Approximate location — plotted from published sources, not a site visit, and not a guarantee of access.
Alkali plain between the Humboldt Sink and the Carson/Truckee river corridors—the most dreaded dry stretch of the California Emigrant Trail. Mid-1800s parties crossed waterless flats where graves, abandoned gear, and stock carcasses marked the route; today the landscape is open desert playa and scrub best read from highway markers and short interpretive stops rather than off-trail wandering.