Donner Pass is a

mountain pass A mountain pass is a navigable route through a mountain range or over a ridge. Since many of the world's mountain ranges have presented formidable barriers to travel, passes have played a key role in trade, war, and both human and animal migr ...

in the northern

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primar ...

, above Donner Lake and

Donner Memorial State Park Donner Memorial State Park is a state park of California, US, preserving the site of the Donner Camp, where members of the ill-fated Donner Party were trapped by weather during the winter of 1846–1847. Caught without shelter or adequate s ...

about west of

Truckee, California Truckee is an incorporated town in Nevada County, California, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 16,180, reflecting an increase of 2,316 from the 13,864 counted in the 2000 Census and having the 316th highe ...

. Like the Sierra Nevada themselves, the pass has a steep approach from the east and a gradual approach from the west. The pass has been used by the

California Trail The California Trail was an emigrant trail of about across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri River towns to what is now the state of California. After it was established, the first half of the California Trail f ...

First transcontinental railroad North America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the " Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail netwo ...

, Overland Route,

Lincoln Highway The Lincoln Highway is the first transcontinental highway in the United States and one of the first highways designed expressly for automobiles. Conceived in 1912 by Indiana entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, and formally dedicated October 31, 191 ...

and

Victory Highway The Victory Highway was an auto trail across the United States between New York City and San Francisco, roughly equivalent to the present U.S. Route 40. It was created by the Victory Highway Association, which was organized in 1921 to locate and m ...

(both later

U.S. Route 40 U.S. Route 40 or U.S. Highway 40 (US 40), also known as the Main Street of America, is a major east–west United States Highway traveling across the United States from the Mountain States to the Mid-Atlantic States. As with most routes wh ...

and still later Donner Pass Road), as well as indirectly by

Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one ...

. The pass gets its name from the ill-fated

Donner Party The Donner Party, sometimes called the Donner–Reed Party, was a group of American pioneers who migrated to California in a wagon train from the Midwest. Delayed by a multitude of mishaps, they spent the winter of 1846–1847 snowbound in th ...

who overwintered there in 1846. Today the area is home to a thriving recreational community with several alpine lakes and ski resorts ( Donner Ski Ranch,

Boreal Boreal may refer to: Climatology and geography *Boreal (age), the first climatic phase of the Blytt-Sernander sequence of northern Europe, during the Holocene epoch *Boreal climate, a climate characterized by long winters and short, cool to mild ...

, and

Sugar Bowl The Sugar Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in New Orleans, Louisiana. Played annually since January 1, 1935, it is tied with the Orange Bowl and Sun Bowl as the second-oldest bowl games in the country, surpassed only ...

). The permanent communities in the area include Kingvale and Soda Springs, as well as the larger community below the pass surrounding Donner Lake.

History

To reach

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

from the east, pioneers had to get their wagons over the

mountain range. In 1844 the Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party followed the

Truckee River The Truckee River is a river in the U.S. states of California and Nevada. The river flows northeasterly and is long.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 20, 2012 Th ...

into the mountains. At the head of what is now called Donner Lake, they found a low notch in the mountains and became the first overland settlers to use the pass. The pass was named after a later group of California-bound settlers. In early November 1846 the

found the route blocked by snow and was forced to spend the winter on the east side of the mountains. Of the 81 settlers, only 45 survived to reach California; some of them resorting to

cannibalism Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, b ...

to survive. On January 13, 1952, 222 passengers and crew aboard a train became stranded about west of Donner Pass at

Yuba Pass Yuba Pass is a mountain pass on State Route 49 in Sierra County in the U.S. state of California. The pass lies at an elevation of about 3.4 air miles west of Sattley, on the divide between the North Yuba River and the Middle Fork Feather R ...

, on Track #1 adjacent to Tunnel 35 (on Track #2), at about MP 176.5.

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

's passenger train ''

City of San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

'' was en route westbound through the gap when a blizzard dumped so much snow the train was unable to move forward or reverse. The passengers and crew were stranded for three days until the nearby highway could be plowed sufficiently for a caravan of automobiles to carry them the few miles to Nyack Lodge.

Central Pacific Railroad

In the spring of 1868, the

were finally "conquered" by the mainly Chinese laborers of the

Central Pacific Railroad The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was a rail company chartered by U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento, California, to complete the western part of the " First transcontinental railroad" in North America. Incor ...

