Everyone focuses on the end result when the party was trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but the seeds of the disaster were planted long before then. Bad decisions, murder, poor leadership and more, all contributed. Learn what really happened.

1. What Really
Happened?
THE DONNER
PARTY
A True Story of
Murder, Mayhem and
Cannibalism.

2. “I wish I could cry, but I cannot. If I
could forget the tragedy, perhaps I would
know how to cry again.”
Mary Graces. Survivor, the Donner
Party.
The Donner Party: A Case Of Social
Disintegration.

3. The Rule of Seven:
Every catastrophe has 7 events.
Six Cascade Events leading to the final
event, the Catastrophe. At least one
of the Cascade Events involves human
error. Thus, most catastrophes can be
avoided.
To do so, we must learn from history
and past disasters.

4. In Spring 1846, a group of emigrants departed west
for California. Rather than take the usual route, they
decided to take a ‘shorter’ new route, the Hastings
Cutoff. The delays from taking that route caused
them to reach the last obstacle, the Sierra Nevada
Mountains, so late in the season that they became
trapped by heavy snowfall, and were forced to
spend the winter. Starving and freezing, some of the
group resorted to cannibalism. Eventually, about
half the party was rescued in the Spring of 1847.
THE FACTS

5. 1846:
12 May: Set out from Independence, MO.
27 June: Fort Laramie. They are urged not to
take the Hastings Cutoff.
18 July: The party crosses the Continental
Divide.
19 July: At the Little Sandy River the large party
splits and the Donner Party heads toward Fort
Bridger, while the rest stay on the known
California Trail.
THE TIMELINE

6. 1846:
31 July: Depart Fort Bridger to take the Hastings
Cutoff. They cross the Wasatch Mountains of Utah,
with many delays.
30 August: Set off across the Great Salt Lake Desert,
experiencing more delays
26 Sept: Finally rejoin the California Trail at the
Humboldt River.
7 Oct: An elderly man is abandoned by the convoy,
left on the side of the trail to die.
THE TIMELINE

7. 13 Oct: One man decides to cache his wagon; the
two men who stay behind to help him, come back
without him, saying he was killed by Indians. He was
murdered by them.
25 Oct: A small relief party arrives from California
with 7 mules of provisions; accompanied by two
Native American guides.
November: The party cannot make it over Truckee
Pass and camp for the winter.
THE TIMELINE

8. 15 Dec: The first member of the party dies from
malnutrition.
16 Dec: The strongest members of the party set out on
snowshoes to make it through the pass to Sutters Fort
(the Forlorn Hope).
21 Dec: The snowshoers have made it over the pass but
are battling deep snow. One member sits down, smokes
his pipe, and tells them to go on. He dies.
THE TIMELINE

9. 24 Dec: The snowshoers can go no further. They draw
lots to decide who to kill and eat. But can’t kill the
loser. Members begin to die.
26 December: They resort to cannibalism.
30 Dec: The snowshoers run out of deceased human
meat. It’s suggested they kill the two Native Americans
who were part of the resupply party. Warned, the two
run off.
THE TIMELINE

10. 1847
9 Jan: The snowshoers come upon the two weakened
and exhausted Native Americans who’d tried to escape.
Shoot the two and then eat them.
17 Jan: The snowshoers are taken in by a Native
American village. For the rest of the party on the other
side of the mountains, it’s uncertain when they resorted
to cannibalism of those who died from malnutrition
and/or the cold.
19 Feb: The First Relief makes it over the mountains.
29 Apr: The last surviving member of the Donner Party
arrives at Sutter’s Fort.
THE TIMELINE

11. The Mexican War.
Technically speaking, the Donner Party was emigrating
to Mexico, not another part of the United States. And
they were doing so in the midst of a war between the
United States and Mexico.
An explorer named Fremont started a revolt in
California in early 1846, in the spirit of the Texas War
of Independence.
This meant assistance would not be available when
needed.
Cascade 1— what caused it.

