Pilot Peak

To exhausted emigrants, Pilot Peak meant survival. The mountain rises sharp from the salt flats on the Nevada-Utah line, and its springs were the first reliable water after the dreaded eighty-mile crossing of the Great Salt Lake Desert—a waterless stretch that killed oxen and broke wagons. Pioneers fixed on the peak as a beacon and pushed toward the springs at its base, later called Donner Spring after the ill-fated party of 1846. For a generation of California-bound travelers, it was a landmark of hope and relief. The peak still stands over the desert it redeemed.

What the plaque says

The high, symmetrically shaped mountain seen rising to the north is Pilot Peak. In the period 1845-1850, it was a famous landmark and symbol of hope and relief to the Reed-Donner party and all other wagon train pioneers who traveled the 70-odd deadly, thirst and heat-ridden miles of the Great Salt Lake Desert. Across this desert, between the Cedar Range on the east and Pilot Peak on the west, stretched perhaps the worst section of the infamous Hastings Cutoff of the California Emigrant Trail. The peak was named by John C. Fremont on his expedition of 1845. Kit Carson, the expedition's guide, sent ahead to locate water, found a line of springs at its eastern base, now known as McKellar Springs. Carson is reputed to have guided the rest of Fremont's expedition across the salt desert by sending up smoke signals from the peak; hence, Fremont's name for it. During the years 1847-1850, relief parties sallied forth periodically with water from the Pilot Peak springs to rescue and succor the thirst-crazed emigrants and their livestock struggling across the terrible salt desert to the eastward.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bonneville Salt Flats — 20 mi
  A blindingly white desert where land speed records are born

More markers nearby

• Historic Wendover Airfield — 14 mi
• First Continental Telephone Line — 20 mi
• Bonneville Salt Flats — 20 mi