Overview
On May 19, 1846, the Donners and Reids joined a large wagon train headed for Oregon and California. For the next two months the mid-westerners followed the Oregon Trail. When they reached the Little Sandy River, in what is now Wyoming, they decided to take a new route to California, the "Hastings Cutoff,” named after its promoter, Lansford Hastings.

The Donners and others formed a small wagon train and they elected George Donner their captain.

The Donner Party continued south-westward to Fort Bridger, where the Hastings Cutoff began, and they set out on the new (un-tested) route on August 31. They endured great hardships while crossing the Wasatch Mountains and the Great Salt Lake Desert, and they finally rejoined the California Trail near modern Elko, Nevada, on September 26. The "shortcut" had taken them three weeks longer than the customary route to California.

When they reached the Sierra Nevada mountains toward the end of October, an early snowstorm blocked their way over what is now known as Donner Pass. Demoralized and low on supplies, about three quarters of the emigrants camped at the east end of Donner Lake, while the George and Jacob Donner families and a few others camped about six miles away, at Alder Creek, just north of present-day Truckee. The two Donner families actually were lagging behind the others and were stopped at Alder Creek by injuries and the early snow.



Sites
Visitors can go to the Alder Creek campsite by driving a few miles north of Truckee on Highway 89. The National Historic Landmark is on the right-hand side (east) of 89. There is parking and a trail and markers identifying various places where the Donner families spent the winter of 1846-7. Most did not make it to Sutter’s Fort in the spring of 1847.



Visitors can also go to the main campsite at the Donner Memorial State Park just west of Truckee on Donner Pass Road. This park is on the eastern edge of Donner Lake.