Northward from Phelps Prairie two routes ran to Kaskaskia: a wet and a dry route. The one which we may call the highland route led north through Herrin's Prairie and swung around to the Mississippi by heading such streams as Pipestone, Rattlesnake, and Galium, crossing the Big Muddy River at Humphry's Ford, section 30, township 8, range 2E.[11] This was the dry route, the preferable one the year round. Another shorter course ran northwest and crossed many of the streams which the highland route headed. There can be little doubt that Clark's guides chose this latter course. By Clark's _Memoir_ we know it to have been a dry season, and the shortest, and probably the least traveled, course would best suit his plan of surprising Kaskaskia. The shortness of the time (four days) in which the distance to Kaskaskia was covered from Phelps Prairie almost precludes the possibility of his having used the longer watershed route. On the first day of July, then, the little army moved from near the present Bainbridge along a well-known trail which crossed Crab Orchard Creek at Greathouse Crossing[12] (section 2, township 9, range 1W)[13] and the Big Muddy at Marshall's Shoals, section 6, township 9, range 1W, southwest of De Soto, Jackson County.[14] It is possible that camp, on the night of July 1, was pitched at Greathouse Crossing; if so the day's march was not a long one. From the Big Muddy the trail struck to the watershed between the Beaucoup and its tributaries on the north and the tributaries of the Big Muddy on the south, running near the present Lenan in Jackson County. The course now was a watershed route from the Big Muddy to the St. Mary River, and is marked today by the significant names of such high altitude towns as Shiloh Hill, Teacup Knob, and Wine Hill. Through these places an ancient highway has coursed from times to which the memory of white men runneth not to the contrary. Water was scarce on the highest grounds, but springs, here and there, were well known, and at one of these, probably near Lenan (section 15, township 8, range 3), the adventurers paused, on the night of September 2, and built their evening fires.[15]