Tuesday, 27th. Advanced upstream about 12 miles.

Wednesday, 28th. do [ditto] do. 12 do.

Thursday, 29th. do do. 12 do.

Nothing exciting going on here, so Bidwell just “dittos” his entries. They were in the southwest corner of what is now Wyoming, approaching the Wyoming-Idaho/Utah border. The weather was hot, and the land dry, but the river provided water and grass for their livestock.

This map of fur trapper rendezvous sites shows Ham’s Fork just below the 42nd parallel (the blue line). The map is borrowed from The Fur Trapper website, which has an excellent article on rendezvous from 1825 to 1840. The heyday of the beaver trade was over, and the era of the big rendezvous finished in 1840. The era of the emigrant wagon trains was beginning.

Note the red line indicating the Continental Divide, and the way that the rivers seem to go every which way in this region of the Rockies.

Since there is nothing to report for the next two days, I will instead tell you of the fate of Fraeb’s fur trappers, the men who bought the whiskey from John Bartleson and friends.