(CPRR), after almost three years of sustained drilling and blasting through granite, with the successful completion at Donner Pass of its 1,659-foot (506 m) Tunnel #6 (a.k.a. the Summit Tunnel) and associated grade, thus permitting the establishment of commercial transportation ''en masse'' of passengers and freight over the Sierra for the first time. Following a route first surveyed and proposed by CPRR's original Chief Engineer, Theodore D. Judah (1826–1863), the construction of the four tunnels, several miles of snowsheds, and a hand-crafted stone retaining wall 75-foot tall (a.k.a. Chinese or China Wall in recognition of the Chinese builders) necessary to breach Donner Summit constituted the most difficult engineering and construction challenge of the original

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

– Ogden CPRR route. Principally designed and built under the personal, often on-site direction of CPRR's Chief Assistant Engineer, Lewis M. Clement (1837–1914), the original (Track 1) summit grade remained in daily use from June 18, 1868, when the first CPRR passenger train ran through the Summit Tunnel, until 1993 when the

(SP) (which operated the CPRR-built

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay ...

- Ogden line until its 1996 merger with the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

(UP)) abandoned the 6.7 mile (10.7 km) section of Track #1 over the summit running between the Norden complex (Shed 26, MP 192.1) and the covered crossovers in Shed #47 (MP 198.8), one mile east of the old flyover at Eder. All traffic has since operated over the Track #2 grade crossing the summit south of Donner Pass through the -long Tunnel #41 running under

Mount Judah Mount Judah is an 8,243-foot-elevation (2,512 meter) mountain summit in Placer County, California, United States. Description Mount Judah is located one mile southeast of Donner Pass at Sugar Bowl Ski Resort, on land managed by Tahoe Nat ...

between Soda Springs and Eder. SP made this change because the railroad considered Track 2 and Tunnel 41 (which was opened in 1925 when the summit section of the grade was finally double tracked) to be easier and less expensive to maintain during the harsh Sierra winters than the Track 1 tunnels and

snow shed Avalanche control or avalanche defense activities reduce the hazard avalanches pose to human life, activity, and property.Port of Oakland in order to better accommodate the rapidly growing North American trade with Asia and the Pacific, the cooperation of UP, the Port's principal rail partner, has been sought to "construct a second track and raise tunnel clearances over Donner Pass for container trains linking California with the rest of the country." This would likely require either a new parallel tunnel next to Tunnel 41 or the replacement of the summit section of Track 1 between the Norden complex and Shed 47; either would increase capacity and effectively eliminate delays currently caused by having to run all east and west bound traffic between Norden and Shed 47 over a single track. (To eliminate bottleneck delays the now single track section between Switch 9 (MP 171.9) at

Emigrant Gap Emigrant Gap is a gap in a ridge on the California Trail as it crosses the Sierra Nevada, to the west of what is now known as Donner Pass. Here the cliffs are so steep that, back in the 1840s, the pioneers on their way to California had to lower ...

and Shed 10 (MP 179.0) west of Cisco would likely also have to be restored to double track.) Improvements were completed on the Sierra grade in November 2009, including increasing of tunnel clearances in 15 restricted tunnels between Rocklin and Truckee and upgrading of signals to CTC, although the original Donner Pass grade (Track 1) was not restored. Since then trains of full-height or , double-stack container cars have run over Donner Pass; some tunnels on Track 2 between Bowman and Colfax were not enlarged, so stack trains in both directions must use the older, tunnel-free Track 1 between those points.

Highways

The

, the first road across America, crosses Donner Pass; this was also a part of the

was built through this area in the early 1960s. I-80 generally parallels the route of US 40 through the

, but it crosses the Sierra crest at the Euer Saddle, about north of Donner Pass. Euer Saddle is referred to by

CalTrans The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is an executive department of the U.S. state of California. The department is part of the cabinet-level California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA). Caltrans is headquartered in Sacrame ...

as "Donner Summit" at (), located on the south side of I-80 at the Castle Peak exit beyond Boreal Inn. Donner Summit is about higher than Donner Pass, but is wider and has a gentler approach that aided construction to

Interstate Highway standards Standards for Interstate Highways in the United States are defined by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) in the publication ''A Policy on Design Standards: Interstate System''. For a certain highway to ...

