If they tried to winter at the base of the mountains it was a long way to get provisions, and no assurance of wild game, and this course was considered very hazardous for any one to undertake.

This they had learned after consulting mountaineers and others who knew about the regions, and as there was nothing doing among the Latter Day Saints to give employment to any one, it was decided best to keep moving and go the southern route by way of Los Angeles.

No wagons were reported as ever getting through that way, but a trail had been traveled through that barren desert country for perhaps a hundred years, and the same could be easily broadened into a wagon road.
After days of argument and camp-fire talks, this Southern route was agreed upon, and Capt.

Hunt was chosen as guide.Capt.Hunt was a Mormon, and had more than one wife, but he had convinced them that he knew something about the road.

Each agreed to give him ten dollars to pilot the train to San Bernardino where the Mormon Church had bought a Spanish grant of land, and no doubt they thought a wagon road to that place would benefit them greatly, and probably gave much encouragement for the parties to travel this way.