Hard Road West

Director - David Evans

The End for one
They became trapped by snow in the Sierra Nevada, just 60 miles from an American settlement. It was known in California that the Donner party were trapped, but they were thought to have hundreds of cattle with them and could easily survive until spring. In fact, after only a couple of months they were living on boiled hides from the roof of their makeshift cabins.
Several attempts had been made to break through to California and raise the alarm, but when the first deaths occurred from starvation a concerted effort was mounted. They made snowshoes out of oxbows and rawhide, then 10 days before Christmas 1846, 12 men and 5 women set out from their makeshift camp by the lake and headed across the mountains. They were the Forlorn Hope…