"Goodbye, Death Valley."

In 1848, gold was discovered in California and people from all over the United States packed their belongings and began to travel by wagon to what they hoped would be a new and better life. It was important to leave Salt Lake City and cross the desert before snow began to fall on the Sierra Nevada, making them impassible. A group of wagons began their journey in October of 1849, much too late to try to cross safely. It was then that they heard about the Old Spanish Trail, a route that would take them on a harrowing adventure that nearly killed them all. On today's episode of America's National Parks, the place that these prospectors would come to call Death Valley.