Unless we found another camp, we probably would have spent the night bivouacking in 26 degree temperature under a clear sky in a picnic grove (see below photo) where we bivouacked three years ago, not too far from the Donner’s Alder Creek Camp. What a wonderful site that was. A broad vista into the distance almost 200 degrees around. That’s Donner (my Donner) keeping his eyes on my every movement.
After breaking camp, we would have stopped off at the Alder Creek Camp where the Donners ended their journey, just down highway 89 and then gotten on our way to Donner Lake, where the rest of the Donner Party spent the next six months in abject misery, hoping, searching for a rescue party.
TMy purpose with this blog is not to tell the story of what happened 175 years ago at Donner Lake, at the Alder Creek camp, or on the trail to Fort Sutter, so you might wish to delve into that horrific story yourself. A list of the names of the hapless souls stranded at those places is shown at the bottom of this posting.
After a brief visit to Donner Lake, avoiding the water this time (remember what happened there in 2018?) we would be jumping onto I-80, heading eventually for the end of the line for the pioneers at Fort Sutter in Sacramento, 80 or so miles distant. Our journey would be somewhat more relaxed than, say, the journey of the 14 souls who formed the Forlorn Hope group from the Donner Party trying to reach Fort Sutter back in 1846. Most did not.
My guess is that we would not be trying to make it all the way to Fort Sutter, and then onto Samuel Taylor State Park, north of San Francisco, because that would involve a journey of 207 miles, without accounting for time lost for breaks at the sites in between. So we probably would be bivouacking tonight about 50 miles down the highway in the Mineral Bar State Park (below) where Donner and I spent a night in solitude back in 2018.
You can visit my blog from 2018 to learn a little bit more about that one night we spent there, just feet away from a bubbling creek, just over the hill in back of our tent.
On The Road - 9 : Day 28, Friday, October 19; Mineral Bar State Park, California (otr9.blogspot.com)
After Mineral Bar camp, we would be taking some back roads to reach where Johnson’s Ranch had been located, now near Wheatland CA. That site played a major role as the terminus of the Forlorn Hope saga.
From Johnson’s Ranch, we would be driving the final leg of the Donner Party’s journey on to Fort Sutter, but not spending much time there as they do not permit dogs in the museum.
And that would be .concluding our outward bound journey to retrace the Donner Party saga 175 years ago.
We would then be moving on 97 miles to the Samuel Tailor State Park north of San Francisco where we had reservations in the same wonderful campsite (below) in a cathedral-like redwood forest where we stayed during several prior visits there.
Tomorrow, we would be plotting our homeward bound journey, which I never plan until I point the Defender east. My guess is that we would first be heading off in the direction of the Nevada and Utah deserts to camp in several of the magnificent high desert camps we stayed in over our journeys and go wherever the Defender took us.
My plan now is to continue this blog, probably reposting some of photos of camps we stayed in before on our similar homeward bound journeys, and other miscellaneous topics as well (e.g., Donner’s
situation, our local camping, the Defender), until we eventually pick it up
when we get back on the road again on OTR-11.
For all I know now, OTR-11 might go on for perpetuity. One can be certain of nothing these days.
Below is a list of the members of the Donner Party, and the numbers who survived
and perished. Click on the names and you will go to an Xmission blog that lists
the names and some background on each.
|
Family/Group |
Number |
Survived |
Perished |
|
9 |
9 |
0 |
|
|
7 |
5 |
2 |
|
|
9 |
3 |
6 |
|
|
4 |
1 |
3 |
|
|
12 |
8 |
4 |
|
|
4 |
2 |
2 |
|
|
3 |
2 |
1 |
|
|
13 |
7 |
6 |
|
|
7 |
6 |
1 |
|
|
2 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
21 |
5 |
16 |
|
|
TOTAL |
91 |
49 |
42 |
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