemisia became the principle wood furnishing to is scattered inhabitant fuel for their fire building material for their hut and shelter for the small game which ministers to their hunger and nakedness. Broadly marked by the boundary of the mountain wall, and immediately below us, were the first waters of the Great Interior Basin, which has the Wasatch (sic) and Bear River Mountains for its eastern, and the Sierra Nevada for its western rim; and the edge of which we had entered upward of three months before at the Great Salt Lake. When we had sufficiently admired the scene below, we began to think about descending, which here was impossible, and we turned toward the north traveling always along the rocky wall. We continued on for four or five miles, making ineffectual attempts at several places; and at length succeeding in getting down at one which was extremely difficult of descent. Night had closed in before the foremost reached the bottom, and it was dark before we all found ourselves together in the valley. There were three for four half-dead cedar-trees on the shore, and those who first arrived kindled bright fires to light on the others One of the mules rolled over and over two or three hundred feet into a ravine, but recovered himself, with out any other injury than to his pack, and the howitzer was left mid-way u the mountain until morning. It delayed us until noon the next day to recover ourselves, and put everything in order, and we made only a short camp along the western shore of the lake, which in the summer temperature we enjoyed today, justified the name we had given it.” [Fremont[ “We are camping here in the Blue Mountains, almost buried in snow. Our animals suffer much. Yesterday I ate, without knowing it, the meat of an unborn calf. However it was tender. This was one of the most interesting days of our expedition. From winter into summer, and appropriately we called the lake, Summer Lake. A magic views from above. Great difficulties to get into the promised land. Mule rolled downhill for five hundred feet, yet was uninjured. The cannon is stuck; will be piloted down today [Preuss]
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 19:05:41 +0000