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Dear Wife I must pause for the present as I have promised
to go with some of the boys to the top of a mountain half
a mile distant. fare well [farewell] my souls brightest treasure next week
I will give you an account of my explorations from which I ex=
pect to derive a great deal of satisfaction.

Camp on Big Sandy [Big Sandy River Wyoming]
July 1 1849

Dear beloved Wife,

I Again avail myself of the oppertu=
nity [opportunity] of addressing you and of again assuring you of my undy
ing [undying] love, which increasing with the distance which seperates [separates] has
become the all absorbing sentiment of My being. I am now
My dear wife pretty well satisfied that I shall not have an
oppertunity [opportunity] of writing to you or rather of sending my letters
untill [until] I reach California. Such being the case I shall unless I
meet with an oppertunity [opportunity] of sending defer the transcribing of
my notes untill [until] some future day as I expect after I do ar
rive [arrive] in California to find enough to talk about that will
be of more recent occurence [occurrence]. but to give you a description
of our excursion to the mountains on last Sunday evening.
We left camp at 2 P. M. and crossed the sweet waster [Sweetwater River] and procee
=ded due north to a mountain composed of granite Rock with
scarcely a particle of soil on it except where some very slight sediment
had settled in the crevises [crevices] of the rocks. When we approched [approached] the base
of the vast mass of stone our hearts almost failed us but we conclud=
ed to go on. Our ascent at first was easy enough but before we had climbed 100 ft
we reached a point where it took three men to assist one to get up. One
time we thought we were fairly checked. When we could not get either
up or down by perseverence [perseverance] however we finally extricated ourselves
from our dilemma after which our progress was more easy. after an hour
of hard toil we reached the point for which we started and which we
supposed to be the highest point in the vicinity but when we arrived
at it we found another peake [peak] just beyond much higher. after rest=
ing a while we concluded to go on our labor now became severe
and dangerous. I really think we were foolish in risking our necks but
I shant do so any more. in two hours from the time we left the bottom
we reached the highest peakes [peaks] of the Rattle snake mountains [Rattlesnake Mountains] from which
we had a most magnificent view of the Wind river mountains [Wind River Range]. Distant
one hundred miles. We lay on the peake [peak], just large enough to accomodate [accommodate]
four of us, for some time enjoying the exhilerating [exhilarating] feeling of being
so high up in the world and enjoying the view spread out before us
for near a hundred miles around us. Just as we were about descending
a sudden puff of wind lifted my hat off my head and it went sailing
down some hundreds of feet down on the opposite side of the mountain
from which we had ascended in going down to recover it we found
found a much more easy path to ascend by. at the bottom we found a

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