Editing Donner Pass (section)

==History==
To reach [[California]] from the east, pioneers had to get their wagons over the [[Sierra Nevada]] mountain range. In 1844 the [[Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party]] followed the [[Truckee River]] into the mountains.  At the head of what is now called [[Donner Lake]], they found a low notch in the mountains and became the first overland settlers to use the pass.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.westerly-journies.com/goldrush/goldsteph-murphy.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070222081651/http://westerly-journies.com/goldrush/goldsteph-murphy.html|archive-date=2007-02-22|title=Opening of the California Trail|first=Lee|last=Clegg|work=High Sierra History|year=1994}}</ref> The pass was named after a later group of California-bound settlers. In early November 1846 the [[Donner Party]] found the route blocked by snow and was forced to spend the winter on the east side of the mountains. Of the 81 settlers, only 45 survived to reach California,<ref>{{cite web|publisher=Utah Crossroads|title=Donner Party: Statistics|url=http://www.utahcrossroads.org/DonnerParty/Statistics.htm|access-date=2007-09-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121030033533/http://www.utahcrossroads.org/DonnerParty/Statistics.htm|archive-date=2012-10-30|url-status=dead}}</ref> some of them resorting to [[Human cannibalism|cannibalism]] to survive.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.history.com/shows/america-the-story-of-us|work=America The Story Of Us |title=Westward|publisher=History Channel}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Stewart|first=George R.|title=Ordeal by Hunger: The Story of the Donner Party|edition= Third|publisher= Houghton-Mifflin|location= New York|date= 1963|pages= 132, et seq}}</ref>

On February 23, 1936, a [[blizzard]] trapped more than 750 motorists in Donner Pass, killing seven.<ref>{{Citation |date=23 February 2025 |title=Weather History |publisher=Chicago Tribune |page=18}}</ref>

On January 13, 1952, 222 passengers and crew aboard a train became stranded about {{convert|17|mi|km}} west of Donner Pass at [[Yuba Pass]], on Track #1 adjacent to Tunnel 35 (on Track #2), at about MP 176.5. [[Southern Pacific Railroad]]'s passenger train ''[[City of San Francisco (train)|City of San Francisco]]'' was en route westbound through the gap when a blizzard dumped so much snow the train was unable to move forward or reverse. The passengers and crew were stranded for three days until the nearby highway could be plowed sufficiently for a caravan of automobiles to carry them the few miles to Nyack Lodge.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Bull, Howard W. |url=http://cprr.org/Museum/Stranded_Streamliner_1952/index.html |title=The Case of the Stranded Streamliner|journal=Trains & Travel|volume= 13|number=3|date= January 1953}}</ref>