Page 9 - Death in the Donner Party: A Cause-and-Effect Investigation

Someone lit a dead pine tree on fire in the
makeshift camp. The pioneers gathered around
its warm, leaping flames. Parents spread
buffalo-hide blankets over the snow as beds for
their children. Everyone bundled up warmly.
They settled in for the night under more layers

of blankets and cloaks.
That night the snow came. Fat snowflakes
mixed with sleet. It fell hard and fast from the
sky. The travelers could barely see. Mothers
brushed piles of snow off their children
throughout the night. In the morning, the
world was unrecognizable. As one emigrant
described it, “I found myself covered with
freshly fallen snow. The camp, the cattle,

my companions had all disappeared. All I
could see was snow everywhere.” One foot
(0.3 meters) of snow had fallen in the night.
Drifts 10 feet (3 m) high surrounded the
travelers. What the emigrants most feared
had happened. The pass was blocked.

Exhausted from traveling
through the snow, the Donner
Party made camp for the night.

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