Videos such as the one above by freelance journalist Jonathan Petramala show hundreds of cars and trucks bogged in deep snow on the infamous Donner Pass, a stretch of road 7,088 feet above sea level over the Sierra Nevada mountains in Nevada County, California. On Saturday March 2 2024, more than three feet of snow fell on and around Interstate 80 northwest of Lake Tahoe, according to the Weather Channel. In winter, the old Donner Pass, now the historic US40, is often at risk of snow avalanches and blizzards, but this one was the strongest blizzard in California in years, and is being called a
“‘Snowpocalypse”
Blizzard warnings have been issued with snowfall of up to twelve feet expected in some higher elevation locations.
Many people would not associate the words “California” and “Snowpocalypse”, but that is exactly what happened in 1846-7 when a group of pioneers became snowbound in the Sierra Nevada over winter, and famously turned to cannibalism to survive. Only 48 of the original 87 members of the party survived. Many of the others were eaten after they died, and when they ran out of corpses, they murdered two of the Native American guides to use as protein.
There have been quite a few films and books about the events of that winter in 1846. Most emphasise the cannibalism that became inevitable, but omit any ethical discussion (probably no record was kept of it anyway) and gloss over the clearly racist decision to kill and eat the Native American guides in preference to “white” meat, even where the potential victim had volunteered. The movie Alive covered this rather better, showing a group of young men, all devout Catholics, debating how to justify eating their dead fellow passengers after the crash of a Uruguayan Air Force plane chartered by their football team in the Andes in 1972.
Back to the future – March 2024. The California Highway Patrol issued an appeal to people not to head out there, for obvious reasons.
The skiers, in particular, were not interested in listening to warnings – they wanted powder, and plenty of it. Despite snowfall of up to 12 feet being expected in some higher elevations, people headed out from San Francisco and all parts of the USA to find a mountain they could slide down. Many of them promptly got stuck in cars that would not respond in the freezing temperatures, and ski resorts had to shut down anyway. Big rigs also were stranded, blocked from moving (even if they had chains) by the inactive cars, or jack-knifing in the treacherous conditions.
Like 1846, this was a recipe for disaster. Residents of Truckee, California, one of the closest towns to Donner Pass, reported having inches of snow in front of their houses making it difficult to get out.
It did not take long for social media to pick up those reports of a “significant number of vehicles stranded over Donner Summit”. One headline read:
Untold Number of People Trapped at Site of Great American Tragedy
Some, of course, made the inevitable logical leap:
Sorry to disappoint, but there have been no reports of cannibalism from the stranded cars, trucks or town-folk. Unlike 1846, there are now emergency services available, including all sorts of technology from drones to snowploughs, and in fact emergency teams and tow services worked tirelessly to reach those affected.
While many had to leave their cars behind, no gnawed bones have been discovered so far. Maybe when the snow melts…
The Cannibal Guy 