Snow on the Oregon Trail

Horizontal--tracks of pioneers' wagon wheels


Snow in the mountains



More snow!

Back in Casper, WY, a few weeks ago I happened upon the National Trails Interpretive Center and renewed and increased my knowledge of the pioneers of the 1840s and 1850s. Today I went backward on the Oregon Trail, from one of its several endpoints and through the final two mountain ranges they had to traverse: The Cascades and the Blue Mountains.

Last night I watched local weather and they were calling for some rain, intermittent, and maybe snow at altitude--above 4,000 feet or so. I thought, OK, no worries. I should have read the map more closely: I crossed several passes over 4,000 feet--2 over 5,000. The roads had been plowed and treated--even quite early in the morning--so the only problem was the heavy fog wherever there was snow. But it was also kind of neat to drive in and out of snow.

Easy for me to say in a modern car with heat and ample food and drink in the cooler and lots of coats and blankets. Imagine the pioneers having to traverse up and down these same mountains, in and out of snow! Sure, they were near the end of their very long journey, but the snow must have added insult to injury!

I drove secondary roads all the way to Baker City, OR, where there is a National Interpretive Center for the Oregon Trail. Another nice museum with actors helping give a realistic feel to some of the exhibits. There are many places to walk outside this center, but it was really cold and rainy, so the only thing I did was walk to where you can still see the actual trail left by wagon wheels--pretty amazing!

From there we hopped on I-84 down to Caldwell, ID, where we are spending the night. It was almost a 500-mile day, and we lost an hour as we traveled back into Mountain Daylight Time. Daisy had a pretty boring day--every time I offered to let her out of the car, she'd hop out into the cold and wet and hop back in--or scurry and pee and hop back in. Hoping for better weather tomorrow!

Point of trivia: what is the only other state besides New Jersey where you cannot pump your own gas? Answer: Oregon--no wonder it cost almost $3/gallon there!