Eager to learn more about Early California,
Pioneer and Gold Rush History on the Mormon Emigrant Trail, we headed out early for Carson Pass and a tour with docent, Dennis.
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| The Kit Carson Pass was 'opened' during the Mexican period (1822-1847). Now known as simply Carson Pass, it would
become the most significant route for the overland 49ers that came by the tens of thousands to man the California
Gold Rush. |
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| We began our lessons, on Old Highway 88. All of us were interested in the history here from the geological formations that exposed quartz (thus gold) to the incredible human element. |
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| John C. Frémont, intending to return to Missouri through the Southwest, turned south through Oregon and Western Nevada. By January 1844, his expedition was comprised of twenty-seven men, including Christopher "Kit" Carson (L) and Thomas "Broken Hand" Fitzpatrick, sixty-seven horses and mules, and a bronze mountain howitzer (the stuff of legends). |
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| We learned of Melissa Coray, a Mormon pioneer woman who was among 45 battalion men who blazed the "highway" through Carson Pass (1847).They chose this route to avoid crossing the Truckee River 27 times. It took them six weeks to build a wagon trail over Carson Pass. These were the first wagons to travel this route and the first to go from west to east. |
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| This climb up from the lake was described
as “the steepest hill for a wagon road I ever saw” according to Aretas
J. Blackman in 1849. This sharpest drop off would become known, during the Gold Rush
period, as the “Devil’s Ladder,” because of the difficulty getting wagons
and teams past it. They would use block and tackle with ropes/chains wrapped
around trees to lower the wagons down the steep slope. This tree still has the scars of those chains (to the right of the California Trail marker). |
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| Once the emigrants reached the top of the
Devil’s Ladder, they were nearly to the top of Carson Pass. In August 1849, a group of Odd Fellows heading for California's gold
mines paused to paint their names on some large
granite boulders. |
We have driven by Carson Pass numerous times. We hiked in amongst this history. Yet today was the first time we took the time to pause and absorb it all. To walk in the footsteps of these trailblazers is truly indescribable.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow captures all these pioneers when describing Frémont, "He has particularly touched my imagination. What a wild life, and what a fresh kind of existence! But, ah, the discomforts!"
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3 comments:
We want to take the tour too. Humbling to see the terrain and imagine the efforts it took to get wagons through.
Are the signatures on the boulders the original painted signatures? What did they use to last so long?
Carson Pass has extended interpretive walks to include geology, wildflowers, trees as well as history.
Check out our Face Book page:carson pass information station
Signatures were originally written with axle grease then more recently "touched-up" with white paint.
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