Editing Jedediah Smith (section)

===First trip to California, 1826–27===
{{further|Alta California}}
[[File:Jedediah Smith's party crossing the burning Mojave Desert cph.3b52357.jpg|thumb|250px|''Jedediah Smith's party crossing the burning Mojave Desert during the 1826 trek to California'' by [[Frederic Remington]]]]{{For|more detail of the first part of Smith's journey|Buenaventura River (legend)#Explorations to find the Buenaventura}}

Smith and his party of 15 left the Bear River on August 7, 1826, and after retrieving the cache he had left earlier, they headed south through present-day Utah and Nevada to the [[Colorado River]], finding increasingly harsh conditions and difficult travel.{{sfn|Sears|1963|p=3}} Finding shelter in a friendly [[Mohave people|Mojave]] village near present-day [[Needles, California]], the men and horses recuperated. Smith hired two refugees from the [[Spanish missions in California]] to guide them west.{{sfn|Barbour|2011|p=113}} After leaving the river and heading into the [[Mojave Desert]], the guides led them through the desert via the [[Mohave Trail]] that would become the western portion of the [[Old Spanish Trail (trade route)|Old Spanish Trail]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hafen |first1=LeRoy R.|last2=Hafen|first2=Ann W.|title=The Old Spanish Trail|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=eAu2hxz_ErMC|publisher=University of Nevada Press|location=Lincoln|year=1993|orig-date=1964|page=119|isbn=0-8032-7261-8}}</ref> Upon reaching the [[San Bernardino Valley]] of California, Smith and Abraham LaPlant borrowed horses from a rancher and rode to the [[Mission San Gabriel Arcángel|San Gabriel Mission]] on November&nbsp;27, 1826, to present themselves to its director, Father [[José Bernardo Sánchez]], who received them warmly.{{sfn|Barbour|2011|pages=118–19}}{{efn|Harrison Rogers remembered Sánchez fondly in his journal.{{sfn|Sears|1963|p=3}}}}

[[File:Mission San Gabriel 4-15-05 6611.JPG|thumb|left|150px|Father Sánchez gave Jedediah and LaPlant a lavish dinner at Mission San Gabriel.]]

The next day, the rest of Smith's men arrived at the mission, and that night the head of the garrison at the mission confiscated all their guns.{{sfn|Barbour|2011|pages=119–20}} On December 8, Smith was summoned to [[San Diego]] for an interview with Governor [[José María Echeandía]] about his party's status in the country.{{sfn|Barbour|2011|p=127}}{{efn |As with the [[Zebulon Pike]] expedition two decades earlier, the authorities saw Smith's party as a harbinger of future trouble with the United States. Unlike Pike's expedition, which was commissioned by the [[United States Army]], the Smith party was a private commercial venture. Although five members of the 1826 party carried United States [[passport]]s, the excursion into Mexican territory was unauthorized by the United States government and without permission from the Mexican government.}} Echeandía, surprised and suspicious of the Americans' unauthorized entrance into California, had Smith arrested, believing him to be a spy.{{sfnm|Schafer|1935|1p=290|Weber|1982|2p=134}} Accompanied by LaPlant, Smith's Spanish interpreter, Smith was taken to San Diego while the remainder of the party remained at the mission. Echeandía detained Smith for about two weeks, demanding that he turn over his journal and maps.  Smith requested permission to travel north to the [[Columbia River]] on a coastal route, where known paths could take his party back to United States territory. Upon intercession of American sea Captain W.H. Cunningham of Boston on the ship ''Courier'', Smith was released by Echeandía to reunite with his men.{{sfn|Schafer|1935|p=290}}  Echeandía ordered Smith and his party to leave California by the same route they entered, forbidding him to travel north along the coast to [[Bodega Bay]] but giving Smith permission to purchase needed supplies for an eastern overland return journey.{{sfn|Barbour|2011|page=129–30}}{{sfn|Schafer|1935|p=290}}<ref name="SCQ_1914_p202">{{cite journal | title = Marshall, the Discoverer of Gold in California | last = Cooney | first = Percival J. | journal =  Annual Publication of the Historical Society of Southern California| year = 1914|volume =9| issue = 3 | pages = 204–214 |publisher = Historical Society of Southern California|jstor = 41168707 |issn = 2162-9145|doi= 10.2307/41168707}}</ref> Smith boarded the ''Courier'' sailing from San Diego to San Pedro, to meet his men.{{sfn|Cooney|1914|p=203}}

