For Fremont, clambering aboard Preuss' "miserable rubber boat" and returning safely to the mouth of the Weber was easier said than done. Carson's recollection was understated: "We had not gone more than a league, when a storm came up," he said. "The boat was leaking wind." Fremont urged them to "pull for their lives," Carson remembered, that "if we did not reach shore before the storm, we would surely all perish." Pulling at the oars with all their might, they barely made it. "Within an hour, the waters had risen eight or ten feet," Carson said.

Scrambling through the brushy wetlands, Fremont ordered his men to carry the baggage the quarter mile to firm ground, while Preuss and Lajeunesse set off on foot to the main camp and the horses, some nine miles distant. The expedition continued its mission, and in October visited other islands in the Great Salt Lake, among them the largest, which supplied the party with fresh meat. Fremont named it Antelope Island.