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Show 8 The Southern Utes back to Santa Fe this information as well as the comment that more and more of the Utes were willing to trade with the Spanish. In addition to their interest in the Utes, the Spanish fathers were looking for a land route to the Pacific Ocean where the new capital of California had just been established at Monterey. A plan for locating the route was first conceived by Fray Silvestre Velez de Escalante when he was visiting the Hopis in 1775, and Escalante was greatly encouraged to hear from Garces that: It is possible to proceed through the Yutas [Utes] and seek the Rio de San Felipe, and down the banks of this will be found my road [to California]. I doubt not that there may open another, better, and shorter than that which I traced.la Escalante and Fray Atanasio Dominguez, the expedition leader, chose the route through the Ute lands rather than risk encounters with the unfriendly Navajos. The route was well known to the Spanish, and guides were available who knew the Utes and their language and had seen parts of their country. Escalante's trip into the interior of the Ute domain was the first one that extended into the mythical land of Copala. He found the area thought to be Copala poor and unproductive for the desires of the Spanish. Neither gold nor silver were located, and they did not find the route to Monterey. They did, however, explore much of the Ute domain. The route the expedition took led them up the valley of the Chama River past Abiquiu to the site of Tierra Amarilla, thence to the place where Pagosa Springs now stands. (Pagosa in Ute means hot water.) After crossing the Dolores River below the San Juan Mountains the party traveled to the Uncompahgre Plateau and down the Uncom-pahgre River to its confluence with the Gunnison. From this point their route took the expedition along the western slope of the Rockies to the White River in northern Colorado. At that point the group turned west across Utah just south of the Uinta mountains to Utah Lake. From there the group turned south through the southern Paiute lands, to Zuni and then on to Santa Fe. Escalante was convinced this route offered a shorter, better method for reaching Monterey." " Ibid., p. 190. "Ibid., pp. 198-200. |