FOOTNOTES:
[132] This was the upper stretch of Blue River. Rising in the continental divide, it flows in three branches which unite at Dillon, Summit County, thence continuing in a north-westerly course, into Grand River, on the south-western border of Middle Park.—Ed.
[133] The present Holy Cross Mountain is a high peak (14,176 feet) north-west of Leadville and forming the end of the great Sawatch range. Its cross is formed by longitudinal and transverse chasms generally filled with snow. The mountain described by Farnham was on the eastern slopes of the Blue range, in Summit County.—Ed.
[134] Farnham was travelling through one of the richest mineral districts in Colorado. Gold was discovered on the upper tributaries of the Blue—the Snake, Swan, and Ten Mile creeks—as early as 1859. Silver and carbonates were later found in the vicinity of Breckenridge. The entire region is rich in minerals, and there is also considerable arable land in Blue River valley.—Ed.
[135] These were the Williams River Mountains that bound Blue River valley on the north-east, separating it from Williams Fork, a parallel tributary of Grand River.—Ed.
[136] "Old Park" is that now known as Middle Park—a broad valley fifty by seventy miles, the source of Grand River, and now embraced in Grand County, Colorado. Its name "Old Park" is said to have arisen from the fact that after being persistently worked by hunters the game was driven into North Park, which was then termed "New Park," whereupon Middle became "Old Park." See Chittenden, Fur-Trade, ii, p. 750.—Ed.
[137] See Coues's edition of Pike's Expeditions, pp. 430, 431.—Ed.
[138] For the South Pass, or "Great Gap," see Wyeth's Oregon, in our volume xxi, p. 58, note 37. Wind River Mountains are noted in Townsend's Narrative in the same volume, p. 184, note 35.—Ed.
[139] Grand River, the eastern tributary of the Colorado, rises in two branches in Middle Park, flows west, and thence on a long, south-westward (not north-west) course nearly three hundred and fifty miles until it unites with the Green, in south-eastern Utah, to form the Colorado.—Ed.
[140] From the place where it leaves Middle Park, to its union with the Gunnison, Grand River is practically a series of cañons. What is locally known as Grand River Cañon is a stretch about sixteen miles in length, above Glenwood Springs, through which runs the Denver and Rio Grande Railway; it is thought by many to surpass in majesty the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas.—Ed.
[141] This should be three hundred miles, not thirty. For the great Cañon of the Colorado, see Pattie's Narrative in our volume xviii, p. 137, note 67, and the references therein cited.—Ed.
[142] There is apparently no other record of this disaster unless it may be an imperfect reminiscence of the explorations of the friar Francisco Garcés, who was murdered (1781) at his mission, not lost on the river. See Elliott Coues, On the Trail of a Spanish Pioneer (New York, 1900).—Ed.
[143] In 1869, Major J. W. Powell found some wreckage in Lodore Cañon, on Green River, which Frederick S. Dellenbaugh, Romance of the Colorado River (New York, 1902), pp. 112, 131, thinks may have belonged to the party of trappers whose adventures are cited by Farnham.—Ed.
[144] It is difficult to know what stream Farnham intends by the "great north fork" of the Grand, which has almost no northern tributaries of any size. Probably the course followed was up Muddy River, a considerable stream rising in the divide between North and Middle Parks and for about forty miles flowing south into the Grand, nearly opposite the mouth of Blue River.—Ed.
[145] This must be some pass in Park range, which here forms the watershed between the Grand and Green systems.—Ed.
[146] North (or New) Park was frequently called by trappers the Bull Pen. It is the source of the North Platte, which rises therein in many branches, uniting near the north or upper end of the park.—Ed.
[147] Probably this is the plateau now known as Egeria Park, at the upper waters of Little Bear (or Yampah) River.—Ed.
[148] Little Bear (more frequently known as Yampah) River rises in the south-eastern corner of Routt County, flows in a northerly direction for thirty miles, then bends abruptly westward, and for a hundred miles drains the north-western corner of Colorado; it enters Green River just below Lodore Cañon, on the boundary between Colorado and Utah.—Ed.
[149] The Three Tetons were sometimes spoken of as Pilot Knobs or Buttes. See Townsend's Narrative in our volume xxi, p. 209, note 49.—Ed.
[150] The forks of the Little Bear are the junction of Elk Head Creek with the former, not far from the modern town of Craig. The more usual route to Brown's Hole came over the South Fork of the North Platte, which heads with Elk Head Creek.—Ed.