Note III-27 — Chapter III · ITINERARY, CONCLUDED: IN THE MOUNTAINS OF COLORADO ON HEADWATERS OF THE ARKANSAW AND RIO GRANDE, DECEMBER 1ST, 1806-FEBRUARY 26TH, 1807.

Pike's map shows "Yellow Stone River Branch of the Missouri," with his trail looped up to it. This of course is an egregious error, as the Yellowstone is much further off, beyond anything that Pike sighted when he was highest on the Arkansaw, Dec. 22d. Next N. of him there, and on the W. of the Continental Divide, was Grand r., which unites with the Green to form the Colorado of the West. This arises in Middle Park. North of this again, in North Park, are the headwaters of the North Platte; and the southernmost heads of the Yellowstone are still beyond these. The mountains which Pike legends "White Snow" are the Sawatch range, continued southward by the Sangre de Cristo range. All this part of Pike's map is too defective to be of any use in tracing the trip just ended, and I have not had occasion to adduce it in support of the text since we started up Oil cr. The dotted trail loops up the Arkansaw far beyond the point Pike reached, and a number of the camps he made are omitted. The best delineation of Pike's route in South Park and about the headwaters of the Arkansaw is that traced on Josiah Gregg's map of the Indian Territory, etc., in his Commerce of the Prairie, 1844. This loops Pike around the Park, thence almost to the source of the Arkansaw, and back down this river—which is quite right. This case must be more accentuated, because tradition will have it that Pike got over on Pacific waters—not a drop of which he ever saw.