The problems were that no pioneer wagon trains had traversed it and they could only find one person in town who knew the route and would agree to lead them. It was then that they heard about the Old Spanish Trail, a route that went around the south end of the Sierra Nevada and was safe to travel in the winter. This was much too late to try to cross the Sierra Nevada safely, and it looked like these wagons were going to have to wait out the winter in Salt Lake City. The stories of the Donner Party were still fresh on everyone's mind when a group of wagons began their journey from Salt Lake City in October of 1849. Only a couple of years before, a group of pioneers called the Donner Party was trapped by a storm, an event that became one of the greatest human disasters of that day and age. It was important to leave Salt Lake City and cross the desert before snow began to fall on the Sierra Nevada, making them impassible. One of the supply points along the trail was Salt Lake City, where pioneers prepared for the long journey across the Great Basin desert before climbing over the Sierra Nevada to the gold fields of California. Since most of these pioneers began their exodus to California in 1849, they are generally referred to as '49ers. In 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in California and people from all over the United States packed their belongings and began to travel by wagon to what they hoped would be new and better life.
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