Against The Odds

In the 1840s, thousands of Americans journeyed west to California to pursue better lives. One group of settlers became infamous: the Donner Party. After taking an unproven shortcut, their wagon train fell dangerously behind schedule. If they couldn’t cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains before winter came, they risked getting trapped in the snow and starving. But as pressure mounted for the wagons to move faster, tensions among the settlers would explode into violence...

In November of 1846, an early snowstorm left the Donner Party’s 87 men, women and children trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Freezing and running out of food, they decided to send out a team of men and women on a rescue mission. But soon, the rescuers would find themselves lost and starving, and forced to face the ultimate taboo of the wilderness: whether to eat their fallen comrades to survive. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19...

In the winter of 1847, a series of rescue parties fought their way through record snowfall to try to reach the stranded Donner Party. But when they finally arrived at the snowbound camps, they were unprepared for the scenes of horror and cannibalism they would find. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In December of 1846, a small group split off from the Donner Party in a desperate attempt to find help. The party, known as the Forlorn Hope, endured the bitter Sierra Nevada winter, trekking roughly 100 miles in 33 days. The route the party took remained unknown for decades. Until 2020, when ultra-runners Bob Crowley and Tim Twietmeyer completed a seven-year odyssey. Together they mapped and retraced the path they think was taken by Forlorn Hope...