You Can Wallk in Wagon Ruts of the old California Trail
You can stand in California Trail ruts a half-hour from town and look into the past.
Only ten to thirty minutes from Elko you can see where the wagons rolled over the sage brush in the mid-1800s. The ruts are still there.
Nevada’s so wide open that history is still visible. We’re a high mountain desert, and much of our country is what most of America would call remote, open country, so the Trail itself is easy to see in quite a few places. Not only is it easy to see, but there are more miles of the California Trail in our state than in any other.
From the I-80 freeway going to Reno you can see the cut in the hills where the Donner Party on the infamous Hastings Cutoff emerged from the Ruby Mountains to join the main trail to California. The Hastings Cutoff put them behind schedule, so they were stuck at the base of the Sierra Mt. at first snowfall, and it was too late to go on.
This coming up year, 2006, just off I-80 with a view of the Donner Party’s Cutoff, we’re building a Center for travelers to experience the California Trail as it was in the mid-1800s. Follow the Trail with the Donner Party and others as they met the Indians, crossed the Platte River at flood stage, collected buffalo chips for cooking fuel, crossed the dreaded 40-mile desert, and buried their loved ones dead from cholera. At the California Trail Center you'll not only listen to diaries, walk through vegetative zones on the trail, smell the smells, touch, and live with the pioneers that rough journey, you'll also see the actual land they drove and walked across. It’s going to be spectacular center, well worth a visit.
But you can come NOW. No need to wait for the Trail Center to be built. Cowboy John will show you robin-egg blue sky, that same sky at night filled with stars, and, oh, yes, the Hastings Cutoff and wagon ruts stretching into the sage.
Only ten to thirty minutes from Elko you can see where the wagons rolled over the sage brush in the mid-1800s. The ruts are still there.
Nevada’s so wide open that history is still visible. We’re a high mountain desert, and much of our country is what most of America would call remote, open country, so the Trail itself is easy to see in quite a few places. Not only is it easy to see, but there are more miles of the California Trail in our state than in any other.
From the I-80 freeway going to Reno you can see the cut in the hills where the Donner Party on the infamous Hastings Cutoff emerged from the Ruby Mountains to join the main trail to California. The Hastings Cutoff put them behind schedule, so they were stuck at the base of the Sierra Mt. at first snowfall, and it was too late to go on.
This coming up year, 2006, just off I-80 with a view of the Donner Party’s Cutoff, we’re building a Center for travelers to experience the California Trail as it was in the mid-1800s. Follow the Trail with the Donner Party and others as they met the Indians, crossed the Platte River at flood stage, collected buffalo chips for cooking fuel, crossed the dreaded 40-mile desert, and buried their loved ones dead from cholera. At the California Trail Center you'll not only listen to diaries, walk through vegetative zones on the trail, smell the smells, touch, and live with the pioneers that rough journey, you'll also see the actual land they drove and walked across. It’s going to be spectacular center, well worth a visit.
But you can come NOW. No need to wait for the Trail Center to be built. Cowboy John will show you robin-egg blue sky, that same sky at night filled with stars, and, oh, yes, the Hastings Cutoff and wagon ruts stretching into the sage.
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