A description of the other three pictures-
3) Not too far from the so-called Extraterrestrial Highway in central Nevada is a volcanic field. I drove past some cinder cones on the dirt road going to the rim of Lunar Crater, which is where I was standing when I took this picture. I think Lunar Crater itself is called a maar crater by geologists, since it formed when magma rose to the level of a groundwater layer, flashed it into steam, and blew the ground cover away in a very brief amount of time. I was the only person around when I was there. Places near there are called Hot Creek and Warm Springs, so I suspect there is still some hot magma not too far down in this part of Nevada.
4) For California-bound emigrants in the mid 1800s to cross northern Nevada meant winding their way between mountain ranges through hundreds of miles of sagebrush desert. Nature was kind enough to provide a perennial stream for most of those miles--the Humboldt River. But like all good things, the Humboldt ended. In particular, its water sank into ground on a mud flat, the ‘Humboldt Sink,’ on which I was standing when I took picture #4, looking southwest over the Fortymile Desert. Many oxen gave their lives pulling wagons across this stretch of desert without water. [I was giving a tiny hint by saying “I would be surprised if anyone comes within 40 miles."]
5) A group of California emigrants known to history as ‘the Donner Party’ took an ill-advised “shortcut” through Utah, and paid dearly for it. They arrived near the crest of the Sierra Nevada too late in the traveling season, such that the snow was too deep to get over the top of what is now known as Donner Summit, beyond which it was downhill to the destination in northern California. They had to spend a very snowy winter on the east slope of the Sierra, and they split into three camps. One camp was at Alder Creek. I took this picture sitting on the boardwalk spanning the creek. The dark portion of the foreground of the picture is the water of the creek itself, a couple of feet wide, heading down the meadow grass toward the Truckee River. A sign merely said that archaeologists believe the precise campsite was “nearby.” I suppose they don’t want people poking around in the ground for artifacts. In the running for most loyal spouse ever has to be Tamsen Donner. She had a chance to leave with rescuers who came from the west late that winter. She sent her children to safety with them, but she herself stayed with her dying husband. When the next rescue team arrived, Tamsen and George were both dead. Some believed that Lewis Keseberg cannibalized them to fill his belly, but he always denied the charge.
If anyone is interested in a brief item about the site, see this:
http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2004/09/08/territory/territory01.prt
A lengthier telling of the story is at:
http://members.aol.com/DanMRosen/donner/
