Douglas Deeds, a fifteen-year-old orphan, keeps a journal of his travels by wagon train as a member of the ill-fated Donner Party, which became stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the winter of 1846-47.

The true story of the hardships encountered by the Donner Party on their 1846 overland trip to California.

"A retelling of the fate of the Donner Party, with a Walking Dead style twist"-- Evil is invisible, and it is everywhere. That is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the wagon train known as the Donner Party. Depleted rations, bitter quarrels, and the mysterious death of a little boy have driven the isolated travelers to the brink of madness. Though they dream of what awaits them in the West, long-buried secrets begin...

Drawing on fresh archeological evidence, recent research on topics ranging from survival rates to snowfall totals, and heartbreaking letters and diaries made public by descendants a century-and-a-half after the tragedy, Ethan Rarick offers an intimate portrait of the Donner party--ninety pioneers who became stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the winter of 1846-47-- and their unimaginable ordeal

Describes the journey of the ill-fated Donner Party, ninety pioneers who became stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the winter of 1846-47.

Uses materials from letters and diaries written by survivors of the Donner Party to relate the experiences of that ill-fated group as they endured horrific circumstances on their way to California in 1846-47.

A wooden doll recalls the hope with which a group of pioneers begins their journey and the ordeals they face as they travel from Springfield, Illinois, to California.

Draws from newspaper memoirs and letters of survivors to tell the story of the Donner Party, who, encourgaed by reports of an easy short-cut through the Sierra Nevada mountains, set out from Illinois in 1846 with dreams of the good life in California and become trapped by a blizzard that claims over thirty lives.

"15-year-old Zeke is thrilled to be heading west with over eighty settlers on the famed Oregon Trail. But when their wagon train takes an ill-advised short cut, the pioneers find themselves trapped in a frozen mountain pass. As howling winter storms rage around the Donner Party, there’s no way forward or back. Faced with starvation, Zeke must attempt to walk out of the wilderness on sheer willpower alone. Can he ever hope to make it to California?...