Don Wildman

All right.

Let's talk about that.

What happens when human beings decide to do this, from what you understood from accounts and so forth?

Do you just become kind of insane and make decisions that are irrational, or was this a highly rational decision?

There were those in the group that would not partake in this.

Some were ensured that they wouldn't have to eat their own relatives, which is always a nice thing.

Among this guide, to be reminded, there are two native guides, Salvador and Luis, who we mentioned before, Miwok, who were separately warned by one person in the group that there were those plotting to butcher them for their meat.

And they quickly scat out of town.

How quickly they can do that, but they're gone.

They were then found a few days later near death with starvation.

And they were shot, right?

It's pretty gruesome.

January 17th, 1847, six survivors of the Forlorn Hope Mission reach a ranch in California and spread the news of the trapped immigrants.

This would have been the first people who heard that this group was up there, right?

Okay, let's take another break, digest this, so to speak.

Daniel and I are going to discuss the rescue attempts and the legacies of this tragic tale.

Okay, we're back with the story of the Donner Party in California.

Daniel, at this point in early 1847, this ordeal has lasted for months.

October when they first hit the snow, now we're in January, and the group is in a hopeless state.

But there appears to be a light at the end of this tunnel for at least some of these people.