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Ch. 4: Death Valley Trail

Ch. 3: They Saw the Elephant Page of 246 Ch. 4: Death Valley Trail Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
THE LASSEN ROAD
Rumor had ten thousand tongues along the trail to California. "No grass at the Sink of the Humboldt—no water at the desert wells—early snow falling in the mountain passes!" The weary men and women listened to tales of alternative routes, guaranteed to flow with milk and honey-tales of low, easy passes through the northern ranges of the Sierra.
By the time the earliest gold-seekers had endured the first two hundred miles- along the Hum­boldt—the dust, the Indian raids—the death of stock, friends and almost the death of hope—they gave eager ear to the talk of a "new" road: Lassen's Road—named for a pioneer who in 1844 had built the first civilized habitation north of Marysville. It branched off beyond the big bend south­ward that the Humboldt River made, and pointed northwest across Black Rock Desert, through Cedar Pass or Lassen Pass and struck into the valley of Pit River. Some authorities claim that almost half the gold-seekers of '49 were deceived into going this way and exchanging forty miles of Carson Desert for one hundred miles of grimmer waste country.
What was left of the Washington City "Company" yielded to Captain Bruff's persuasive oratory and chose this route. After thirty-five miles of deep sand and sagebrush, hardly able to crawl for thirst and fatigue, they came to water—Rabbit Hole Springs (below).
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Ch. 3: They Saw the Elephant Page of 246 Ch. 4: Death Valley Trail
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