num_pages: 360
description: Famed adventure writer David Roberts re-creates the extraordinary 1700-mile journey of the eighteenth-century Domnguez-Escalante scouting expedition.In late July 1776 fathers Francisco Atanasio Domnguez and Francisco Vlez de Escalante set out from Santa Fe to chart a route to the new Spanish missions in California. The Fransiscans planned to scout the country for mineral wealth and locate the Ute and Navajo tribes for conversion. In present- day Utah however the dangers of starvation and hypothermia forced them to turn back. By November the friars were reduced to survival mode: stymied by the raging Colorado River they had to kill their horses for food. At last they succeeded in fording the river at a place later known as Crossing of the Fathers.In this adventure- history David Roberts travels the Spaniards forgotten route using Escalantes first- person report as his guide. Blending personal and historical narrative he relives the glories catastrophes and courage of this desperate journey.
language: English
title: Escalante's Dream: On the Trail of the Spanish Discovery of the Southwest
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company