For many hundred miles they had been climbing the backbone of the continent.

Now they had reached the summit, the dividing ridge between streams that flowed to the Atlantic and streams that flowed to the Pacific.

From the level prairies they had toiled up into the fearsome Rockies where bleak, grim crags lowered upon them from afar, and distant summits glistening with snow warned them of the perils ahead.
Through all this time of marching the place where they should pitch the tent of Israel was not fixed upon.

When Brigham was questioned around the camp-fire at night, his only reply was that he would know the site of their new home when he saw it.

And it came to be told among the men that he had beheld in vision a tent settling down from heaven and resting over a certain spot; and that a voice had said to him, "Here is the place where my people Israel shall pitch their tents and spread wide the curtains of Zion!" It was enough.