Donner Pass (el. . / 2,160 m.) is a high
mountain passIn a range of hills, or especially of mountains, a pass is a path that allows to cross a mountain chain, it is usually a saddle point in between two areas of higher elevation. If following the lowest possible route through a range, a pass is locally the highest point on that route...
in the northern Sierra Nevada, located above
Donner LakeDonner Lake is a freshwater lake in northeast California on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada and about northwest of the much larger Lake Tahoe. A moraine serves as a natural dam for the lake. The lake is located in the town of Truckee, sandwiched between Interstate 80 to the north and...
about nine miles (14 km) west of
Truckee, CaliforniaTruckee is an incorporated town in Nevada County, California, United States. The population was 13,864 at the 2000 census.-Name:Truckee was named after a Paiute chief. His assumed Paiute name was Tru-ki-zo. He was the father of Chief Winnemucca and grandfather of Sarah Winnemucca. The first...
. It is a narrow pass with a very steep approach from the east, and a gradual approach from the west.
To reach
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
from the East, pioneer emigrants had to get their wagons over the Sierra. In 1844, the
Stephens-Townsend-Murphy PartyThe Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party party consisted of ten families who migrated from Iowa to California prior to the Mexican-American War or the California Gold Rush. The fifty-member group left near present-day Council Bluffs, Iowa on May 22, 1844. They left with a larger group of Oregon-bound...
followed the
Truckee RiverThe Truckee River is a river, long in northern California and northern Nevada in the United States. It drains part of the high Sierra Nevada, emptying into Pyramid Lake in the Great Basin. It is the sole outlet of Lake Tahoe. Its waters are an important source of irrigation along its valley and...
up into the mountains.
Donner Pass (el. . / 2,160 m.) is a high
mountain passIn a range of hills, or especially of mountains, a pass is a path that allows to cross a mountain chain, it is usually a saddle point in between two areas of higher elevation. If following the lowest possible route through a range, a pass is locally the highest point on that route...
in the northern Sierra Nevada, located above
Donner LakeDonner Lake is a freshwater lake in northeast California on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada and about northwest of the much larger Lake Tahoe. A moraine serves as a natural dam for the lake. The lake is located in the town of Truckee, sandwiched between Interstate 80 to the north and...
about nine miles (14 km) west of
Truckee, CaliforniaTruckee is an incorporated town in Nevada County, California, United States. The population was 13,864 at the 2000 census.-Name:Truckee was named after a Paiute chief. His assumed Paiute name was Tru-ki-zo. He was the father of Chief Winnemucca and grandfather of Sarah Winnemucca. The first...
. It is a narrow pass with a very steep approach from the east, and a gradual approach from the west.
To reach
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
from the East, pioneer emigrants had to get their wagons over the Sierra. In 1844, the
Stephens-Townsend-Murphy PartyThe Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party party consisted of ten families who migrated from Iowa to California prior to the Mexican-American War or the California Gold Rush. The fifty-member group left near present-day Council Bluffs, Iowa on May 22, 1844. They left with a larger group of Oregon-bound...
followed the
Truckee RiverThe Truckee River is a river, long in northern California and northern Nevada in the United States. It drains part of the high Sierra Nevada, emptying into Pyramid Lake in the Great Basin. It is the sole outlet of Lake Tahoe. Its waters are an important source of irrigation along its valley and...
up into the mountains. At the head of what is now called
Donner LakeDonner Lake is a freshwater lake in northeast California on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada and about northwest of the much larger Lake Tahoe. A moraine serves as a natural dam for the lake. The lake is located in the town of Truckee, sandwiched between Interstate 80 to the north and...
, they found a low notch in the mountains and thus became the first overland emigrants to use the pass.
The pass received its name, however, from another group of California-bound emigrants. In early November 1846, the
Donner PartyThe Donner Party was a group of California-bound American emigrants caught up in the "westering fever" of the 1840s. After becoming snowbound in the Sierra Nevada in the winter of 1846–1847, some of them resorted to cannibalism.-Party formation:...
found the route blocked by snow and was forced to spend the winter on the eastern side of the mountains. Of the 81 emigrants, only 45 survived to reach California; some of them resorted to cannibalism to survive.
In 1913, the
Lincoln HighwayThe Lincoln Highway was the first road across the United States of America. Actively promoted by entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, the Lincoln Highway originally spanned coast-to-coast from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco through 13 states: New York, New Jersey,...
, the first road across America, was routed over Donner Pass.
On January 13, 1952, another group became stranded about seventeen miles (27 km) west of Donner pass at
Yuba Pass on Track #2 adjacent to Tunnel 35 (Track #1) at about MP 176.5. Southern Pacific's passenger train
City of San FranciscoThe City of San Francisco was a streamlined passenger train operated jointly by the Chicago and North Western Railway, the Southern Pacific Railroad, and the Union Pacific Railroad. The service ran between Chicago, Illinois and Oakland, California...
was en route westbound through the gap when a raging blizzard slowed the train to a halt. The passengers and crew were stranded for six days until help could arrive.
