For Ellie
"We were full of hope and did not dream of sorrow."
—Virginia Reed Murphy, a survivor of the Donner Party, describing the journey's beginning
"All of us have dark stirrings of doubt and fear whenever the Donner Party is mentioned. In such extremis what would we do? Snow-trapped and starving in the Sierras with no hope of relief, would we fall to devouring each other? Our fathers? Our children? Our lovers? How close to the animal are we? How far from the desperate beast? In the purely physical realm of survival, what justifies what?"
—James Dickey