One hundred and sixty-three years ago this week, members of the Donner Party had reached the Truckee River and were heading west toward the Sierra crest separating them from Sutter's Fort in mid-California at present-day Sacramento. They were the last group of pioneers on the Oregon/California Trail that year, 1846.

All of the party had survived the crossing of the Forty-Mile Desert (Humboldt Sink) except for Mr. Wolfinger, a German immigrant traveling with his wife Doris in their one wagon. During the same Indian attack that killed William Eddy's oxen, Wolfinger had lost all his oxen except one. Without any draft animals, he was forced to cache his wagon and supplies in the desert.

Money and Murder
Two other German men, Augustus Spitzer and Joseph Reinhardt, had volunteered to stay behind and help Wolfinger bury his belongings in the desert.

On October 16, Spitzer and Reinhardt caught up with the other wagons with word that Indians had killed Mr. Wolfinger. The other members of the Donner Party were suspicious of foul play because everyone knew that Mr. Wolfinger carried a "considerable amount" of gold coins, and he alone had died. Months later, when Reinhardt was near death at Alder Creek, the Sierra winter survival encampment occupied by the two Donner families, Reinhardt admitted that he had killed Wolfinger in the desert.

Weather, October 1846
Meanwhile, in California, winter-like storms had already turned the coastal countryside green. William Bryant, who had reached Sutter's Fort safely after taking the Hastings Cutoff ahead of the Donner Party, noted the unusually early rains. Like many American emigrants who had arrived in California after the start of the Mexican-American War, Bryant joined in the fight to wrest California from Mexico.

On October 17 he wrote from a military outpost in Napa; "The last two mornings have been cloudy and cool. The periodical rains ordinarily commence about the middle of November. It is now a month earlier and the meteorological phenomena portend 'falling weather.'"

Truckee Meadows (Reno)
The Donner Party emigrants did not reach the Truckee Meadows (near present-day Reno, Nevada) until about October 20. They had struggled for several weeks spread on the trail along the Humboldt River, with the first and last wagons separated by two days travel. In the Truckee Meadows they regrouped and prepared themselves and their livestock for the greatest challenge of all, crossing the Sierra Nevada.

Since leaving Missouri in April, the members of the party had endured more than their fair share of bad luck, poor decisions, and organizational collapse. Tragically, it was about to get worse. The skies were cloudy and the mountains ahead were already white with the season's first snowfall. (See picture of snow on Sierra in October 2004.) Worst yet, another storm was brewing in the west.

Years later, John Breen, who was a 14-year-old teenager in 1846, recalled his memories of the weather as the Donner wagon train traveled up the Truckee River: "There began to be heavy clouds on the high range of mountains to the west, and this from what we had learned from Captain Fremont, was a certain sign of snow on the mountains."

Over the next few days, rain developed in northern California and more snow fell in the upper elevations.

Editor's Note: This installment is #16 in a series tracing the actual experiences of the Donner Party as it worked its way into American history. Mark McLaughlin, author and weather historian, who lives on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe, wrote the series. For more info about Mark's books and speaking engagements, visit www.micmacmedia.com.