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Show They clambered out of the mud to gravelly ground near the site of Milford. South a few leagues further they camped at "San Rustico." Next-and here I find it difficult to restrain my excitement- they climbed a small hill "to view the extent of this valley and plain of La Luz." They saw that it extended southwest more than 35 or 40 leagues for, wrote Escalante, "we could scarcely see the sierras where it ends in this direction, although they are very high, as we afterward discovered." These sierras must be the mountains south of Newcastle and Enterprise, marking the southern border of the bed of old Lake Bonneville. About this low hill they mounted for the view, we can speak with precision: on that mound they saw three springs of hot sulphurous water. Near the springs were patches of ground covered with "saltpeter." These springs could be no other than our Hot Springs two miles north of Nada post office. After leaving this spot they continued south for two more leagues. The most feasible route out of the gumbo flat around the Springs would be the higher land of our ranch. Welcome, Fathers, Dominguez and Escalante!-despite Lutheran origin, the Culmsees are honored at your spiritual presences. Sorry we weren't there in October 177 6 to feed you and your mounts and provide sleeping quarters, soft beds after that arduous journey from Santa Fe to Utah Lake and southwestward to Nada. But no one was there. The fathers went on for two or three miles past the site of Nada post office to halt at their camping place for the night, "San Eleuterio." Father Escalante said this site was by a "kind of lake" filled with melted snow near good pasturage. Several of these little lakes |
