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gravel. .This region is doomed to perpetual sterility and thus <br />• it is said to be with the whole country lying to the distance of <br />hundreds of miles on each side of the whole course of the <br />Colorado to the west. ..A vast plateau of desolation, yielding <br />only the wild worm,.vood and prickly pear (Farnham 1841:106- <br />107). <br />It might be noted that by the time Farnham's party reached Fort Davy Crockett, <br />they had endured months of fear of hostile Indians and intermittent days of <br />starvation, had lost most of their horses, and finally had had to eat their loyal <br />greyhound, at which Time Farnham made the above remarks! <br />Colonel John C. Fremont returned from California in 1844, visited Fort Davy <br />Crockett, and found it abandoned (Fremont 1970:708). He again returned to Colorado <br />in 1845 on a military exploration of the Arkansas, Grand, White, and Green Rivers, <br />and subsequently wrote off western Colorado as being "worthless." <br />Sir George (Lord) Gore (guided by Jim Bridger) spent three years in the region, <br />from 1854-1856. This party also reputedly visited Steamboat Springs and opened the <br />Gore Pass trail in 1855 (H.R.N.F. 1975:16). <br />By 1860, different motives were bringing men to the mountains of Colorado. <br />George Way discovered traces of gold at what was to become Hahn's Peak (DeKraay <br />• 1951), and in 1861 a party led by Joseph Hahn returned to The region to work the <br />placer gold deposits. Being remote and inhospitable in winter, the area didn't have <br />year-round settlers until the 1870s -- the Hahn's Peak mining district was formed in <br />1874 (Athearn 1976:36-37). The area boomed between 1866 and 1887, during which <br />time over one million dollars worth of gold was mined, but there was no big strike <br />(DeKraay 1951:45). <br />Captain E. L. Berthoud traveled both the White and Yampa River valleys in <br />1861, looking for a more direct route from Denver to Salt Lake City (Powell 1961). <br />The influence of this journey on the later location of a railroad into the region is <br />suspected. <br />John Wesley Powell visited northwestern Colorado in 1868-1869 during his <br />exploration of the Colorado River. In 1868 he wintered at an area since called <br />Powell's Park. (It was to this site that Nethan Meeker moved the White River Ute <br />Agency in 1879.) Powell noted that the area was of only marginal quality for <br />agriculture without massive irrigation, stating <br />The region is one of great desolation: arid, almost <br />. treeless, with t,luffs, hills, ledges of rock, and drifting <br />sands. .and the time must soon come when settlers will <br />penetrate this country and make homes. .It will be remem- <br />bered that irrigation is necessary in this dry climate to <br />successful farming (Powell 1961:182). <br />2.8-16 <br />