did the donner party cross the salt flats in utah?

Should a vehicle, whether a wagon drawn by oxen or a modern four-wheel-drive, break through the thin dry crust in these wet areas, the deeper its wheels go the softer the muck and in moments the conveyance can be settled to its hubs in the sticky mire. The flats look deceptively solid, but water is often only a few inches below the surface. The mud flats, playas from the old bottoms of the Great Salt Lake and ancient Lake Bonneville, both in the trails era as today, can be firm and easy pulling in one place, soft and extremely taxing in another and here and there, impossible quagmires. But the 60 mile stretch across the wastes of the Great Salt Lake Desert through sand dunes and mud flats was another matter. The terrain over this portion of the Hastings Cutoff is mostly level with only the pass through the Cedar Mountains and topping the Grayback Hills presenting difficult grades for the draft animals.

Several of the photographs in the collection were made in 1961! Changes to the road over recent decades make documentary evidence of its previous condition, as many of the photographs here provide, especially valuable to historians and preservationists. A quick check of the pictures' dates reveals his interest in the old emigrant trails goes back a long way.

Tea on the Hastings Trail which is accessed from Roy Tea Hastings Trail Home Page.Īll but two of the photographs were made by Roy and are a small part of his extensive collection taken over several decades of frequent visits to these remote areas.

Though presented here in exhibition format, the pictures actually accompany a home page by Roy D.

Did the donner party cross the salt flats in utah?