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Following the advice of Jim Bridger and local trappers and traders, the expedition followed the Blacks Fork River east, crossed the Green River near the present town of Green River, Wyoming and proceeded east along the Bitter Creek valley, crossing the Red Desert, and skirting the northern side of Elk Mountain across the Laramie Plains.
The valley of the North Fork was historically used a trail route between the Colorado Piedmont and the Laramie Plains, including the Cherokee Trail and the Overland Trail.
General William Henry Ashley had crossed the Laramie Plains in 1825, John C. Fremont camped near Elk Mountain in 1843 and miners and trappers heading to California used the Cherokee Trail in the late 1840s.
In 1851 U.S. Army Topographical Engineer Captain Howard Stansbury returning east from an expedition to the Salt Lake Valley described a route from Fort Bridger via the Bitter Creek valley and Laramie Plains to the North Platte River.