, which do not allow the sharp curves used by the Donner Pass Road. The grade is 3-6% for . The 1920s highway has been preserved as a scenic alternative to I-80.

Weather

Winter

weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the ...

at Donner Pass can be brutal.

Precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. ...

averages per year, and because California has a

Mediterranean climate A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...

wherein most precipitation falls in the winter, much of it falls as snow. At an average of per year, Donner Pass is one of the snowiest places in the contiguous United States. Four times since 1880 total snowfall at Donner Summit has exceeded and topped in both 1938 and 1952. To take advantage of the heavy snows, the Boreal Ski Resort was built to the north. Ski resorts in the

Lake Tahoe Lake Tahoe (; was, Dáʔaw, meaning "the lake") is a freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada of the United States. Lying at , it straddles the state line between California and Nevada, west of Carson City. Lake Tahoe is the largest alpine lake i ...

area report an average of of snowfall per season. Winds in the pass can also become extreme and wind gusts in excess of are common during

winter storm A winter storm is an event in which wind coincides with varieties of precipitation that only occur at freezing temperatures, such as snow, mixed snow and rain, or freezing rain. In temperate continental climates, these storms are not necessa ...

s. Winter temperatures in the area drop below several times each year; the all-time record low for California of was recorded at Boca (east of Truckee) in January 1937. The winter of 1846–47 was especially severe, and this is generally cited as the single most important factor in the disaster of the

Recreation

Summer and winter offer a wide variety of recreation and lifestyle sports such as backpacking,

alpine Alpine may refer to any mountainous region. It may also refer to: Places Europe * Alps, a European mountain range ** Alpine states, which overlap with the European range Australia * Alpine, New South Wales, a Northern Village * Alpine National P ...

and

cross-country skiing Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing where skiers rely on their own locomotion to move across snow-covered terrain, rather than using ski lifts or other forms of assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreatio ...

, rock and ice climbing. The original tunnel built by Central Pacific Railroad is home to a large amount of tagging culture. The region was made world-famous during the early 1990s with

snowboarding Snowboarding is a recreational and competitive activity that involves descending a snow-covered surface while standing on a snowboard that is almost always attached to a rider's feet. It features in the Winter Olympic Games and Winter Paralympic ...

films by Fall Line Films (FLF) and Standard Films, for its easy access to frontcountry and backcountry terrain. However, its fame and quick access from Old Highway 40 or nearby

Sugar Bowl Ski Resort Sugar Bowl is a ski and snowboard area in northern Placer County near Norden, California along the Donner Pass of the Sierra Nevada, approximately west of Reno, Nevada on Interstate 80, that opened on December 15, 1939. Sugar Bowl is a medium-si ...

has led to a large number of avalanche fatalities, including professional snowboarder Jamil Khan.

Popular culture

1994 American Western Comedy ''

Wagons East A wagon or waggon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people. Wagons are immediately distinguished fro ...

'' features James Harlow (

John Candy John Franklin Candy (October 31, 1950 – March 4, 1994) was a Canadian actor and comedian known mainly for his work in Hollywood films. Candy rose to fame in the 1970s as a member of the Toronto branch of the Second City and its '' SCTV'' seri ...

), as the disgraced former wagon master for the Donner Party.

Albert Bierstadt Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not ...

's painting ''View of Donner Lake'' (1871–72) shows the view of the titular lake from the vicinity of the pass. Jack Torrance tells his family the story of the Donner Party while driving through the pass in '' The Shining.'' Donner Pass is featured in the

History Channel History (formerly The History Channel from January 1, 1995 to February 15, 2008, stylized as HISTORY) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney ...

special episode, '' America: The Story of Us'': "Westward". It is also featured in the

National Geographic Channel National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by the National Geographic Global Networks unit of Disney General ...

series ''Hell on the Highway'', which focuses on the towing and recovery companies working the region.

References

External links

Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum

Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum

Longcamp.com

Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum

Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum

{{Authority control Donner Party Landforms of Nevada County, California Lincoln Highway Mountain passes of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Rail mountain passes of the United States Southern Pacific Railroad Stephens–Townsend–Murphy Party Transportation in Nevada County, California