One hundred and sixty-plus years ago this week, members of the Donner Party were still fighting their way through rugged Emigration Canyon in the Wasatch Mountains in eastern Utah.

The canyon bottom was choked with willow, alder, and aspen trees. The only way to get the wagons through was with backbreaking work using axes, picks, and shovels to cut through the tangled vegetation, yard by yard.

As the days of unceasing labor added up, the men became more disgruntled and angry at James Reed for leading them into their predicament. There were barely twenty adult men fit enough to do the grunt work day after day, and as dissension grew, the pace of road building slowed.

Reed Blamed
It wasn't Reeds fault that Lansford Hastings had misled the emigrants into thinking the Hasting's "shortcut" was open and safe. But for the rest of his life, one of the pioneers, Franklin Ward Graves, would publicly say that it was Reed who caused the wagon company to be delayed in the Wasatch. The delay eventually was an important factor in the Donner Party ending up trapped by snow in the Sierra Nevada.

Reed Replies
In an 1871 article Reed wrote for the Pacific Rural Press, he responded to the criticism of the route: "During this time the road was cleared for several miles ahead. After leaving this camp the work on the road slackened and the further we advanced, the slower the work progressed. I here state that the number of days we were detained in road-making was not the cause by any means, of the company remaining in the (Sierra) mountains during the following winter."

Donner Hill
On August 22, 1846 the Donner Party was forced to climb a steep ridge that Mormons later named Donner Hill. Each wagon had to be double-teamed with oxen to get up the hill. Then when the pioneers descended on the other side, the terrain was so bad they had to stick small saplings into the spokes to lock up the wheels. It was a wild gamble, for if any of the oxen slipped, the wagon and team would have rolled down the mountain for 300 feet. Fortunately, all the wagons and people got over and down safely.



When they had left Fort Bridger at the end of July, party members believed they were only about seven weeks of travel from Sutter's Fort (Sacramento). However, after fighting through the Wasatch for more than three weeks, they hadn't even reached the south end of the Great Salt Lake, which was still more than 720 miles from California.

First Death
On August 25, the ailing Luke Halloran died. The 25-year-old suffered from tuberculosis and, despite Tamsen Donner's best care, the arduous journey was just too much for him. In gratitude for what the Donner's had done for him, Halloran willed all his property and $1,500 to George Donner. Reed wrote in his journal, "Left camp early this morning. In the evening, a gentleman by the name of Luke Halloran died of Consumption having been brought from Bridger's Fort by George Donner a distance of 151 miles. We made him a Coffin and Burried [sic] him at the upper wells at the forks of the road in a beautiful place." Halloran was the first to die, but he would not be the last.

Editor's Note: This installment is the eighth in a weekly series tracing the experiences of the Donner Party as it worked its way into American history. The series was written by Mark McLaughlin, weather historian, who lives on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe.