The Pike expedition, hungry, cold, and exhausted,…
January 1807 CE
Several men had been left behind as they dropped from fatigue, but Pike has doggedly pressed on.
By January 30, he and the ten men still with him come to the Rio Grande at a point near Alamosa in present-day southern Colorado and at this time part of the Spanish empire.
Pike mistakes the Rio Grande for the Red River he had been seeking.
Here, he starts building a fort and begins attempts to collect the rest of his men, who are strewn across miles of mountains behind him.