One hundred and sixty-plus years ago this week, members of the Donner Party were slowly trudging northwest. They were moving up from the southern end of the Ruby Mountains in eastern Nevada.

These mountains had blocked a direct route to the South Fork of the Humboldt River for the pioneers; it was at the Humboldt that the Donners could reconnect with the traditional California Trail that they had left on July 19, 1846.

Shortcut Was Mistake
By now party members realized that the "shortcut" they had taken had been a bad decision. Instead of saving them three hundred miles as advertised, it had added about one month in travel time and more than one hundred miles to their journey. The detour had cost them dearly in time and supplies and built up stress and frustration. Soon there would be violence and death in the company.

The Hastings Cutoff route had taken the Donner Party 68 days to complete, from when they left the Little Sandy River (Wyoming) and began heading south toward Fort Bridger. Some of the other emigrants who had taken the traditional, Fort Hall route toward the South Fork of the Humboldt had made the trip from the Little Sandy to the Humboldt River in less than 40 days, a 28-day difference.

September 25
On September 25, the Donner Party camped in a rough, narrow canyon (south of present-day Elko, Nevada) that would lead to the Humboldt River. The following day the pioneers traveled eight miles and reached the Humboldt River. They had returned to the main, California Trail.

During the last week of September, the group followed the river westward moving as fast as it could; everyone was painfully aware that they were alone, the last wagon train on the trail that year. At this point in time, the leading wagons in the large, 1846 overland emigration to California were already descending the west slope of the Sierra Nevada; some were arriving at Sutter's Fort in California.

The pioneers who were with the Donner group in Wyoming but decided against the Hastings Cutoff were now well ahead of the Donners. Those pioneers were already beyond the Humboldt Sink, which is terminus of the river. They were crossing the Forty Mile Desert and approaching the Truckee River that led up the eastern Sierra; meanwhile the Donner group had just reached the Humboldt.

On September 27, Edwin Bryant's group, which had left Fort Bridger with Lansford Hastings a week ahead of the Donner Party, was west of the Truckee Meadows (present-day Reno) and making its way toward Dog Valley (north of present-day Verdi, Nevada). By the end of September 1846, Bryant was near Donner Lake and preparing to cross Roller Pass, just south of Donner Pass, the preferred route over the Sierra that year.

At Fort Bridger, Bryant and the others in his company had traded in their wagons for pack animals; this enabled them to proceed more quickly across the Great Salt Desert than Hastings and the wagon train he was leading.

On September 28, the Hastings-led company of wagons was on the Truckee River, just east of Reno, about 200 miles ahead of the Donner Party. It too would go up to Dog Valley. In 1846 wagon trains did not travel up the Truckee River Canyon, but followed a route that took them to the north some miles and then west, around the difficult canyon. This company of wagons would make it to Sutter's Fort.

Note: Several rivers in Nevada end in "sinks." Sinks are usually dry and barren areas for most of the year, but occasionally they turn into a shallow, temporary lake after a wet winter.

Editor's Note: This installment is #13 in an exclusive, weekly series tracing the actual experiences of the Donner Party as it worked its way into American history. Mark McLaughlin, weather historian, who lives on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe, wrote the series for Tahoetopia. The photo is also by Mark.