This is one of several stories in the 
Winter 2002 issue of  folio:

A Tour of the Carson Road

We took a chance with the last issue of folio by publishing a long and highly personal account of our book tour of the Lincoln Highway in Illinois and Indiana. We called for reader response and were more than a little surprised at the reaction. Dozens wrote, many more called to order our Lincoln Highway books, and ask for more articles like that.

Saturday, June 8, 2002

The Lincoln didn't have much to groan about this time. Heading for the Lincoln Highway conference in Sacramento by way of the Carson Route of the California Trail, we loaded the old (1991) girl up with about a third as many books as we take to the conventions of the Oregon - California Trails Association. We pulled out of the garage of our Tucson home at 7:10 A.M. Having checked the cats into the cat hotel, we were on 1-10 westbound by 9. Destination: San Diego.

We do not like to travel the interstates at all, but to get almost anyplace (except Mexico) from Tucson leaves us little choice. It would have been lovely to have taken 89 west through Sells, Covered Wells, Why (yes, there is an Arizona town called Why), and Ajo (AH-hoe) before turning north to hit 1-8 at Gila Bend, but what's the point? We'd end up on 1-8 anyway, and Kathy calculated it would take up to two more hours on the road, which we could ill afford to waste. Besides, the Lincoln had traveled more than 250,000 miles at that time and although it has been very dependable, we would not like The End to come while we were out on those desolate roads.

So, we bit the bullet and turned onto 1-10 from Grant Road, taking a friendly (but boring) diagonal to 1-8, south of burgeoning Casa Grande. About sixty miles west we came to Gila Bend and looked longingly south as we passed U.S. 89.

The Lincoln was getting thirsty when the Colorado River hove into view. She got the usual 24 mpg on that leg, needling 80 with the air conditioner blasting away. Not bad.

We were unable to find a locally operated, non-chain restaurant when we reached the San Diego metro area, so we pumped up our cholesterol at a Burger King in El Cajon.

Our destination was the home of Kathy's sister and brother-in-law, Beverly and Patrick Hurley. This is family stuff so we won't bore our readers with the details, except to say that their house, on a beautifully landscaped, small patch of land overlooking Mission Bay, is probably worth the combined values of all the homes in Tucson.

The 01d Man gazing at San Diego’s, Mission Bay

Sunday, June 9,  2002

We left San Diego on 1-5 early, feeling that the highways would be deserted on a Sunday morning. Hell, it was one traffic jam after another. We had to get to Jackson Sunday night, and it looked as if we would have a terrible time even getting out of Los Angeles by then. Where were all these people going? Presuming they had left work at 5 Friday, they should have reached their homes by Saturday afternoon. We figured they were heading back to work, hoping to arrive at their cubicles by 9 Monday. Jeez, what a way to live!

Well, we stayed on 1-5, but we probably could have made better time through the city streets. Somehow we managed to avoid all the idiot drivers, and once past the notorious Grapevine we stopped at a place called The Ranch House for a late lunch, and a chance to relax. (Kathy had a hard time prying my hands off the steering wheel.) A real restaurant and really good food.

Just past the little town of Wheeler Ridge we turned off that awful 1-5 onto one of my favorite highways, California 99. It had lots of charm when it was two-lane, but the highway guys made up for turning it into four lanes by planting the median with oleanders — hundreds of miles of oleanders. And all in bloom.

We headed up toward Visalia. I remember it well. In 1945, as a nineteen year old boot ensign, a friend of mine and I had hitchhiked from our VR-2 squadron, based at NAS Alameda, to see the big trees in Sequoia National Forest. In full uniform, yet. A truck stopped to give us a lift. The occupants were headed to Sequoia to work in the forest. Actually, these were conscientious objectors. They turned out to be very kind, courteous guys who were not unhappy about serving their country, but refused on religious grounds to kill other human beings. I didn't have a problem with that. Still don't.

We didn't go to Visalia this time, but continued north up the east edge of the San Joaquin Valley. On through Fresno we traveled, and finally turned east on California 140 just before reaching Merced. And now the fun begins. Just a few miles out Kathy photographed an old barn, in a picturesque area known as Cathey’s Valley.

We were driving about 70 mph when Kathy popped this shot near
Cathey's Valley from the car window.

