Finding out about stuff like this really does wonders for your imagination, particularly when you're travelling the same route that they were. Except you do it at 80mph on a motorcycle, which does sort of ruin the atmosphere.
If you fancy reading a good book about it (I know, I know, what d'you mean? a paper book? how quaint) I can heartily recommend:
Ordeal by Hunger - The story of the Donner Party
by George R Stewart and published by Houghton Mifflin (which
has got to be a made up name).
In July of 1846 eighty-seven people set out for California, from Fort Bridger in Wyoming. They were persuaded to take the "new route" through the Wasatch Mountains, across the Great Salt Lake Desert, along the Humboldt river through Nevada and across the Sierra on what is now named Donner Pass. Roughly the route I-80 now takes.
If it had all gone as planned, they might have been OK, but they were bogged down by the fact that someone had failed to put a road where they were going.
As an example, it took them 16 days to get from a ways West of where Salt Lake City is now, to the present Utah/Nevada stateline. They were told that it would only take them a day to get across the Great Salt Lake Desert. It took them three. 80 miles of blinding white crispy salt, except apparently the surface turns into sludge as any remaining water evaporates out of the ground.
By the time they'd finished mucking about, it was the end of October before they reached Truckee Lake (now Donner Lake) and they were caught in a snowstorm and had to shelter as best they could at the East end of the Lake. In Donner State Park, which is well worth a visit, you can see a rock which one family built a makeshift cabin against. On a plaque on the rock is a list of names of those who were in the party.
The snow reached 22' deep that winter (the base of the monument in the Park is 22' high, to give you an idea how deep 22' is)(very) and they rapidly ran out of food. OK, so they could have dug down through the snow and ate berries, but they obviously didn't think of that, instead opting to eat the people who had died in order to avoid starvation.
A couple of times they sent out rescue parties, with disasterous results, but eventually a handful did get through to the Central Valley. Think about that, as you go along I-80. Walking all the way from Truckee to the Valley in deep snow, with frostbitten feet.
They should have taken the freeway.
It was the end of April 1847 before the last of three rescue parties from Sutter's Fort (what is now Sacramento) managed to extract the final survivors from the Lake. Of the original 87 who started out, five died before they got anywhere near Donner Lake, 34 died either at Donner Lake, or attempting to cross the Sierra to fetch help, (two indian guides were also killed (NB. this is a bad idea - never kill your guides. You'll only get lost)) and 47 people actually reached Sutter's Fort. Every single oxen, mule, horse and dog perished. It was the most spectacular disaster in the history of western migration.
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elsie@calweb.com 30 August 1995