Because the latitude printed in the narrative of the 1845
Report is wrong. It is wrong in the original printed Report,
and it is wrong in every subsequent printing. I located the campsite on October 14, 1996. This winter
photograph was taken on February 27, 1997 after hiking in on
snowshoes. There was a little less snow than when Charles
Preuss made his drawing between the 10th and 19th of
February, 1844. It is difficult to reproduce an artist's
perspective. The drawing actually covers an angle of view of
approximately 90°. A "normal" focal length lens was
used to maintain foreground to background perspective, and a
series of overlapping handheld snapshots were taken and
later pieced together. Charles Preuss, February 11th, 1844. "We are now completely snowed in. The snowstorm is on top of us. The wind obliterates all tracks which, with incredible effort, we make for our horses. The horses are about twenty miles behind and are expected to arrive tonight, or rather, they are now no longer expected. How could they get through? At the moment no one can tell what will really happen. It is certain we shall have to eat horse meat. I should not mind if we only had salt. I feel terribly weak and have little appetite."
You can navigate on this Google®
map by dragging, zoom in/out,
or change from satellite to roadmap or terrain
imagery.
Frémont's "the highest peak to the right" is now called Red Lake Peak (El. 10,063'), and the "mountain lake" is Lake Tahoe--its first recorded sighting.
The small dark peak in the center (El. 9,007') is the place from which, on February 6, 1844, Frémont and Kit Carson saw the Sacramento Valley and the Coast Range on the horizon. "There," said Kit, "is the little mountain--it is 15 years since I saw it; but I am just as sure as if I saw it yesterday."
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Frémont:
February 14th, 1844.
"Annexed [in the 1845 government report]
is a view of the dividing ridge of the Sierra, taken from
this encampment. With Mr. Preuss, I ascended to-day the
highest peak to the right; from which we had a beautiful
view of a mountain lake at our feet, about fifteen miles in
length, and so entirely surrounded by mountains that we
could not discover an outlet... I obtained to-night some
observations; and the result from these, and others made
during our stay, gives the latitude 38° 41' 57"
[sic], and the rate for the
chronometer 25.82."
This
advance camp was reached on February 10th, 1844, and was
occupied through February 19th as nearly 20 miles of road
for the horses and mules was being built from Markleeville
to Carson Pass. Frémont called this the "Long Camp"
in his Report to Congress. "Long Camp" either refers to the
number of days that it was occupied, or to the fact that the
"camp" was spread out over that 20 miles and an elevation
difference of nearly 3000'. The horses were near
Markleeville under the charge of Baptiste Tabeau, and Tom
Fitzpatrick's intermediate camp was at Grover's Hot
Springs.
An
email from a Long Camp visitor.
