The advance up the river was made at the rate of about thirty-five miles per day, below the junction of the rivers, and from that point to Platte canyon the average was about twenty-five miles. On the return the boat travelled from seventy-five to ninety miles per day.

On the trip both ways it was also found necessary at times to use green cottonwood and ash for fuel, and to keep the fires burning required liberal quantities of rosin and tar.

The profound student, Edward Everett Hale, published a book in 1854, on Kansas and Nebraska, and refers to navigation of the Platte. He speaks of the El Paso in ascending the Platte for five hundred miles, as an achievement which was never surpassed by a boat of its class. And that in early days, boats distinguishing themselves as did this craft, were entitled to wear a pair of elk's antlers, until another surpassed it. There has been none to surpass the El Paso and she still "wears the horns."

Hale's book states that trappers occasionally descended the Platte in canoes and batteaux, but that it was exceedingly intricate and dangerous. The boats frequently run aground, and it was generally considered as a last resort for the transfer of goods. Boats of elkhide and buffalo skin proved the most serviceable, for they yielded when striking the sand bars, and slid over them with less difficulty, than boats of wood.

Among the few passengers alighting at Fort Mitchell from the El Paso was Reuleau, the trapper, who has a history. He is first mentioned in 1833, when he met the lone Nez Perce brave on his journey into the west, after the futile visit to St. Louis. Francis Parkman mentions him at Fort Laramie in 1847. Previous to the latter date, he had had the misfortune to freeze off the fore part of both feet, leaving but stubs.