The Donner Party was made up of a group of pioneers who left Illinois in 1846. Things went well until they reached Fort Bridger. There they made the worst (and in many cases the last) mistake they had ever made. Winter was coming, and the pioneers were over-anxious to get to California, so they took Hasting's Cutoff, a dangerous passage through the Sierra Nevada mountains. Winter came, and the Donner Party was snowed in. They soon realized that they would be spending the entire winter in the mountains with hardly any food and little shelter. A few small groups tried to cross, but only one group made it. For all the rest, they had to face life and learn to survive. By the time a rescue party arrived in February, over half were dead and many had resorted to cannibalism. And even worse, many of the dead had been murdered first. It was a terrible winter and a warning to the world: be prepared or die!