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• to the the Muddy and Cow Creek drainages which they followed to the top of Grand Mesa. They skirted Dronco Knob un the south side, descended Plateau Creek to Jerry Gulch via which They surmounted [3attlement Mesa, and followed Alkali Creek down to the Colorado River. Fording the river near Una Crossings, live miles downstream from Battlement N(esa, they spent the night of September 5"' on the "northern edge on a meadow of good pastures and a middling poplar grove" (Chavez 1976:37). The following day, the group abandoned the Colorado River Valley, turned northwest up Roan Creek, and made their way over the Roan Plateau into the White River drainage. They traveled west as far as central Utah, but were soon forced homeward by inclement weather. The Dominguez-Gscalante Cxpedition returned to Santa Fe on 3 J;muary 1777, having failed to reach California but having explurcd nwch of the Colorado Plateau and generating interest in the area fur years to come. rVthough the Dominguez-~scalante group is the earliest recorded Guro-American presence in the vicinity of the study area, other Spanish parties had penetrated western Colorado IYom the south (Santa Pe) as early as the 17th century (Vandenbusche and Smith 19S I : I5). Many came seeking gold, which reputedly lay in immense deposits on the Western Slope, just awaiting discovery. Some came to trap the many streams emanating tiont the Rockies, seeking to get rich in the traffic of beaver pelts. Still others came as members of Spanish raiding parties whose purpose was to weaken their increasingly aggressive Ute neighbors to the north. Documentation of these precursory (and usually illegal) Spanish infiltrations is lacking, but it is probable that the study area was visited by at • least some of these parties. Official expeditions into Wcstcrn Colorado began in 1765 when Juan Maria de Rivera's exploring party crossed the Uncompahgre Plateau to the Gunnison River valley and stopped at the present site of Delta (ibid.: I G) Over the next decade, other expeditions followed Rivera's route intu Gunnison River country, charged by the Spanish government with identifying prospective mining grounds and establishing communication routes. At the time, the Wcstcrn Slope belonged to the Spanish empire and, since trade with foreigners was deemed illegal, expeditions were officially restricted to exploratory activities. For a variety ofreasons--increasingly intense encounters with the Utes, an apparent dearth oFgold, and a harsh geography and clintato--Spanish interest in 1Vestern Colorado waned after the major expeditions of Rivera and Dominguez and Escalante in the 1760s and 1770s. From that time until the 1820s, there were Few incursions into the area, and its native inhabitants enjoyed a relatively undisturbed existence. The third decade of the 19t1t century brouglu the mountain man and the furtrapping era to Western Colorado. Prior to 1821, the year of the Mexican Revolution, only a few individuals had dared to venture into the area to trap the then-plentiful beaver. Flowever, when Spain's control of the area was terminated by Mexico's separation, men of French, Spanish, and ringlo-American blood descended upon [he rivers and streams of Western C_~