On the easiest difficulty where you don’t uhhh pilot the train, you don’t even take the wrong cutoffs so you generally go so fast you hit the pass early.
I only managed the conditions twice or so of trying to do so! By having a drowning early lmfao. Then there was some heat stroke and some rattlesnake bites.
That is so fascinating. I believe one of the survivors later wrote a book about it, it’s public domain and can be downloaded from digital libraries. I never finished it, but read a good chunk up to the part where they had to eat their dead trek members and leather shoe straps. It’s ironic that they were initially trying to take a short cut and save time, but unfortunate circumstances stacked up, cost them lots of time and ended in disaster.
I’ll have to read it! We just moved to NorCal and joined our local library, so I’m sure I can find it there! If not, the Libby app!
My husband and I did the drive to Reno over Halloween weekend, and we went over Donner Pass.
Lemme tell you if you’ve never been, that section of the US is breathtakingly beautiful, but I could ALSO see how it is devastatingly, oppressively terrifying. And that was even with clear roads and little mountain towns sprinkled around. I got chills thinking about if there was nothing except chest deep snow, dying fires, and blankets to keep warm.
The Donner Party.
It’s inexplicably like my “Roman Empire” for dudes. I think about that tragedy near weekly.
The conditions that created it (well, the weather) can be recreated in the Oregon Trail 2 video game!
Although it’s difficult. You have to really screw around to be as slow, otherwise you reach the pass before the storm hits.
Ooohhh never played 2, but I do get nostalgic for the OG every now and then! I’ll have to get this ASAP for cozy winter gaming!
Its SO crazy how much went wrong with that pioneer train. Murders and deaths even before they hit Hastings Cutoff.
By 2 I mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Trail_II this by the way! Not the newest one which I don’t think had two on it, but I gotta make sure.
On the easiest difficulty where you don’t uhhh pilot the train, you don’t even take the wrong cutoffs so you generally go so fast you hit the pass early.
I only managed the conditions twice or so of trying to do so! By having a drowning early lmfao. Then there was some heat stroke and some rattlesnake bites.
That is so fascinating. I believe one of the survivors later wrote a book about it, it’s public domain and can be downloaded from digital libraries. I never finished it, but read a good chunk up to the part where they had to eat their dead trek members and leather shoe straps. It’s ironic that they were initially trying to take a short cut and save time, but unfortunate circumstances stacked up, cost them lots of time and ended in disaster.
I’ll have to read it! We just moved to NorCal and joined our local library, so I’m sure I can find it there! If not, the Libby app!
My husband and I did the drive to Reno over Halloween weekend, and we went over Donner Pass.
Lemme tell you if you’ve never been, that section of the US is breathtakingly beautiful, but I could ALSO see how it is devastatingly, oppressively terrifying. And that was even with clear roads and little mountain towns sprinkled around. I got chills thinking about if there was nothing except chest deep snow, dying fires, and blankets to keep warm.