The North Platte River was wider and more rapid than it is today. The Oregon, Mormon and California Trail followed it as closely as possible, as the ground would almost always be more level and easier to travel along the banks. However, just a short distance outside the town of Guernsey, there's a chalk outcrop that comes right down to the river bank. There's no way around it, so the only way is up and over the top.
With the chalk being soft, the wheels of the heavily laden wagons would grind their way into the surface and loosen the chalk. Subsequent heavy rain would wash away the pieces of chalk to leave ruts where the wagons had passed. It would be the natural tendency for the wheels of a wagon to slide into a rut made by a predecessor and so the ruts would, over a period of time, become deeper.
When you see just how far into the rock the wagon wheels have cut, it makes you realize just how many wagons went along the trail by here to Oregon, Utah and California. And also how much weight they were carrying. And, don't lose sight of the fact that the trail was really only open for about 20 years. It was first used in any numbers in the mid-late 1840s. The American Civil War and then the transcontinental railways, the first of which was completed in May 1869, put an end to all the traffic.
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