12. Lesson: Larger events have to be factored in;
emigrating in the midst of a war is one of
them.

13. Choosing to follow an unknown, untried path.
Also known as trying to take a short cut.
There were two main routes west at the time of the
Donner Party: the Oregon Trail, which was used
starting in the 1830s, and the California Trail
which was brought into service in 1841.
In 1842, Lansford Hastings wrote a book titled The
Emigrant’s Guide To Oregon and California. In it,
he briefly mentioned a new path to the west, which
Hastings claimed was shorter and faster.
Technically, on the map, it is.
Cascade 2

14. Cascade 2

15. Choosing to follow an unknown, untried path.
Also known as trying to take a short cut.
There was one big problem with the Hastings
Cutoff. Hastings had never traveled it until 1846,
the same year the Donners attempted it.
One of the early leaders in the Donner Party, James
Reed, read Hastings’ book and noted the mention
of the cutoff. They decided to take it in order to
save time and beat other emigrants to California.
Cascade 2

16. LESSON: We all know about shortcuts, especially
untried ones. The Donner Party bet their lives on
a single sentence in a book written by a man they
didn’t know, who wrote about the cutoff when he
hadn’t even tried it.

17. Inability to make sound decisions on their own.
After Fort Laramie, there was still time for the
group before they had to make a decision but fate,
in the form of Hastings, intervened. Hastings had
been giving letters to riders heading east to hand to
emigrants en route. He warned of opposition to
emigration by Mexican authorities in California,
advising them to travel in large groups. He also
claimed to have worked out a new and better route
and would be waiting at Fort Bridger to guide
parties west.
Cascade 3

18. Inability to make sound decisions on their own.
The problem was that Fort Bridger was off the
known path to California so a decision would have
to be made soon.
The Donner Party received one of these letters on
the 12th of July.
On The 20th of July, they reached the Little Sandy
River in Wyoming and it was time to make a
decision. To continue on the main trail or to break
off to the southwest toward Fort Bridger.
They made the decision to trust Hastings’ letter and
route and turned off for Fort Bridger.
Cascade 3

19. LESSON: Between a known and an unknown,
the reasons to risk one’s life to an unknown
must be compelling and trusted.
Despite personal warnings, the party made the
decision to trust a man they’d never met.

20. A Lack of Clear Leadership.
Splitting from the others after this decision was
made, leadership was passed, by consensus, from
Reed to Donner. Reed was former military and older,
but his style irritated many in the group. Donner, on
the other hand, was easier to get along with. Thus he
was elected.
From here on, a major problem for the group was a
lack of decisiveness in terms of decision-making.
Decisions were often put to a vote, which works all
right in peacetime, but in crisis can often be fatal.
Cascade 4

21. LESSON: Instead of Donner making a decision
whether to press forward after having lost much time,
the group took a vote. In tough situations, democracy
is usually not the best course of action (Lewis &
Clark took a vote now and then, but they had an
entirely different group than the Donner Party).
The Donner Party elected to follow the new trail.

22. Crossing the Wasatch, the Great Salt Lake Desert
and Pilots Peak.
Getting through the Wasatch Range slowed them
down considerably. (I spent two months in that range
during Winter Warfare training and can attest to the
difficulty of the terrain.) Then they hit the the Great
Salt Lake desert. In 1986 a group in 4-wheel drive
vehicles couldn’t cross the same path the Donners
attempted.
Cascade 5

23. In the Wasatch Mountains
with 10th Special Forces

24. Crossing the Wasatch, the Great Salt Lake Desert
and Pilots Peak.
The Donners lost more time having to stop at Pilots
Peak for water and rest. By the time they got across
the desert and rejoined the California Trail, they were
now the last party on the trail. A fight broke out
between two members and one killed the other and
was banished. He was also the most forceful and
experienced man in the party.
Despite knowing how late in the year it was, the
Donner Party pressed on.
Cascade 5

25. Lesson: An unwillingness to accept the reality of the
situation, even when time was running out. There
comes a time when one has to accept sunk cost– a past
cost that has already been incurred and cannot be
recovered.

