Welcome to Wonderhussy Adventure #380 Date of adventure: 6/11/19-6/12/19
Beginning in the 1840s, hundreds of thousands of people undertook the monumental overland journey to the American West -- mostly on foot, or in simple wooden wagons. And they weren't all mountain men or cowboys -- most were average men, women and children, looking for a better life. Say what you will about their motivations, treatment of Native peoples, and impact on the landscape -- these people were HARD CORE! Imagine walking 2,000 miles, dragging all your worldly possessions over deserts, across rivers and over the Rocky Mountains -- all without modern camping gear or GPS! It was rough...but also the adventure of a lifetime. Join me as I drive the entire length of this route, following the footsteps of one of the first wagon trains to undertake this journey: the ill-fated Donner Party. These 84 people left the edge of "civilization" in Independence, Missouri in 1846...and thanks to a series of bad decisions and bad luck, ended up trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountains, infamously resorting to cannibalism to survive the winter. How did it happen? Let's find out!
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Hastings cutoff map: Kmusser - Own work, Elevation data from SRTM, Trails data from the NPS [1], all other features from the National Atlas., CC BY-SA 3.0,
Buffalo dung: No machine-readable author provided. Sphoenixee assumed (based on copyright claims). - No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0,
wonderhussy, wonder hussy, donner party, pioneer history, u.s. pioneers, emigrant trail, california trail, oregon trail
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