Across the valley you can see the canyon of the South Fork River, a major tributary to the Humboldt River. This portal is also the western end of the infamous Hastings Cutoff, which rejoined the main California Trail not far from the California Trail Center.
Lansford W. Hastings was an early entrepreneur who thought he had found a shorter route to California, claiming that his "cutoff" would save emigrants 400 miles and several days of travel. He promoted this route with an Emigrant Guide. Although he had not actually traveled the route, he persuaded a number of 1846 emigrants to travel with him, leaving the established California Trail at Fort Bridger, Wyoming.
Hastings and his initial group ran into difficulties almost from the start. First, they had to find their way west through the punishing geographical maze of the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, and then endure 80 miles without water across the desert and salt flats west of the Great Salt Lake. This was followed by the high desert of eastern Nevada and a long detour around the Ruby Mountains. After these hardships, they had to travel through South Fork Canyon, making 14 crossings of the river before they could rejoin the California Trail.
The Donner-Reed party of 1846 had also been persuaded to follow Hastings. After much travel and loss of livestock, furniture, and wagons on the Salt Flats, they found upon rejoining the California Trail that they had actually added 125 miles to their journey. They also spent three additional weeks of travel time. Just a few days short of reaching the Sierra Nevada pass that would eventually be named for their group, the Donner-Reed party was trapped by an early snowstorm and suffered tragic consequences through the winter of 1846-47. Their tragedy put an end to travel on the Hastings Cutoff.
(Drawing Caption)
"Never take no cutoffs and hury along as fast you can."
Virginia Reed, in a letter to her cousin, May 16, 1847
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