^* There were really two main routes of the Santa Fe Trail. The one discussed in the text above, is the Cimarron route, used by the vast majority of traders, trappers, and travelers, and the one for which Becknell earned his nickname. There was also the Mountain route, which broke off from the Cimarron route a little beyond present-day Cimarron, Kansas, and followed the Arkansas River to present-day La Junta, Colorado, where it headed to the southwest through the Raton Pass, on the eastern side of the Sangre de Cristos, and then continued to Santa Fe. The Mountain route, also pioneered by Becknell, was longer and less suitable for wagons than the Cimarron, but it had more places to get water and was less susceptible to Indian attacks.