After leaving Ash Meadows, they drove over the Amargosa range, and down into Death Valley through Furnace Creek Wash where they were quickly bogged down on the valley floor. Many of their oxen had died from lack of forage and they were immobilized, as the few remaining animals were starving and were too weak to pull wagons up and over the mountains to the west and south, even if a pass were found. The Wades, not so bad off, quickly turned south and drove themselves out of the valley and on to safety, probably via Wingate Wash. The Manley, Brier, & Bennett party sent Manley and a companion, John Haney Rogers, south out of the valley for help. The Briers made a heroic climb over the Panamints to safety, while the Bennetts waited huddled around their wagons with water but no food. Four weeks later, after an incredible 500 mile round-trip trek across the Mojave Desert to Rancho San Francisco (approx. 30 miles north of Los Angeles), Manly & Rogers returned with some food supplies and a single mule (three other horses had died on the return trip), and the Bennett and Arcane families walked and rode their remaining oxen out of what they named, "Death Valley".