After stopping at Liberty, Missouri, near today's Kansas City, the expedition's steamer Yellow-Stone docked at Fort Leavenworth on April 15, 1833, to take on wood and submit to the customary search by military authorities for illegal shipments of whiskey into the territory.

On April 18, 1833, the steamboat had to stop for several hours in an area densely packed with driftwood. Prince Maximilian recorded in his journal entry that members of the crew attempted to cut through the snags, and others on the riverbank pulled the boat along by large hawsers or ropes. Getting underway again that afternoon, the Yellow-Stone ran aground a short time later on a large sandbar and was forced to remain stationary overnight. The next morning a party of traders in a flatboat from nearby Fort Osage arrived to offload part of the ship's cargo to lighten its draft. Karl Bodmer waded ashore to make a sketch of the scene.