About this place
Over 250,000 emigrants traveled the California Trail to the gold fields and the rich farmland of California, through the 1840s and 1850s. It was the greatest mass migration in American history.
More than 1,000 miles of ruts and traces can still be seen, across 10 states.
In 1849 gold was found at Sutter’s Fort, near Sacramento. That set off a rush of miners, and of people after free land.
By 1869 more than a quarter of a million people had crossed the plains and the mountains heading west.
The trail offered several ways through. One of the main ones ran through South Pass in Wyoming and brought pioneers heading for California across southeast Idaho.
Another went to Salt Lake City, then north into Idaho, rejoining the main trail at the City of Rocks near Granite Pass.
By the 1860s the trail had become a road. Freight and mail companies used it, and military expeditions, and new settlements and trading stations, and thousands of travelers going in every direction.
Then in 1869 the Union Pacific Railroad met the Central Pacific Railroad at Promontory Point in northern Utah.
After that you could cross the country by rail, and long-distance wagon travel through the West was finished.
The facts
- Cost
- Free to camp on the open land, paid campground inside
- Type
- Open area. Camp anywhere within it
- Managed by
- Bureau of Land Management
Getting there
Directions for this trail are on the National Park Service page for it.
Coordinates 42.553888, -113.244722
Open in Google Maps Agency page
What is near here
There is another spot of ours within reach, and some better-known places further out.
- Minidoka National Wildlife Refuge Directions
- Massacre Rocks State Park Directions
- Sublett Range High Point Directions
- Mount Harrison Directions
- Shale Butte Wilderness Study Area Directions
Every distance on this page is the driving distance. A short distance can still take a long time. The road may be closed for the season, covered in snow, or washed out. Many of these roads are dirt. Plan your route before you leave home. Out here there is often no phone signal to look it up on the way.
Nearest town and supplies
- Malta, ID Directions
- Rupert, ID Directions
Rupert is big enough that you’d normally expect fuel and somewhere to buy food. Nobody from here has been to check, so don’t count on it if you’re running low.
Have you been here?
Fees and access change, and the records do not always keep up. If you have been, tell us what you found.
Thank you, that is recorded. It helps the next person.
Add road notes for this site
The thing we cannot get from any government record is what the drive in is actually like. If you have done it, this is the most useful thing you can leave behind. We read everything before it appears, and we print a first name with it if you give one.
Thank you. A person will read it before it goes on the page.
Where this information comes from
The description on this page is ours. The facts in it, and the fee and facility details below it, come from the Bureau of Land Management’s own records, read in August 2026.