Similarly, the identity of the pass at Scotts Bluff has frequently been misunderstood. In historic times there were actually two different passes here. The first, which would be at the bow of the shepherd's crook, is now called Robidoux Pass, and this was predominantly used during the period up to and including 1849. In October 1850, Government explorer Capt. Howard Stansbury, returning from Salt Lake, reported the first evidence of wagon wheels through the gap now called Mitchell Pass.
Explanation for the splitting of the Oregon-California Trail at Scotts Bluff lies in its peculiar topography. The main bluff lays like a giant whale across the valley floor, blocking the way, with impenetrable badlands between it and the river. Although the existence of Mitchell Pass was, of course, known prior to 1850, it was little used because of its rugged badlands character. Travel via Robidoux Pass involved a wide swing away from the river, beginning at a point west of present Melbeta and proceeding down present Gering Valley, south of Dome Rock. In T. H. Jefferson's _Map of the Emigrant Road_, it is called Karante Valley.
Emigrant John Brown in 1849 noted that "14 miles from Chimney Rock the road [to Robidoux Pass] leaves the river.... [It] lies through one of the finest valleys I ever saw and is decidedly the best twenty miles of road we have travelled." Maj. Osborne Cross, leading a company of mounted riflemen to Fort Laramie, described the ascent to Robidoux Pass as "_the first high hill_ since leaving Fort Leavenworth. This is partly covered with cedar, which was the first we had met on the march."
[Illustration: "_Camp at Scott's Bluffs._" From The Old Journey. Contemporary sketch by Alfred Lambourne.]
[Illustration: _Mitchell Pass looking west._ Courtesy, Downey's Midwest Studio. Scottsbluff, Nebr.]
It is suspected that the U. S. Army Quartermaster from Fort Laramie was the first to take wagons through Mitchell Pass, possibly doing a little engineering to widen the passage and ease the grade. Later emigrants, finding wagon tracks now going toward Mitchell Pass, readily switched to the new route. The two branches came together once more east of Horse Creek.
During the summer migration of 1850, equal in volume to that of 1849, the Robidoux Pass route up Gering Valley was still favored. Bennett Clark refers to his "encampment within a semicircle of high bluffs, which rise abruptly from the river's edge and sweep around rain-bow like." To Franklin Street this camp at Scotts Bluff was "one of the most delightful places that nature ever formed." To Thomas Woodward, "Every place seems like a fairy vision. It is no use trying to describe [Scotts Bluff] for language cannot do it." To Mormon emigrant Leander V. Loomis the view of the bluffs from the north side of the river was "highly beautiful, almost approaching the sublime." His journal contains this delectable entry of May 30: