The 1840s and the California Gold Rush brought a migration of humanity that American might never again experience. Like the flow of an incoming tide, tens of thousands of rugged individuals, enticed by the prospect of free land and tales of gold for anyone who took the time to stop and pick it up, packed their wagons and headed west toward California. Published accounts of places such as Gold Lake, where gold dust and thumb-size nuggets were rumored to litter the shoreline, created a euphoric enthusiasm for the West. Entrepreneurs and teamsters, adventurers, sharecroppers, and ladies of the evening lined up to take their share of the riches to be found in California. The jumping-off points for wagon trains from the east were Council Bluffs, St. Josephs, Old Fort Keary, and the appropriately named Independence, Missouri. For more than 1,000 miles, long trains of buckboard wagons crept west across the Great Plains. The goal was to start the trek late enough for the spring grass across America's heartland to be plentiful for livestock and early enough to reach the Sierra Nevada mountains before severe winter snows set in. In any case, all travelers headed west would have to cross the great desert in the stifling dead of summer.
Following the fateful news of the 1846 Donner-party tragedy, there was a significant movement to establish a shorter, less difficult route to California. Because new people meant commerce to California merchants and landowners, there was also a fair amount of jockeying to draw California's newest citizens. In an attempt to attract settlers to his land, Pete Lassen, a prominent Northern California rancher, began volunteering as a guide for westbound wagon trains. When his first group approached the Humboldt River, near the turnout to the California trail in Nevada, he veered north instead, along a faint wagon track left by Lindsay Applegate the year before. Despite the fact that Lassen's new route posed unexpected challenges, costly delays, and added 200 miles to the journey, several reputable eastern newspapers reported it as an easier and shorter route to California. We joined the Sacramento-based Sierra Treasure Hunters Four Wheel Drive Club and guide Jim Harris, aka "Uncle Willy," for a glimpse into the past to visit northern Nevada's High Rock Desert and trace the fading wagon tracks of this little-known route, the Applegate-Lessen Immigrant Trail.
The sun crested the Sierra Nevadas as we passed the fateful site of the 1846 Donner party encampment and entered the vast Nevada desert. Forty miles east of Reno, we veered off the pavement to a dirt track near Nixon, Nevada. Desert sage and rabbit grass blanketed the valley floor, and the distant indigo waters of Pyramid Lake lapped at its barren shoreline. With the tires aired down to 15 psi, we marked our position on our Garmin 12 GPS and headed north across the eastern section of the Paiute Indian reservation.
The Winnemucca dry lakebed flanked us to the west as we charged Baja-style along the lower elevations of the Nightingale mountains. Giving the suspension on our '82 Toyota pickup a hard workout, we crested a rise and momentarily cheated gravity. The landing couldn't have been more precise - dead center into a shallow arroyo. The impact stuffed the suspension to its limits. Upon recoil, both front tires were leading in opposite directions, and the steering wheel was about as useful as a Subaru on the Rubicon. Heavy on the brakes, we managed to keep it upright and out of the arroyo. A quick inspection revealed a broken tie-rod end. If there is one thing we learned in Boy Scouts, it's to be prepared. Pulling a spare out of the parts box, we were rolling again within 30 minutes.