After waiting for almost another month for an exit visa and then spending at least two more weeks breaking the horses they had purchased for the return trip, Smith's party departed the mission communities of California in mid-February 1827.  The party returned on the path it had arrived, but once outside the Mexican settlements, Smith convinced himself he had complied with Echeandía's order to leave by the same route he had entered, and the party veered north crossing over into the [[Central Valley (California)|Central Valley]].{{sfn|Barbour|2011|page=134–35}}  The party ultimately made its way to the [[Kings River (California)|Kings River]] on February 28 and began trapping beaver.{{sfn|Barbour|2011|p=137}}  The party kept working its way north, encountering hostile [[Maidu]]s.{{sfn|Barbour|2011|pages=139–40}}  By early May 1827, Smith and his men had traveled {{convert|350|mi|km}} north looking for the Buenaventura River, but they found no break in the Sierra Nevada range through which it could have flowed from the Rocky Mountains.{{sfn|Sears|1963|p=3}} On December&nbsp;16, 1826, Smith had written in a letter to the United States ambassador plenipotentiary to Mexico his plans to "follow up on of the largest Riv(ers) that emptied into the (San Francisco) Bay cross the mon (mountains) at its head and from thence to our deposit on the Great Salt Lake"<ref name=Cline/> and appeared to be following that plan.  They followed the [[Cosumnes River]] (the northernmost tributary of the [[San Joaquin River]]) upstream, but veered off it to the north and crossed over to the [[American River]], a tributary of the [[Sacramento River|Sacramento]] that flowed into [[San Francisco Bay]].  They tried traveling up the canyon of the South Fork of the American to cross the Sierra Nevada but had to return because of deep snow.{{sfn|Morgan|1964|p=208}}{{efn| This was Smith's second missed opportunity to find the Humboldt River.  Had he completed his crossing this far north, it is possible he would have found the [[Carson River]] leading down to [[Carson Sink]] and [[Humboldt Lake]] in Nevada.  He then could have traveled up the Humboldt, the vital waterway making possible a route across the [[Great Basin Desert]] later used by California immigrants and forging what would later be known at the "[[Hastings Cutoff]]" across the south end of the Great Salt Lake.  The [[Donner Party]] followed a reverse course of most of this route 19 years later.  In late 1828, [[Peter Skene Ogden]] discovered the Humboldt River's course.{{sfn|Morgan|1964|p=211}}}} Unable to find a feasible path for the well-laden party to cross and faced with hostile indigenes, he was forced into a decision: since they did not have time to travel north to the [[Columbia River]] and be on time for the 1827 rendezvous, they would backtrack to the [[Stanislaus River]] and re-establish a camp there.  Smith would take two men and some extra horses to get to the rendezvous as quickly as he could and return to his party with more men later in the year, and the group would continue on to the Columbia.{{sfn|Barbour|2011|p=143}}
[[File:JedediahSmithEnglishVersion.png|right|thumb|250px|The exploration of the West by Jedediah Smith. The branch of the [[Sacramento River]] that is labeled as pointing northeast is now known as the [[Pit River]].]]

After a difficult crossing of the Sierra Nevada near [[Ebbetts Pass]], Smith and his two men passed around the south end of [[Walker Lake (Nevada)|Walker Lake]].{{sfn|Barbour|2011|p=147}} After meeting with the only mounted natives that they would encounter until they reached the [[Salt Lake Valley]],{{efn |Once having left the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, the lack of water sources and adequate feed prevented the natives from maintaining horses.  Smith's own horses deteriorated rapidly on the trip.}} they continued east across central Nevada, straight across the Great Basin Desert as the summer heat hit the region. Neither they nor their horses or mules could find adequate food. As the horses gave out, they were butchered for whatever meat the men could salvage.  After two days without water, Robert Evans collapsed near the Nevada–Utah border and could go no further, but some natives Smith encountered gave them some food and told him where to find water, which he took back to Evans and revived him.{{sfn|Barbour|2011|page=150–51}}{{efn |It is around this point that Smith's narrative of his journey was split into two parts, the first found by Sullivan around 1930 and the second by a descendant of Ashley's lawyer in 1967.  The portion found by Sullivan starts at this point in the journey.}}  As the three approached the Great Salt Lake, they again were unable to find water, and Evans collapsed again.  Smith and Silas Gobel found a spring and again took back water to Evans.{{sfn|Morgan|1964|pages= 212–13}} Finally, the men came to the top of a ridge from which they saw the Great Salt Lake to the north, a "joyful sight" to Smith.{{sfn|Barbour|2011|page=152–53}}  By this time they had one horse and one mule remaining.  They reached and crossed the [[Jordan River (Utah)|Jordan River]]. Local natives told him the whites were gathered farther north at "the Little Lake" ([[Bear Lake (Idaho–Utah)|Bear Lake]] on the border between present-day Utah and Idaho). Smith borrowed a fresh horse from them and rode ahead of the other two men, reaching the rendezvous on July 3. The mountain men celebrated Smith's arrival with a cannon salute,{{efn |The cannon, a four-pounder, was sent by Ashley on a carriage, the first wheeled vehicle to cross South Pass.{{sfn|Bagley|2014|p=76}}{{sfn|Morgan|1964|p=225}}}} for they had given up him and his party for lost.{{sfn|Morgan|1964|pages=214–15}}