Pioneer Traces
by Susan D. Rock
Melissa Coray didn't have a long honeymoon. Four days after her wedding, she left on a six-month cross-country trek via wagon trail with her new husband—and 499 other men—as one of 20 laundresses on the 1846 Mormon Battalion trek to California. Two years later, on the return journey to the Great Salt Lake, Coray became the first woman on the first wagon train to cross the Sierra via the Carson Pass.
The Mormons sought a route through the mountains that avoided the 27 difficult water crossings of the Truckee River route, and the post-Donner-tragedy pall that hung heavy over that trail. Hoping to retrace John C. Fremont's earlier path, 45 men—and Melissa—left Pleasant Valley in the Sierra foothills with their livestock and 17 wagons on July 3, 1848. Clearing brush, cutting trees and moving boulders, they traveled six to ten miles a day. On the 16th day they found the bodies of three advance scouts who had disappeared. They named the place Tragedy Spring.
Just south of Silver Lake, near present-day Kirkwood, the party confronted a granite wall of Sierra peaks. Heading east along Squaw Ridge, they climbed 9,600-foot West Pass—the highest point wagons would cross during the great migration—and descended to Twin Lakes, now covered by Caples Lake. On July 28, the group reached 8,573-foot "Second Summit," now Carson Pass. From there, they picked their way down the steep and rocky "Devil's Ladder"—a treacherous passage mentioned in countless emigrant diaries—and around Red Lake to Hope Valley, aptly named for the renewed spirits it roused. Following the West Fork of the Carson River to the Humboldt Sink, the trail connected with the Truckee River Route. The party had cut a road of 172 miles in 42 days. The wagons finally reached the Salt Lake settlement on October 6.
Tens of thousands of settlers and prospectors went on to use the trail, which would be known by many names, including the Mormon Emigrant Trail, the Carson Emigrant Trail and the Carson River Route. In the 1850s, it was extended to Placerville and Sutter's Fort. The present-day Mormon Emigrant Road roughly follows the trail's route through the Sierra foothills. Efforts are currently underway by the Forest Service, the Oregon-California Trails Association (OCTA) and Trails West to place the trail on the list of National Historic Recreation Trails.
Today there are several ways to retrace this emigrant route and see evidence of the settlers' journeys. The route passes through Kirkwood Mountain's permit acreage in Eldorado National Forest, and here a careful eye can find notches, grooves and rust marks left by iron wagon wheels, and trees scarred from ropes and pulleys used to haul the heavy wagons up the rugged terrain. From the saddle just south of Thimble Peak, the route descends along Kirkwood's Sunrise Chair Lift #4, where signs posted on the lift towers provide commentary on emigrant history. Continuing around Emigrant Lake, just south of the resort's Iron Horse Chair #3, the trail turns easterly along the south side of Caples Lake. These trails are open to the public and marked with triangular OCTA signs.
The Visitor's Center atop Carson Pass is open Memorial Day through Labor Day and offers abundant information on the area's history. Self-guided car and foot tours of the trail can be found in the books Gold Rush Trail and Gold Rush Hikes, by OCTA charter member Frank Tortorich, Jr. Tortorich also leads summer hikes along various sections of the Carson Emigrant Trail from Sorenson's Resort, and is organizing a work party in September to clean up, mark and trace-search a section of the trail. For more information, contact Tortorich at (209) 296-7242 or wagonwheel@volcano.net. Also, during the summer months, Kirkwood Resort offers guided trail tours of this historic route. One hike, from Emigrant Valley to West Pass, includes an optional climb up 9,763-foot Melissa Coray Peak.