I inquired about the location of the bluffs because I wanted to see the view Alonzo would have seen 160 years ago. There isn’t one location for the bluffs as they run 200 miles from Sioux City, Iowa in the north to St Joseph, Missouri in the south. They are up to 15 miles wide in some places. However, the only places they overlook the Missouri River are around Council Bluffs and at the northern end of the bluffs, near Sioux City.
What makes the bluffs different than any other hills along a river? The bluffs consist of loess (pronounced like lust without the “t”); it's soil that is as fine as flour and formed by the wind into dunes. Since the prevailing wind is from the northwest, the dunes on the Iowa side of the river are the highest. Loess hills are found around the world, but only China has higher deposits than those in Iowa.
A popular high point on the bluffs looks over downtown Council Bluffs, the Missouri River, and Omaha in the distance.
When the loess dunes are cut through for roads they display a tan surface without the color demarcations often found in regular soil or rock deposits.
Loess dunes
Alonzo notes, “Started on Monday (July 25) at noon for the plains and thence to the Salt Lake with one years provisions, rather poor road to the ferry. Encamped one mile from the ferry.
“Morning went to the ferry, crossed the Missouri at night. Encamped near the river in Indian territory. One Indian and two squaws encamped with us. They were Pawnees nearly naked and hungry.”
I also asked where the ferry might have been and learned that in the past the Missouri flooded every year so the ferries changed locations to fit the river. There were at least four ferries operating at any one time. The established location for the Mormon crossing is supposedly at the spot where I-680 crosses the Missouri north of the city. On my way to the Mormon Bridge I stopped at the Lewis and Clark overlook. In the center of the photo you can just make out the Missouri River (not the pond at the left), and at the right, near the horizon, are the runways of the Omaha airport.
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