Following the course of the river down some ten leagues, they went up the Uinta and finally crossed the Wasatch, coming down the western side evidently by way of what is now known as Spanish Fork, to Utah Lake, then called by the natives Timpanogos.

Here they heard of a greater lake to the north, but instead of seeking it they turned their course south-westerly in what they considered the direction of Monterey through the Sevier River Valley, the Sevier being called the Santa Isabel, and kept down along the western edge of the High Plateaus.
It being by this time the 7th of October, Escalante concludes that it will be impossible to reach Monterey before winter sets in and persuades his companions that the best thing to do is to strike for the Moki towns.

They cast lots to determine this, and the decision is for Moki.
Evidently he thought this would be an easy road.

When he was at Moki the year before, had he not failed to go to the Colorado he would have better understood the nature of the undertaking he now set for his expedition.
Going on southward past what is now Parowan, they came to the headwaters of a branch of the Virgen, in Cedar Valley, and this they followed down to the main stream which they left flowing south-westerly.

The place where they turned from it was probably about at Toquerville.* They were now trying to make their general course south-east.