Travel Writing

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Showing the route, the topography and how the historic trails exploited natural thoroughfares.

From Washington DC the route follows the old Chesapeake & Ohio Canal into the mountains. At Cumberland, MA it joins Braddock's Road then the National Road to St. Louis. Hugging the banks of the Missouri it weaves through to Kansas City and the start of the Oregon Trail. Switching between the Mormon-California-Oregon Trails and the route of the Pony Express, the line forges across the Wild West tracking the old railbed of the first transcontinental railroad before linking back with the California Trail in Nevada. Diverting north on Lassen's Cut-Off, the journey ends by weaving south through the Sierra Nevadas to Coloma, where gold was first discovered, and thence to Sacramento.