In 1846, Jesse Applegate and fourteen others from near Dallas, Oregon, established a trail south from the Willamette Valley and east to Fort Hall as an alternative to the perilous last leg of the Oregon Trail down the treacherous Columbia River. The first emigrants to use the new Southern Road left Fort Hall in early August 1846 with the trailblazers. Levi Scott acted as guide while Jesse Applegate traveled ahead to mark the route, and the emigrants blazed a wagon trail through nearly 500 miles of wilderness, arriving in the upper Willamette Valley in November. Travel along the Applegate Trail continued in later years and contributed greatly to the settlement of southern Oregon and the Willamette Valley. Emigrants using the trail first viewed Oregon from Fandango Pass in the Warner Mountains, and in 1853 Thomas Fletcher Royal was one of many travelers who found there a charming landscape after months of weary travel over sunburnt desert, prickly pears and sage brush, sand and dust, and alkali. Camp sites along the trail were determined by the presence of water, firewood, grazing for livestock, or simply the end of a long day's journey, and this portion of the Great Basin tested emigrants' ability to find these essentials. In this arid region, good water was scarce, and even the lakes were deceptive, expanding with bountiful waters in some years such as 1853 but nearly vanishing in others such as 1849, leaving alkali flats and quaking mud. In 1849, Kimball Webster recalled going with Mr. Carlton toward a lake for water, only to find dry sand at the shore and for two miles beyond, before returning thirsty and disappointed.