Salt and Snow: Lansford W. Hastings, the Donner Party, and the Haste to Blame

Salt and Snow follows promoter and expansionist Lansford Hastings, author of the Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California, and his role in the opening of a new wagon route in 1846. His demanding cutoff started from Fort Bridger to the southern end of the Great Salt Lake, then west across the Salt Desert. The narrative also follows the Donner Party wagon train and the choices they made before, during, and after their unwise decision to take Hastings’ new cutoff. Because of their gambles and loss of time, they were eventually trapped in the snowy hold of the Sierra Nevada mountains which led to their last resort to survive: cannibalism. Lansford Hastings and his association with the Donner Party has been unfairly criticized for decades as the main cause of the Donner Party's catastrophe. However, this book defends Hastings debunking many of the myths surrounding him and laying to rest his alleged personal ambitions and blame for the poor decisions made by the Donner Party headed by their de facto leader James Reed.