Synopsis

Among the narratives of 19th-century pioneers, few have resonated so profoundly with the American psyche as this one, detailing a winter of unprecedented severity in the High Sierras. In June of 1846, a company of eighty-seven men, women, and children embarked on a legendary two-thousand-mile journey from Illinois to California. They loaded immense wagons with provisions, and some even brought hired help. But when the family leaders made the fateful choice to take an untested shortcut, only half