Railroad & Donner Pass
In the spring of 1868, the Sierra Nevada were finally "conquered" by the
Central Pacific RailroadThe Central Pacific Railroad was the California-to-Utah portion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in North America.Many proposals to build a transcontinental railroad failed because of the disputes over slavery in Washington; with the secession of the South, the modernizers in the Republican...
after almost five years of sustained construction effort with the successful completion at Donner Pass of its 1,659-foot (506 m) Tunnel #6 (aka
the Summit Tunnel) and associated grade thus permitting the establishment of commercial transportation
en masse of passengers and freight over the Sierras for the first time. Following a route first surveyed and proposed by the CPRR's original Chief Engineer,
Theodore D. JudahTheodore Dehone Judah was an American railroad engineer who dreamed of the First Transcontinental Railroad and launching it over the Central Pacific Railroad. He performed much of the land survey work to determine the best possible route over the Sierra Nevada mountains.-Early history:He was born...
(1826-1863), the construction of the
four tunnels, several miles of snowsheds, and two "Chinese Walls" necessary to breach Donner Summit constituted by far the most difficult engineering and construction challenge of the entire original
SacramentoSacramento, an Italian-, Spanish- and Portuguese-language word meaning sacrament, is a common toponym in parts of the world where those tongues were or are spoken....
to
OgdenOgden is a city in and the county seat of Weber County, Utah, United States. The population was 81,605 according to 2005 Census Bureau estimates. The city served as a major railway hub through much of its history, and still handles a great deal of freight rail traffic which makes it a convenient...
CPRR route.
Principally designed and built under the personal, often on-site direction of the CPRR's Chief Assistant Engineer,
Lewis M. Clement (1837-1914), the original (Track #1) summit grade remained in continuous daily use from June 18, 1868, when the first CPRR passenger train ran through the Summit Tunnel, until 1993 when the
Southern Pacific RailroadThe Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company , and usually simply called the Southern Pacific, was an American railroad. The railroad was founded as a land holding company in 1865, later acquiring the Central Pacific Railroad by lease...
(which operated the CPRR-built Oakland-
OgdenOgden is a city in and the county seat of Weber County, Utah, United States. The population was 81,605 according to 2005 Census Bureau estimates. The city served as a major railway hub through much of its history, and still handles a great deal of freight rail traffic which makes it a convenient...
line until its 1996 merger with the
Union Pacific RailroadThe Union Pacific Railroad , headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is the largest and oldest operating railroad network in the United States. James R. Young is president, CEO and Chairman....
) abandoned and pulled up the 6.7 mile (10.7 km) section of Track #1 over the summit running between Shed #41 at Norden (MP 192.1) and the covered crossovers in Shed #47 (MP 198.8) located about a mile East of the old
flyoverAn overpass is a bridge, road, railway or similar structure that crosses over another road or railway. An overpass structure is one that carries a higher capacity road above a lower capacity road, whereas a structure that permits a lower capacity road to travel above a larger capacity road is an...
at Eder. Since then all East and Westbound traffic has been run over the Track #2 grade crossing the summit about one mile (1.6 km) south of Donner Pass through the 10,322-foot (3,146 m) long Tunnel #41 (aka
Big Hole") running under Mt. Judah between Soda Springs and Eder. Then operator SPRR made this change because the railroad considered Track #2 and Tunnel #41 (which was opened in 1925 when the summit section of the grade was finally double tracked) to be far easier and less expensive to maintain and keep open in the
harsh Sierra winters than the Track #1 tunnels and
snow shedA snow shed or avalanche shed is a structure that provides avalanche protection for roads and railroad tracks.Depending on the threat level and size of area to be protected, they are built of wood or reinforced concrete...
s over the summit.
http://cprr.org/Museum/Sierra_Grade_8-2003/Donner_Pass-Summit_Tunnel/index.html
In conjunction with major ongoing upgrades and expansions being made to the
Port of OaklandThe Port of Oakland was the first major port on the Pacific Coast of the United States to build terminals for container ships. It is now the fourth busiest container port in the United States; behind Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Newark...
in order to better accommodate the rapidly growing North American trade with Asia and the Pacific, the cooperation of the
UPRR, the Port's principal rail partner, has been sought to
"construct a second track and raise tunnel clearances over Donner Pass for container trains linking California with the rest of the country."
http://www.portofoakland.com/newsroom/pressrel/view.asp?id=26 To accomplish this objective would likely require the UP to either drive a second parallel tunnel next to Tunnel #41, or to restore and reopen the summit section of Track #1 between Sheds #41 and #47. Either infrastructure upgrade would increase the route's overall capacity, considerably simplify traffic management, and effectively eliminate delays currently caused by having to run all east and west bound traffic between Norden and Eder over a single track. [To fully eliminate the grade's "bottleneck" delays the now single track section between Switch #9 (MP 171.9) and Shed #10 (MP 179.0) just west of Cisco would likely also have to be restored to double track.] Increasing tunnel and snow shed clearances on the Sierra grade would also permit the use of double-stacked container cars which now can only be run via the UP's
Feather RiverThe Feather River is a principal tributary of the Sacramento River, in length, in Northern California in the United States. It drains part of the northern Sierra Nevada the extreme southern Cascades, and a small portion of the middle of the Sacramento Valley. The river has a rich history of gold...
grade.
http://www.robl.w1.com/Pix/I-960154.htm It is not yet clear, however, when (or if) any of these proposed major infrastructure upgrades might become a reality.
