Shann,
On the Cal-Nev web page, photos of the California Trail, the sign that is pictured of the supposed parting is not accurate. At the top of the grade there is this road that crosses the Oregon Trail ruts, but a road that is much too young to be the California, not on the GLO plat of the area. Your description is accurate that one would have to "take a left turn " to get on that road, a 90 degree corner! There was never such a thing on any emigrant road! Some BLM person put that sign up some years ago, but that is not the California Trail.

Randy Brown, National OCTA Marking Chair, and I slightly disagree, he maintaining thus far that there was probably not any part of the California Trail on the top of the bluff or rim of basalt rock. I have found good evidence of some deep ruts that indicate the probability of a variant on top, but we know that it came up on the bluff to the south of the parting. The true parting was in the bottom of the flat near the present fenced graves, and nearer the old Raft River channel. The diaries show that the California bound people separated near the river in the bottom.

Attached are two photos, the top one looking down on the parting. Number 1 is the fence around some graves, and #2 a sign below, in the brush, that indicates the parting in the river bottom. Plows, cattle, and crops have obliterated the California ruts, below on private land (arrow), and the second arrow through the brush toward the camera shows the Oregon Trail--coming up to where your sign is placed on top.

The second photo is of the deep ruts of the California about 1/2 mile to the south of the parting, land never plowed but ranged by cows, cows constantly working on diminishing them. In the left background the old dry river bed of the Raft River can be seen, separate from the ruts.

Jim McGill