The journey west for the American Pioneers in 1846, usually took between 4 and 6 months, but the Donner Party was slowed after electing to follow a new route called the “Hastings Cutoff, which bypassed established trails and instead crossed the Wasatch Range and the Great Salt Lake Desert (Bonneville Salt Flats) in present-day Utah. I’m posing in front of the Bonneville Salt Flats in the Spring of 2011

Some of the migrants resorted to cannibalism to survive, eating the bodies of those who had succumbed to starvation, sickness and extreme cold. Delayed by a series of mishaps on the Bonneville Salt Flats, they spent the winter of 1846–1847 snowbound in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The Donner-Reed Party was a group of American Pioneers who migrated to California in a wagon train from the Midwest.

Map of Central-West Utah (Bonneville Salt Flats). In the summer of 2011, I had decided to investigate the route taken by the Donner-Reed Party in 1846, across the Bonneville Salt Flats between Salt Lake City and Wendover, Utah. Olympic National Park, Hurricane Ridge, WA.Damajagua River, Dominica Republic 2017.Grosser-Aletsch Glacier, Switzerland, 2017.Elbsandsteingebirge N.P., Germany, 2017.

Bonneville salt flats, utah