A grim incident from American pioneer history is recreated as a determined group of settlers, facing almost insurmountable odds, struggles to reach California in 1846. Already divided by internal dissension over the choice of a leader and the selection of a route, the wagon train is soon decimated by Indian raids, a scarcity of food and water, and the unrelenting forces of nature. Finally after months of hardship, the party reaches the High Sierras, only to be stranded in the middle of the pass by an early snowstorm. And as fear of an agonizing death from starvation forces the abandonment of conventional rules of human behavior, the pioneers face a new enemy - each other.
Robert Fuller
as James Reed
Andrew Prine
as Lewis Keyser
Michael Callan
as William Eddy
Diane McBain
as Margaret Reed
John Anderson
as Patrick Breen
John Doucette
as George Donner
Cindy Eilbacher
as Mary Graves
Royal Dano
as Sutter
Gregory Walcott
as Will Mckutcheon
Lance LeGault
as Charles Stanton
Whit Bissell
as Uncle Billy Graves
Peggy Stewart
as Mrs. Breen
