They then resumed their course along an old Indian road.

In the afternoon they reached a handsome valley, watered by a large creek, both of which extended a considerable distance into the mountain.

This they crossed, and during the evening travelled over a mountainous country covered with sharp fragments of flint rock; these bruised and cut their feet very much, but were scarcely less troublesome than the prickly-pear of the open plains, which have now become so abundant that it is impossible to avoid them, and the thorns are so strong that they pierce a double sole of dressed deer-skin; the best resource against them is a sole of buffalo-hide in parchment (that is, hard dried).

At night they reached the river much fatigued, having passed two mountains in the course of the day, and travelled thirty miles.

Captain Clark's first employment, on lighting a fire, was to extract from his feet the thorns, which he found seventeen in number." The dung of the buffalo, exposed for many years to the action of sun, wind, and rain, became as dry and firm as the finest compressed hay.
As "buffalo chips," in these treeless regions, it was the overland emigrants' sole dependence for fuel.
The explorers now approached a wonderful pass in the Rocky Mountains which their journal thus describes: "A mile and a half beyond this creek (Cottonwood Creek) the rocks approach the river on both sides, forming a most sublime and extraordinary spectacle.