Douglas Deeds, a fifteen-year-old orphan, keeps a journal of his travels by wagon train as a member of the ill-fated Donner Party, which became stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the winter of 1846-47.

The Reed family struggles to survive the wagon train journey from Illinois to California as members of the ill-fated Donner Party.

"15-year-old Zeke is thrilled to be heading west with over eighty settlers on the famed Oregon Trail. But when their wagon train takes an ill-advised short cut, the pioneers find themselves trapped in a frozen mountain pass. As howling winter storms rage around the Donner Party, there’s no way forward or back. Faced with starvation, Zeke must attempt to walk out of the wilderness on sheer willpower alone. Can he ever hope to make it to California?...