20 Mile Museum and the Emigrant Trail

In the town of Truckee are two different museums and while the Donner Party tragedy is awful, the one museum - the Emigrant Museum - was built in honor of that wagon train of 83 that got stranded at Truckee the winter of 1845/1846 due to traveling an unproven route from Salt Lake City to California and were stranded with in 22 feet of snow. Half perished, the survivors' notoriety is due to cannibalism that some participated in. The museum is housed in a beautiful building but the displays are poorly lit and hard to see.  A lot of information but we were disappointed on how it was presented.  I remarked that they have just a few months to get their act in order, California's 150th birthday starts in January and hopefully the bosses will fix this.  Donner Lake is on premise and we walked a bit of the lake's trail - the interpretive signs were terrible and the walk was blasé, so we left.

Donner Summit looking down on Donner Lake

We had picked up a brochure on the 20 Mile Museum and decided to drive some of it - various road side exhibits explain what you are looking at, what happened, the significance of that particular item, interesting facts, etc. as you travel the Old Lincoln Highway (Route 40 - and now called Donner Pass Road) for 20 miles west of Truckee.  We stopped occasionally, but spent much of our time at Donner Summit.  As we stood and looked around, we could see the railroad as it passes into a tunnel and see the snow sheds, or look at Interstate 80 as it was built to the north of the summit and marvel that it would be a bear to drive in the winter, and then climbed on the rocks and got a fascinating, if not quizzical, views of Truckee.  How did the pioneers get over this area?  Talk about intimidating!

See the railroad tunnel and snow shed?

I have to say the scenery was stunning.  We stood on Rainbow Bridge, built in 1929, which is the first bridge ever built with a curving elevation change. Under this bridge is the route the pioneers took over the pass - wow. You could still see the old dusty trail.  At this spot looking down on the Pass, we saw firemen/instructors teaching different rappelling techniques to other firemen.

Firemen practicing rappelling

Rainbow Bridge - they passed under here and on

Bear's stupidity

The Donner Pass is a place of many firsts: the first Native Americans crossed for thousands of years and left petroglyphs on the rocks and other artifacts; the first wagon trains crossed to California using this same route; the first transcontinental railroad crosses here; the route of the first transcontinental highway (followed the pioneers' route - the old Lincoln Highway, Route 40, and a memorial to Abraham Lincoln); the first transcontinental telephone lines route; and the first transcontinental airway route.  The Donner Summit had a radio beacon that helped guide early planes.  And, we again saw the Pacific Crest Trail as it crosses Donner Summit by the Sugar Bowl ski area.  Ski areas after ski areas abound here - California's first ski lodge was at Sugar Bowl.

Looking up to Donner Summit from I80 - see the bridge?

Some things stick out - they get 60 feet of snow here in the winter!  Wow.  The railroad tracks are pretty much covered in snow sheds along the Summit so they don't have to worry about clearing snow or come across avalanches. Do you remember a couple of years ago when there was a news snippet about a bear that climbed inside a bridge's support wall and had to be tranquilized and then it dropped into rescue nets and moved to safety?  It happened here at Rainbow Bridge.

This is a beautiful alpine area, we have been moving up and down from about 5000 feet to about 8000 feet since being here.  No problems with altitude sickness, just getting chilled at night when the temps are dropping down to freezing.  This area of California/Nevada has been in a severe drought for a couple of years and we saw one of the reservoirs almost completely dry.  And daily we are seeing wildfires crop up.  A tidge scary.