Perilous Pioneer Trails Relived

What’s the most difficult travel experience you’ve ever encountered?

“The desert! You must see it and feel it…in all its horrors. But heaven save you from the experience.” (Eleazar Stillman Ingalls, 1850) 

As an American history lover, I’ve often strived to follow those rugged “Trail Blazers” who traversed the vast emptiness of the American West in the mid 19th century. Fortunately many of these routes they took were built conveniently parallel to Interstate Highways. For that reason, I believe our road trips have made more convenient study of these events possible. So depending upon where I’m at during these lengthy adventures, I’m taking note of weather conditions, natural barriers, or endurance challenges that these intrepid pioneers experienced at the time. 

However, our most recent journey to and from California this past April brought to light other important perspectives about such “Far West” travel. The key event in this regard happened with our short stopover at the California Trail Interpretative Center located along I-80 in western Nevada. For example, I considered that we would be allotting from this distant location a manageable six days by car to go cross country back to our next destination in Ohio. Yet I learned that those wagon trains in pioneer days traveling from eastern states would have been slowly traveling west to this distance for months at a time. While our route would in addition provide a safe crossing  of the “High Sierras”at the famed Truckee Pass, I furthermore noted that confusion would likely have set in amongst those  early westbound travelers as they wondered how and where to proceed to their “promised land” in California over these formidable mountain barriers. Stopping occasionally in this vicinity inauspiciously known as the “Forty Mile Desert”, I’d also realized certain advantages of this museum oasis and other small settlements along the way. For each of them were pleasantly filled with amenities I needed such as a well shaded parking lot, clean restrooms, suitable map offerings, and some human conversational contact. Yet for those determined 19th century settlers who’d made it this far toward their so called “promised land, I got a firsthand look at several scenes from their daily life in this arid desert environs. For unfortunate circumstances now set in for the remaining portion of their journey as their thoughts increasingly turned to unsettling dreads of disease, famine, social isolation, and fears of Indian invasion.

So history does transcend time and place for me in my westbound U.S. travels. For in discovering where and when to visit, I never lose sight in my own time  of those struggles for freedom that have gone on before during these long western ordeals. Enjoy the photos.