Highways
The historic
Lincoln HighwayThe Lincoln Highway was the first road across the United States of America. Actively promoted by entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, the Lincoln Highway originally spanned coast-to-coast from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco through 13 states: New York, New Jersey,...
, the first road across America (later U.S. Route 40 and now named Donner Pass Road), crosses Donner Pass.
Interstate 80In the U.S. state of California, Interstate 80, a major east-west route of the Interstate Highway System, has its western terminus in San Francisco, California, United States. From there it heads east across the Bay Bridge to Oakland, where it turns north and crosses the Carquinez Bridge before...
was constructed through this area in 1960. While I-80 generally parallels the old route of US 40 through the Sierra Nevada, I-80 crosses the Sierra crest at the
Euer Saddle, approximately two miles north of Donner Pass. Euer Saddle is also commonly called
"Donner Summit"; at 7240 feet (2206 m), it is about higher than Donner Pass, but it is much wider and has a gentler approach that aided construction to
Interstate Highway standardsStandards for Interstate Highways in the United States are defined by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in the publication A Policy on Design Standards - Interstate System...
, which do not allow the
switchbacksA hairpin turn , named for its resemblance to a hairpin/bobby pin, is a bend in a road with a very acute inner angle, making it necessary for an oncoming vehicle to turn almost 180° to continue on the road. Such turns in ramps and trails may be called switchbacks in American English, by analogy...
used by the Donner Pass Road to approach its crest. The original
concreteConcrete is a construction material composed of cement as well as other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water, and chemical admixtures...
highway has been preserved as a scenic alternative to I-80.
Weather
Winter
weatherWeather is a set of all the phenomena occurring in a given atmosphere at a given time. Weather phenomena lie in the troposphere. Weather refers, generally, to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate is the term for the average atmospheric conditions over longer periods...
in Donner Pass can be brutal.
PrecipitationIn meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that is deposited on the Earth's surface. The main forms of precipitation include rain, snow, ice pellets, and graupel...
averages 54 inches (137 cm), most of which falls as snow. At 415 inches (10.5 m) per year, Donner Pass is one of the snowiest places in the United States. To take advantage of the heavy snows, the Boreal Ski Resort was built to the north. Ski resorts in the
Lake TahoeLake Tahoe is a large freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada mountains of the United States. It is located along the border between California and Nevada, west of Carson City, Nevada. Lake Tahoe is the largest alpine lake in North America...
area report an average of 300 to 500 inches (7.6 to 12.7 meters) of snowfall per season. Winds in the pass can also become extreme and 100+
mphThe mile per hour is a unit of speed, measured in Imperial units expressing the number of international miles covered per hour.It is currently the unit used for speed limits, and speeds, on roads in the United Kingdom and United States...
(160 km/h) wind gusts are common during
winter stormA winter storm is an event in which the dominant varieties of precipitation are forms that only occur at cold temperatures, such as snow or sleet, or a rainstorm where ground temperatures are cold enough to allow ice to form...
s. Winter temperatures in the area drop below zero several times each year; the all-time record low for California of was recorded at the Boca Reservoir (east of Truckee) in January 1937.
The winter of 1846-47 was especially severe, and this is generally cited as the single most important factor in the disaster of the Donner Party.
Recreation
Summer and winter offers a wide variety of recreation and lifestyle sports such as backpacking, alpine and cross-country skiing, rock and ice climbing. The region became world famous during the early 1990s from snowboard films by Fall Line Films (FFL) and
Standard FilmsStandard Films was started in 1991 and is a snowboard film company started by brothers Mike and Dave Hatchett. As at 2007 they have produced a snowboarding film every year....
for its easy access to frontcountry and backcountry terrain. However, its fame and quick access from Old Highway 40 or nearby
Sugar Bowl Ski ResortSugar Bowl is a ski and snowboard area in Norden, California along the Donner Pass of the Sierra Nevada, approximately 46 miles west of Reno, Nevada on Interstate 80...
has led to a large number of avalanche fatalities including professional snowboarder Jamil Khan.
http://classic.mountainzone.com/news/khan.html
Popular Culture
Albert BierstadtAlbert Bierstadt was a German-American painter best known for his large landscapes of the American West. In obtaining the subject matter for these works, Bierstadt joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion...
painting "View of Donner Lake" (1871-72).
http://www.xmission.com/~emailbox/glenda/bierstadt/bierstadt25.html
External links