The Storm Seekers

Description

'The sense of time, space and wilderness is admirably, sometimes piercingly conveyed' - OBSERVER 'She has the happy knack of capturing the tenseness and excitement of each moment and sharing it with the reader' - TIMES EDUCATIONAL SUPPLEMENT In the autumn of 1848 a party of thirty-four men left the Missouri River bound for the uncharted Rocky Mountains of Colorado, to find a route for the first railway through the American West. There were two thousand miles of wilderness, and the leader, John Charles Fremont, was taking them into the worst winter in living memory. In sub-zero temperatures, they endured blizzards that lasted for days on end. There were clashes of personality, appalling mistakes in judgement, and amazing courage. Inevitably there was starvation. Holed up, they ate the mules, their candles and their boots. Here, Gwen Moffat retraces the footsteps of this disastrous expedition.