For wagon travelers on the Oregon Trail, the road from Independence, Missouri, to the Far West was 2,000 miles traveled one step at a time. The most common wagon brake was the rough-lock, which slowed a wagon by making the wheels drag on the ground. Uphill travel could be even more difficult, and drivers sometimes lightened their loads and made double trips on difficult grades. Although stories later claimed that wagons were lowered on this grade with a windlass or controlled with a snubbing post, no historical or archeological evidence found here supports either device, and historians regard the legend of Windlass Hill as a folktale created in later years. Covered wagon emigrants were often skilled at taking wagons through rough terrain like this, but wagon brakes were inadequate for hills such as this and for many steeper grades farther west. On such slopes, drivers locked the wheels with various devices and sometimes had all available hands hold back on ropes attached to the wagon. Stream crossings posed the worst hazard for wagon travelers; farther upstream, the North Platte had to be crossed in several places, and along the trails crude ferries and log rafts served travelers until a few bridges were built by traders. Far more emigrants, freighters, and soldiers drowned attempting river crossings than were killed by hostile Indians.