The deadly temptation of the Oregon Trail shortcut

For me, the movie Meek’s Cutoff really showed how precarious life could be on these trips.

3 Likes

Several years ago I ended up becoming engrossed with a truly random Project Gutenberg book. (Quite literally-- I either ended up at it after a very long meandering wiki/gutenberg rabbit hole or I actually clicked a “random book” link or something.) It was a memoir by William L. Manly, who after various wanderings ended up falling in with a group of 49ers who essentially wandered into Death Valley and then from there he walked across the Mojave to get some assistance for the rest of the party. (Manly Peak and Lake are named for him of course.) Anyway fascinating story and well written memoir. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_L.Manly, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley%2749ers . His book is called “Death Valley in '49”, probably embellished as it was written many years later but probably mostly true.

4 Likes

That is a matter of opinion.

1 Like

Driving to Montreal on snowy January day, we stopped in a border town somewhere in the hazy boundary between Vermont and Canada. We stopped at a convenience store and asked for directions from an old man running the shop. He kept insisting that the best route was to cut across this one farmer’s field, that it was much better than following route 15 and we’d pick it back up and save a bunch of time.

Despite our disbelief he assured us the path across the field was just fine and the farmer didn’t mind, until his dead-ringer-for-Celine-Dion employee, who was sweeping whispered in his ear, and he said “Oooooh, you’re in a car!” We all had a laugh then we stepped outside, where we looked around and realized that we were the only ones in town not on snowmobiles.

We ended up spinning off the road that night, and being hauled out of the ditch by a passing snowplow.

6 Likes

One of my distant ancestors blazed a middle trail (between the Oregon and Santa Fe trails) to California and kept a journal which finally wound up in my father’s hands.

One entry that stuck with my father was when my ancestor wound up scouting out ahead with two other members of the group. They wound up getting lost, and not knowing their way back to the camp. Apparently my ancestor said, “when you get lost, you always find running water and follow it downstream”, and the others said, “that’s stupid, we’re just going to keep looking for the camp.” So they split up.

The other two were never found.

9 Likes

Right? Like an ultra-shortcut for some mario kart game!

(It would be pretty cool if the videogame allowed you to take the hastings route)

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.