Meanwhile on the Way to Oregon

Those bound for Oregon found the trail ran along the steep ledges of the Snake River.  Reaching Fort Boise, they followed the edge of the desert until they came face to face with the Blue Mountains.

Raising wagons by ropes as their California counterparts did, blocking the wheels with rocks as they
inched their up and over the mountains was a time-consuming task with the winter weather closing in fast.

Helen Marnie Stewart wrote that "the hills were dreadfully steep, locking both wheels and coming down was slow.  Got down safe, oh dear me, the desert is very hard on the poor animals, going without grass or water for 1 1/2 days.

The train reached the "Dalles" (an 'evil branch of the Columbia River' as on journal put it), in the next 200 miles where the cliff walls were too high to cross, so most pioneers ferried the last 100 miles down the Columbia River into the Willamette Valley.  For those who couldn't afford the cost of the ferry, they loaded their possessions into canoes and hired Indians to paddle them across.  For others they simply tied their possessions on pack mules or just left everything behind and walked the last miles into Oregon territory.  One journal said, "The Oregon Trail was not a trip for the fainthearted, perhaps only for the foolhardy."

Next time...time out for some interesting statistics!

Today in Pioneer History:  On June 22, 1876, the once mighty Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna dies in Mexico City embittered and impoverished