One hundred and sixty-four years ago this week, members of the Donner Party had left Fort Bridger and were headed via the Hastings Cutoff through the Wasatch Mountains (eastern Utah) to California.

As they approached a canyon that Lansford Hastings had led 60 wagons through a short time before, they found a note stuck in sagebrush along the trail. The message indicated that Hastings had a better route for the Donner Party to follow, and the note said to send someone ahead to get directions from him.

While the Donner-led wagon company made camp, James Reed rode to find Hastings, who was now safely out of the mountains and south of the Great Salt Lake. Two others accompanied Reed: Charles Stanton and William Pike. Time was of the essence, so the three men pushed their horses as hard as they could through the tough terrain.

Hastings Cutoff #1 is Dismal
As Reed rode down Weber Canyon, following the track of the 60 wagons that had crossed before them, Reed could see why Hastings was recommending an alternative route. Reed wrote in his papers: “Our conclusions were that many of the wagons would be destroyed attempting to get through.”

Vague Hastings Cutoff #2
On August 8, Reed, Stanton, and Pike caught up to Hastings just as he was preparing his group of emigrants for the arduous crossing of the Utah Desert to the Ruby Mountains…and eventually to the Humboldt River in present-day Nevada. When Reed demanded to know which route the Donner Party should take through the Wasatch, all Hastings could do was to take Reed to a high point and vaguely point out a canyon to use other than the Weber River trail. No matter how much Hastings may have wanted to help the Donners cut a new trail, he was already committed to a group of emigrants (60 wagons full) that was just about to enter the vast desert.

Reed Breaks Trail
It was a dire situation for Reed and his companions. If Hastings' lead group of 200 emigrants (many of them men) with 60 wagons barely made it through, how would the Donner Party fare with only about 30 men and 19 wagons? While Stanton and Pike rested their exhausted horses, Reed obtained a fresh horse and returned up the canyon that Hastings pointed out, using an ax to blaze trail marks into the trees as he climbed.

Emigration Canyon
On August 11 after reconnecting with the Donner Party, Reed led it to and down what would become Emigration Canyon, the route used by the hundreds of Mormons the following year (1847) and therafter. Unfortunately, it was up to members of the Donner Party to open the trail by cutting trees, moving boulders, and building a road that wagons could use. The canyon is deep and clogged with bushes and undergrowth; the riverbed is rugged and filled with boulders. To blaze this trail, the men of the Donner Party broke their backs in hard labor for two weeks in a desperate attempt to cross the Wasatch Range and get to the Sierra before the snow fell in earnest.

Editor's Note 1: The portion of the Donner Party's route, mentioned above, is a very difficult and complicated passage. Here is information on the route gleaned from web sources: “The trail commences just west of The Needles at the mouth of Coyote Creek Canyon at the Wyoming state line. It goes on through (what is known today as) Cache Cave Creek Draw, Echo Canyon, Weber River Valley, Main Canyon, East Canyon, Little Emigration Canyon, and Emigration Canyon,” which runs on down into the north side of today's Salt Lake City.

Essentially, the Donner group carved this route, which many, many Mormons (and others) used to get to what Brigham Young declared, on the very same route, to be: “This is the place.” He was referring to what is today the Salt Lake City area. A case can be made that “Donner Summit” and “Donner Lake” in California are, in part, after-the-fact recognition that the Donner Party actually, heroically, blazed a new trail to the west…in NE Utah. It is also interesting to know that variations on the original Donner route though the Wasatch maze eventually became segments of Highway 40, and eventually Highway I-80. SCB

Editor's Note 2: This installment is #6 in a special 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.