Oregon Trail emigrants reached the Deschutes River Crossing after an arduous passage across the dry, dusty Columbia Plateau, where water, firewood, and forage were scarce and people and animals were often exhausted. In the 1840s travelers established an alternate route from the Umatilla River to The Dalles across the plateau, south of the Columbia River, shortening the journey to the Willamette Valley but exposing emigrants to long stretches without water or wood. Near Biggs they first saw the Columbia, sometimes with disappointment at the barren, windy country they found, and with the approach of journey's end came the sadness of parties separating after months of shared hardship. At the Deschutes itself, emigrants encountered many Native people, sometimes received essential help from them, and often hired local Indians to guide or assist river crossings. The crossing was dangerous because of rocks and swift current, and emigrants, wagons, and livestock all had to get across; some forded with Indian guides, while in the 1850s entrepreneurs controlled the ford, charged high ferry fees, and by 1864 operated a toll bridge. Some travelers had to discard possessions, even a good wagon and a cook stove, to lighten loads before crossing. Afterward they faced a very steep climb west of the river to a summit campsite, a rise some considered almost insurmountable. This stretch formed part of the more than two-thousand-mile road to Oregon Country that carried nearly one thousand Americans west in 1843 and more than 50,000 over the next two decades toward the abundance of the Willamette Valley, though increasing traffic also deepened hardship, illness, death, and strain on a fragile land.