Now we' re in California's romantic gold country. Anything sound familiar here? Chinese Camp? Tuttletown? Angel's Camp? Mokelumne Hill? We stopped in Jamestown for more gas, then headed to Jackson. There, on recommendation of Frank and Mary Ann ("Phwanque & MawwayAnn") Tortorich, we checked in at El Campo Casa Motel, on the north edge of town.

Absolutely gorgeous grounds, and a quaint, tiny room. At least there was a telephone jack right next to the bed, so we could plug in the laptop and get our e-mail messages. I plugged in. Nothing. "Say," I said to the manager, "our telephone jack seems to be dead." "I'm not surprised," she answered, "we haven't had telephone service for the rooms for thirty years."

Okay. So we're living in the 1940s here. But we'd go back to that little place anytime. After a leisurely stroll along Jackson's historic streets, we enjoyed a Mexican dinner at Magdaleno's.

 Frank and Mary Ann were our guests for breakfast at Mel's Diner, after which we toured their home and grounds. My eyes caught a street sign over one of their outbuildings — Pig Turd Alley. I couldn't believe it. But yes, there really is a Pig Turd Alley in a nearby gold town, and the city fathers simply cannot keep the street signs on the posts. They get swiped the night after they are mounted. Frank says he won his copy in a 4-H raffle. Sure, Frank.

We piled into Frank's car and headed northwest on California 88. Readers of folio may remember that Frank is the guy we backed so strongly for the OCTA board. I felt it was high time we displaced some of the windbags for some real trail experts, and Lord knows that's Frank.

Before we start retracing the covered wagon road taken by the emigrants, here is some background on the Carson Route, taken largely from Frank's booklet Gold Rush Trail, now in its third edition.

One of the early stops on the tour. This place is marked as the grave of Rachell Milton. Tortorich doesn’t think so.

In 1844 the first covered wagons rolled over the sheer wall of the Sierra Nevada at a site to become known later as Donner Pass. Somewhat easier paths nearby came into use a couple of years later — Coldstream and Roller Passes — but all three were extremely difficult compared to the Carson. And all three were little used after the Carson was opened in 1848.

And who opened it? Members of the Mormon Battalion, heading east to their new homes in Great Salt Lake City. With pouches filled with gold from the newly discovered bonanzas at Coloma and Mormon Island, they gave up the prospect of future riches to be with their families and their church.

With the horror of the 1846-47 Donner Party disaster fresh in their minds, they felt that a different route, any route, would be better than the one over Donner Pass. So they headed east from the diggings to cross the Sierra some twenty miles south of Lake Tahoe, following a network of Indian traces centuries old. Forty-five men and Melissa Coray assembled at a place called Pleasant Valley, east of Hangtown (now Placerville). They left James Sly's place, now called Sly Park, on July 3, 1848, and headed into the wilderness. They had seventeen wagons, 150 oxen, and 150 horses and mules, plus two brass cannons, which they had purchased from John Sutter.

Three Battalion veterans, Daniel Browett, Ezrah H. Allen, and Henderson Cox, went ahead to scout out the best way over the Sierra Nevada. The main body was able to make from six to ten miles most days, cutting their way east. On July 16 they camped by a creek, and the following day by a spring surrounded by wild onions. Those places carry the names Camp Creek and Leek Springs to this day.

On July 19 they left Leek Springs to head for another spring to the east, where they discovered that the ground had recently been disturbed. Fearing the worst, they removed a few inches of dirt to find the nude bodies of their scouts riddled with arrows. In the brush nearby was a pouch, still filled with gold. They carved the names of the victims in a nearby tree and reburied the victims, taking the pouch with them to give to Ezrah Allen's family. The site was named Tragedy Spring.

The section of the tree still bearing those names has been moved to the Gold Discovery Museum at Coloma, where it can be viewed today.

Tortorich has found evidence of the tens of thousands of emigrants wagons all along the way. Kathy is examining the face of this granite boulder, which has been sheared by the iron tires of the covered wagons. Tiny particles of the metal have left rust stains on hundreds of boulders on the Carson Route.

Eight more days and the group struggled along Squaw Ridge to cross West Pass, the highest point on any of the covered wagon roads to the American West during the peak years of the gold rush. They would then slog through the "perpetual snowbank," which lies just west of the 9,600-foot crest. The heroic Melissa Coray might have looked at the summit of the great mountain they were passing, never dreaming that it would be named for her some 146 years and twenty-five days later.

A few days after leaving West Pass the caravan came to the second summit, Carson Pass, more than a thousand feet below West Pass. The pass today is surmounted by California Highway 88.