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From Off the Road Database
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<p>From Auburn the climb commenced, and when Colfax was reached and passed, Mr. Winton was busy with his skillful knowledge in crowding the machine up steep mountain grades, along dangerous shelf roads from which one might look deep into canons and listen to the distant roaring of rushing waters below.
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<p>We at last got through the New Hampshire Rocks and began calculating what would be our fate in the snow immediately to be encountered. The Cascade Creek, swollen by the melting mountain snows to river proportions, caused a halt about one-half mile west from the commencement of what was expected to be bothersome snow.
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<p>Ordinarily there would be great danger in speed under such conditions—and there may have been risk to life and limb at the time, but I knew Mr. Winton, I knew him for his skill and that there was no call for nervousness with him at the wheel, so I sat back and enjoyed the scenery.
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<p>Arrived at the Gap and Mr. Winton soon developed uneasiness because of the enforced delay in the trip. Next morning he announced his intention of making a temporary repair and working ahead slowly through the snow.
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<p>Passed the night comfortably, and when the road was taken next morning (May 29) at 6 o'clock, the sun was shining and Mr. Gates predicted no rain for the day.
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<p>The water in the stream was clear and sparkling, the current swift, and the bottom filled with huge sharp rocks. Mr. Winton pulled in the lever, the machine forged ahead. Splash and bump, bump and splash. Front wheels struck something big and hard, they went up in the air and when coming down, almost at the east bank, the right front wheel with a wet tire struck a wet slanting rock. The wheel was hard put, something must give way—and it did. The front axle on the right side sustained an injury, and after a lurch ahead the machine came to a sudden standstill.
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<p>After twelve hours' severe experience and the rain still pouring down, halt is made abreast of a lane leading to a ranchman's home. This ranchman is A. W. Butler. He came down to the road and replying to interrogations tells you that to Rio Vista, nine miles ahead, the road is particularly bad because of plowing and grading. Arrangements are made for our staying all night with him. The machine is run in his barn, we eat supper with intense relish, go to bed and get up early to find more rain, but a breaking up of the clouds with prospect of sunshine later.
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<p>It was the universal opinion that if the machine could stand the punishment sure to be inflicted between the Gap and Donner Lake, it would not be troubled at any point east of the Sierras, between Truckee, Cal., and New York City. Leaving Emigrant Gap, the game commenced in earnest. Unbridged streams were encountered and the machine took to the water like a duck in high spirits. Splash she would go in, and drenched she would come out. The water would many times come up as high as the motor and up would go our feet to prevent them getting wet.
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<p>Reached Wadsworth splashed and covered with mud, wet through and hungry. Spent night at Wadsworth. Residents warned Mr. Winton about sand, more especially the sand hill just east of the town. Next morning we took on stock of rations and drinking water. That "sand hill," or rather the remembrance of it and the balance of our trip to Desert Station that day, are like the remembrance of another beastly nightmare.
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<p>We found the roads somewhat improved and on and on we went through that vast country of magnificent distances. We were in the country where rattlesnakes were thickest, near Pyramid Rock, of which one writer says: "This rock pyramid is alleged to be the home of rattlesnakes so numerous as to defy extermination."
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<p>All during the afternoon, it rained and the wind blew a gale, but the temperature was high and we did not mind. Had it not been for the rain and its cooling effect there on the sand and sage brush desert, I doubt whether we could have stood it.
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<p>Next morning, May 22, at 6:45 o'clock, the ascent was recommenced. Up and up we went, winding around and turning in many directions--but always up. From Gold Run we passed along through Dutch Flat, Towle, Blue Canon, Emigrant Gap, Cisco, and on to Cascade. Roads became particularly rugged after leaving Gold Run, and when we reached Emigrant Gap the few inhabitants who make that their home told us fully what rock roads and snow deposits would have to be encountered between their station and across the summit down to Donner Lake.
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<p>When, after serious deliberation, he decided to abandon the trip he said: "If I attempt this game again, I will construct a machine on peculiar lines. No man who expects to operate in the civilized portions of this continent would take the machine for his individual service about cities and throughout ordinary country, but I tell you it will go through sand—and this quicksand at that."
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<p>"Not on your life," retorted the plucky automobilist; into the carriage I jumped, he pulled the lever and off we went. The course led up a hill, but there was enough bottom to the sand to give the wheels a purchase and from the hill summit we forged down into the valley where the country was comparatively level. Nothing in sight but sage brush and sand, sand and sage brush.
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<p>Rock roads and deep snow in the high Sierras were encountered and mastered, streams were forded and washouts passed, adobe mud into which the machine sank deep and became tightly imbedded failed to change the plucky operator's mind about crowding the motor eastward toward the hoped-for goal. It was the soft, shifting, bottomless, rolling sand—not so bad to look upon from car windows, but terrible when actually encountered— that caused the abandonment of the enterprise and resulted in the announcement by wire to eastern newspaper connections that the trip was "off."
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<p>All morning the sky, which during the three weeks preceding had been clear and bright, was heavy with clouds. Before the opposite bank of the Sacramento was touched, the clouds opened. And what an opening it was. Adobe roads when dry and hard hold out opportunities for good going, but when the sponge-like soil is soaked with moisture, when your wheels cut in, spin around, slip and slide from the course and suddenly your machine is off the road and into the swamp ditch—buried to the axles in the soft "doby"—then the fun begins.
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<p>Covering the North American continent from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic Ocean in an automobile has been attempted by Alexander Winton, president of The Winton Motor Carriage Company, of Cleveland. That the expedition failed is no fault of the machine Mr. Winton used, nor was it due to absence of grit or determination on the part of the operator. Neither was the failure due to roads. The utter absence of roads was the direct and only cause.
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<p>Reached Gold Run at 7:40 P.M., just in time to escape darkness and avoid going into camp on the mountain side. On such roads, or, rather, surrounded as we were by canons, operation in the dark could not be regarded as safe. Our run that day was 123 miles.
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<p>Got upon the road 7:40 A.M. Reached Rio Vista and two miles further on to "Old River" at 8:40. Go east on the levee road, which is of adobe formation with steep descending banks on both sides. On the left side is the river; the opposite bank runs down to a thicket, beyond which are orchards. Slide off the treacherous road on either side and nothing short of a derrick and wrecking crew could serve to a practical and satisfactory end.
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<p>When the New Hampshire Rocks were met, trouble seemed to be ahead. I asked Mr. Winton if he would put the machine to what appeared to me the supreme and awful test. "Of course I will," was the short and meaning answer, and on went the machine. One big bump and I shot into the air like a rocket. I was not thrown from the machine, however, and thereafter busied myself hanging on with hands and bracing with feet. At every turn and twist in the road, the rocks grew larger, and I wondered if anything mechanical could stand the terrible punishment.
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