The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party

by Daniel James Brown

On September 26 they reached the main fork of the Humboldt River. There they rejoined the established emigrant road, finally completing Hastings’s cutoff. It had taken them sixty-eight days to reach this spot after leaving the road at the Parting of the Ways on the Little Sandy. Some of those who had stayed on the older road had made it in as little as thirty-seven days. In the end, Hastings’s shortcut had added roughly a month to Sarah’s journey.