A GUIDE TO THE APPLEGATE TRAIL
(Third Edition)
FROM LASSEN MEADOWS TO GOOSE LAKE
Markers A-1 through A-33
Single Copy Price $25.00
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This is a 180 page spiral bound book that will guide you along the Applegate Trail from its beginning at Lassen Meadows (Rye Patch Reservoir) in Nevada to Marker A-33 at Goose Lake, California where the Lassen Trail branched off and headed to northern California below Shasta City.
The book includes:
1. A description of each of the 33 Inscription Plates that are attached to the Trails West Markers along this trail.
2. Twenty-one maps showing everything from the many emigrant trials to California to detailed maps with individual markers, roads and trails identified.
3. How-To-Find instructions. These explicit written instructions are designed to take the modern traveler along the Applegate Trail the quickest but safest way from one Trails West Marker to the next. When the written instructions for driving to a marker become too complex, a supplemental map is provided to help you find the location.
4. The location of each Trails West Marker using GPS UTM and latitude/longitude coordinates.
5. Cautionary notes, where appropriate, to warn the user of the Guide where difficulties might be encountered.
6. Over 200 quotations from emigrant diaries and journals spanning the period from 1846 to 1860 and eight 1849 sketches and drawings from the diary of J. Goldsborough Bruff. These Overland Narratives help give the modern traveler a feeling of what it must have been like at or near each Marker location when the mid-1800′s emigrants passed by. Presented below is a sample of one of the Overland Narratives included in the new Guide:
“Sep. 26. I had time, and went back to Black Rock to see the hot spring. It is a deep circular pit like what I would suppose the shape of the mouth of a small volcano in short it is like a funnel, about 25 feet in diameter at top, and tapers down. I can see about 10 feet down but no further. The water looks green, and constantly sends up bubbles that are incessantly rising up over an oval surface of 2 by 3 feet just like a pot when it is beginning a boil freely; to the west of it it forms into an extensive sheet of shallow water – a shallow pond of say 100 by 75 feet and runs out at an opening on the west and another of larger volume of water towards the north and spreads over a broad meadow below to the west. The two streams or outlets from the Pond if united would handsomely turn a small mill constantly.” Joseph Middleton, 1849(One of the Overland Narratives for Marker A-14)
7. Trail descriptions. The route of the trail and the difficulties encountered on that route is described for each marker. For some markers, additional information about a 4-wheel drive trip along the trail is provided. To follow these additional instructions, a high-clearance, four-wheel drive vehicle is generally needed. Presented below is a sample of the information on one of the Additional Trips presented in the Applegate Trail Guide:
A SIDE TRIP TO LASSEN-CLAPPER MURDER SITE
“To reach the Peter Lassen and Edward Clapper murder site from Marker A-15B, continue 0.9 miles east on the dirt road from Wheeler Reservoir to a four-way road junction. Continue through this junction and go 1.3 miles to a road on the left. Continue straight ahead for 0.2 miles to a road junction. Turn right. Go 0.8 miles, crossing two deep gullies, to a parking area on the left. From the parking area, walk about 100 yards up the dirt road to the murder site. The reamains of Clapper were found in 1990 protruding out of the side of the creek bed about 10 feet from a large boulder.”
8. Over 75 photographs of locations along the trail. Most of these are unique to this Guide.
9. Sixteen maps unique to this guide. These maps show the route(s) the emigrants actually followed. Sometimes the route(s) shown can still be seen as ruts, a depression, a scar, or an area of moved rocks. In other cases, the route shown is now a road or is no longer visible due to modern development.
Compared to other trail guides, the maps in the Applegate Trail Guide are more complete. Instead of merely showing one, generalized trail, the maps in Emigrant Trails West guides identify, where they exist, segments of the trails that have not been used by motor vehicles, segments that have been used by motor vehicles, and segments that are identified in emigrant diaries but can not be physically located. In addition, alternate routes are identified.
10. Special features include an introductory history of the Applegate Trail and historical commentaries on events and sites along the trail, such as emigrants’ post office, murders, sufferings, humor, and deadly encounters, along with the 1848 Applegate-Scott Way Bill and an extensive bibliography.