A cold wind from the Blue Mountains carries the scent of sagebrush as it whips your face. Each step stirs dust on the dry path in this high desert plateau in eastern Oregon, where hundreds of thousands of American pioneers walked, changing the course of history.
A roadside sign beneath Flagstaff Hill points the way to this path, where you can walk in the actual ruts made during the mid-1800s by the wagon trains on the Oregon Trail.
The sage and other brush along the trail may have thinned or thickened over time, but the vista is undoubtedly the same as that seen by the adventurers who made the 2,000-mile, six-month-long trek to the Oregon Territory in the American West. A tan-and-green valley covers the foreground, and the majestic and imposing forested Blue Mountains dominate the sky.
It's impossible to ignore the ghosts of the pioneers who walked this way and helped shape America's destiny. With at least a month's journey still ahead at this point, did they appreciate the beauty of the mountain view? Or was it just stark evidence of another near-impossible task to master?
This year, Oregon is marking the 175th anniversary of the trail, commemorating the first large, organized wagon train that left in late May of 1843 from near Independence, Mo.
There were diary accounts made at the time and shortly thereafter, but even still, details about that group vary widely. Some say as many as 1,000 people began the trek; others say it was between 500 and 700 people in 113 wagons, with as many as 5,000 livestock along for good measure.
What's clear is that the U.S. government encouraged people to make the journey, hoping that a greater population of Americans in the Oregon Territory would help wrest control of the disputed land from the British.
Politicians were determined to expand the United States "from one ocean to the other," but individuals were looking for a better life after economic woes hit during the 1830s, said Kelly Burns, supervisory park ranger at the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center near Baker City.
But there was more to it than that. The sense of adventure and the monumental challenge of traveling so far and so long into mostly uncharted territory shows determination.
