1988 CA/NV Chapter members inspecting Tufa rocks on the Truckee Route portion of the Forty-Mile Desert.  Tufa rocks are porous limestone formed underwater by deposits from springs.

Truckee Route on the Forty-Mile Desert, heading west.

Wagon traces near Boiling Spring.

Donner Peak

Mt. Stephens, named for Elisha Stephens who led the first pioneers to take their wagons across what came to be known as the Donner Pass.

Atop Donner Peak

Looking down on Donner Lake from Donner Peak

Looking down on Bear Valley from Emigrant Gap

"It was a hill almost perpendicular, so much so that fear was expressed that the wagon would turn head over heels down.... By taking out the leaders of our teams & back locking & every other kind of locking, & attaching a rope behind & holding it around a tree, our wagons & all, with a great deal of work, trouble, & fatigue, were moored safely in the valley."  Geiger and Bryarly, 1849.

 Wagon swales on the Nevada City Road, parallel to present-day Route 20.