26. The moment of crisis, also known as the Tipping
Point.
There is often a key moment in cascade events, both
large and small, where something happens that
indicates future cascade events will be negative,
leading to an inevitable final event. Usually, this
cascade event involves a no-do-over event.
Cascade 6

27. The moment of crisis, also known as the Tipping Point.
The tipping point for the Donner Party came on 7 October
1846. As they moved toward the Sierra Nevada’s along the
Humboldt River, with worn out animals, everyone who
could, had to get off the wagons and walk. One of the men
owning a wagon forced an elderly man, Hardkoop, who had
been traveling with him, out of his wagon. Hardkoop tried
walking on severely swollen feet. Unable to keep up, he
limped along, pleading with every wagon for someone to
take him in. No one did.
Hardkoop sat down under a large bush, still pleading.
They left him behind.
Cascade 6

28. The moment of crisis, also known as the Tipping
Point.
This meant the Donner party had no leadership and
was no longer a cohesive group. It was everyone for
themselves. And that led to what would happen in the
Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Cascade 6

29. LESSON: Recognizing tipping points is key and often
the last chance to avoid a catastrophe.
One has to have the ability to make the hard decision.
Throughout the journey, one gets the feeling the
Donner Party was on an inexorable path to disaster.
Yet there were numerous points where a decision
could have changed their fate. Whether it be to not
take the Hastings Cutoff; to turn back in Utah when
Hastings told them to wait; to let go of their extraneous
possessions and make the best possible time in order to
make it across the desert and through the Sierra
Nevadas.

30. LESSON:
The inability to make these earlier decisions led
those in the party to make decisions (homicide,
cannibalism) that they had never contemplated.
While the weather lowered the final boom on
the Donner Party, this catastrophe shows human
error clearly playing a part.

31. Starvations, freezing, homicide, and cannibalism.
One thousand feet from the summit of Truckee Pass it began
to snow. The next day when they tried to press forward, they
couldn’t make it over the pass in five feet of snow.
In November the party decided to camp for the winter, even
though they didn’t have sufficient supplies to make it through.
Their hope was that a rescue party would come from Sutters
Fort. The Mexican War probably seemed very far away to
them, but most of the men who would have formed a rescue
party were away fighting.
Final Event

32. Starvations, freezing, homicide, and cannibalism.
Many of those in the Donner Party went beyond what most
people are capable of in order to survive, but they’d sealed
their fate back in Wyoming with the decision to take the
Hastings Cutoff and then kept it sealed with decision after
decision. One by one they begin to die. And one by one they
were eaten by the others.
Final Event

33. As an interesting side note. A young man was trapped in the
same place the previous winter and survived. He did a lot of
fishing in the lake where there were trout. No one in the
Donner Party even attempted to fish.

35. Seven Ways to Prevent Catastrophes
1. Have a Special Ops preparation mindset
2. Focus by utilizing both big picture & detail
thinkers
3. Conduct Special Forces Area Studies
4. Use the Special Forces CARVER formula
5. Have a “10th man”
6. Conduct After Action Reviews
7. Write and USE Standing Operating Procedures
(SOPs)

36. Are you interested in a presentation about various catastrophes
and how the cascade events could have been prevented?
Events covered range from human-machine interface, to
leadership, to communication, cost-cutting, engineering, group
think, perseverance, systematic failure, and more?
Catastrophes are cascade events culminating in disastrous
chaos. War is chaos. Special Forces is the most elite unit trained
for a variety of combat situations.
What makes Special Forces elite is our mindset and
preparation.
Are you interested in a presentation on how to use Special
Forces tactics, techniques and mental attitude to help your
organization anticipate and prevent potential catastrophes?
Please email bob@bobmayer.com
Summary

37. More Free Information
I constantly update free, downloadable
slideshows like this on my web site for
preparation and survival and other
topics.
FREE SLIDESHOWS
Also, I conduct Area Study workshops
for those interested in properly
preparing for their specific
circumstances.

38. The guide on the left is the complete preparation and
survival guide. The one on the right is a pocket-size
manual with just the survival portion. Useful in your Grab-
n-Go bag, car and kitchen drawer.
SURVIVAL GUIDES

39. The Book
"The best preparation guide available, bar
none. A must have for anyone concerned
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Mayer points out that preparation is key
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Assembly Magazine.

40. New York Times bestselling author, is a graduate of West
Point and former Green Beret. He’s had over 80 books
published, including the #1 bestselling series Green Berets,
Time Patrol, Area 51, and Atlantis. He’s sold over 5 million
books. He was born in the Bronx and has traveled the world.
He’s lived on an island off the east coast, an island off the
west coast, in the Rocky Mountains, the Smoky Mountains
and other places, including time in East Asia studying martial
arts.
He was an instructor and course developer/writer for years
at the JFK Special Warfare Center and School which trains
Green Berets and also runs the SERE school:
Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape.
www.bobmayer.com