“It looked a lot straighter on the map.” – Anonymous

The Mormon Road going south across the Oro Grande Wash would come up and head straight into the Joshua trees and juniper woodland.  The slope was fair, the ground hard and the trail reasonably straight.  There were variations, though.  To the eyes of one, one way around a bush may look easier than it does to another.  Trails evolve.  If one branch is significantly better than another, that branch becomes wider and more popular. These branches and shortcuts may join together later.  These variations due to mankind and weather begin a process I have heard to be called, “braiding.”  It is quite possible for the main alignment, the busiest, the center-most version in the corridor to remain in use providing its continued existence to this very day.