Note III-25 — Chapter III · ITINERARY, CONCLUDED: IN THE MOUNTAINS OF COLORADO ON HEADWATERS OF THE ARKANSAW AND RIO GRANDE, DECEMBER 1ST, 1806-FEBRUARY 26TH, 1807.

For the past three days the party has been struggling with cumulative difficulties that threaten to become insurmountable, and are already strung along miles apart in the mountains. Yet Pike is only at the head of the Royal Gorge—that Grand Cañon of the Arkansaw which he had before noted from its lower end and regarded as impassable for horses. Parkdale is the place where Currant cr. falls in on the N. or left. This is the large creek which heads in the mountains about South Park, and which we have heard of before, when the Oil Creek route to that park was in question: see back, note6, p. 464. Now we see more clearly than before that Pike never went up Currant cr. This has two principal branches, both from the W., one called Cottonwood and the other Tallahassee (Hayden), Tallahassa (Wheeler), or Talahsee (G. L. O., 1892, brought into the Arkansaw as a separate tributary).