On October 13, 1776, Franciscan Fathers Atanasio Dominguez, Sylvestre Velez de Escalante, and eight other members of an exploration party traveled south from the small river and campsite of Nuestra Senora del Pilar, descended to the little Rio del Pilar, crossed it, left the valley of the Senor San Jose, entered a stony pass between two high sierras, then descended again to the Rio del Pilar and halted on its banks in a cottonwood grove they named San Daniel. The party had departed the Mision de Santa Fe, New Mexico, on July 29, 1776, seeking to establish contact with the Franciscan mission at Monterey, California. After crossing the Colorado River near Grand Junction, Colorado, and entering the unexplored Great Basin near Spanish Fork, Utah, they moved south along the Wasatch Mountains expecting a westward-flowing river to lead them to the Pacific Ocean. Facing disappointment and the approach of winter snows, they cast lots near Cedar City, Utah, on October 11, 1776, and chose to return to Santa Fe by a southern route. Their encampment at San Daniel was the first recorded entry of non-native people into Washing County, Utah. They returned to the Santa Fe Mission on January 2, 1777, after traveling over 1800 miles, and their observations and maps helped open the American Southwest to further exploration and to commercial use of the National Historic Old Spanish Trail.