you have before your eyes the ruins of a whole world, covered with the eternal snows as with a shroud. On the 19th, we descried the Wind [or Wind River] Mountains, in which is the rendezvous of the caravan and its point of separation as well; but we were still nine days' journey from the place. Every day we became aware that it was growing colder and colder, and on the 24th [of June] we traversed plains covered with snow. On the day following we passed [South Pass] from the waters tributary to the Missouri to those of the Colorado, which flows into the Pacific Ocean by way of California, two degrees farther
south than New Orleans. The pass across the mountains is almost imPercéptible; it is five to twenty-five miles in
width, and eighty in length. These mountains are calculated to be twenty to twenty-four thousand feet above the Atlantic Ocean."
18 The Wind River range constitutes a massive and rugged system of mountains between Wind and Green rivers. It was a very noted range during all the period of Father De Smet's travels. Their altitude, however, is greatly overstated by Father De Smet who here follows Captain Bonneville. Fremont Peak, the highest of the range, is only 13,790 feet high.