An emigrant who cut off from the trail at the Desert Wells and headed for California by way of Truckee River (right) and one of the alternate passes across the Sierra to Yuba River may be allowed to speak for himself:
"The
great desert from the Sink to Truckee River was an awful place. The
water at the warm springs in the center was poisonous to all kinds of
stock, and the road on the desert was lined with dead cattle, mules and
horses, with here and there a wagon ...
we left no cattle there, but several gave out and laid down when within
about six miles of Truckee . . . The road from and up the Truckee River
to the Summit was bad, but the road from the Summit to Johnson's
settlement is the most damnable road on the face of the earth ..."
Near the summit of the Sierra Nevada, one of the Truckee River routes passed the lake shown below. About
this spot still hung the horror and the memory of the Donner group of
emigrants who had camped nearby in the winter of 1846. It was here they
had waited for spring, and eaten their dead comrades as the snow rose
higher and higher.
