The Spanish Explorers

The Spanish Explorers. . First white men to explore the intermountain region were Catholic fathers Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and Francisco Valez de Escalate accompanied by Don Juan Pedro Cisneros. Don Bernardo Miera y Pacheco. Don Joaquin Lain, Lorenzo Olivares, Lucrecio Muniz, Andres Muniz, Juan de Aguilar and Simon Lucero. , Attempting to find a more practical northern route to Monterey the above party left Santa Fe July 29, 1776. And after journeying northwestward the expedition crossed into what is now Utah near the present town of Jensen in Uintah County from here they traveled westward. Entering Utah Valley through Spanish Fork Canyon on September 23. September 24th and 25th the explorers encamped near Utah Lake on the banks of the Provo River. , Proceeding southwesterly the party reached A point near Sevier Lake on October 5. Alarmed at the early approach of winter. The travelers decided to return from this point to Santa Fe. The Colorado River was reached a few miles north of the present Utah-Arizona line at a point known as the Crossing of the Fathers. Santa Fe was reached January 2, 1777. , Within five months Father Escalante and his companions had completed a circuit of more than eighteen hundred miles, crossing mountains and deserts practically unknown. Most of the time without guides and oftentimes enduring untold hardships and privations. Although their efforts to discover a new route to Monterey were unsuccessful, these Spanish explorers did much to publicize the Great Basin by leaving to posterity the first recorded description of this intermountain country.