American Experience: Heavy snow traps travelers George and Jacob Donner, James Frazier Reed and their families in the High Sierras in winter 1846.

This is a historic story of survival and endurance.

Your unlikely to glean many specific survival tips from the show other than: follow the advice of people who have made the trip before; don't try out new 'shortcuts' when time is getting tight; don't assume you can 'make up time on the trail' or that nature will 'cut you a break'.

Some of the biggest lessons are rather subtle. One has to do with group dynamics and how people select and follow leaders even when those leaders may not know what they are doing. How this can cause delays and indecision and then a rush to action that can end tragically.

But also it has to be noted that there is a social aspect to survival. The groups that stayed tight and stuck together, a family in this case, fared the best.

One thing I find poignant is that long before the dying started the group was doomed. Their fate had been decided months before.

It's on at 9PM on my local PBS station. Check your listings for your local PBS station. It is also likely to be rebroadcast, one of the benefits of having to fill the digital broadcast time.

Edited for grammar.

When I was a teenager, the family took a trip out west. One of our stops was at the place in the Sierras where these events occurred. I remember a monument there where a statue of the Donners was atop a very tall pedestal, well over twenty feet high. The plaque said that the height of the pedestal represented the depth of the snow that winter. It obviousy made a lasting impression on this teenager, now a greybeard.

ARGH!

I don't get a PBS channel here. I need to get cable back. I thought I'd never say that.

Here's some of it, maybe all of it--don't have time to watch, now...

http://video.pbs.org/video/1401950336/

I'm on a dismally slow dial-up connection so streaming videos are an exercise in frustration but as I understand it the most, if not all, of this show, and many other interesting subjects, are available on from the PBS site.

Just watched it. Man, what a trip. Things just kept getting worse and worse.

The Donner party had to literally chop their way through woods and up mountains. Often making just a couple of miles a day. And then to have the snow come the day they were climbing the final summit and have to turn back. Having lost most of their oxen and few supplies left it had to be a bone crushing disappointment.

IMHO that is one of the lessons. That your ability to hang on long term and endure in the face of repeated disappointment and setbacks can be as vital as all your material preparations. The ones that made it had a lot of grit.

That and when taking a long trip in a group it's always a good idea to set aside supply of "fava beans and a nice chianti". No reason not to be civilized about it.

Two lines that caught my attention were:
Don't take any cutoffs and hurry up every chance you get.
If I don't see you again; do the best you can.

Art-
I use Downloadhelper
http://www.downloadhelper.net/
to download online videos, then use VLC http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
to play them back. It's a lot....buffering....less.....buffering....frustrating to watch them. You'll still have to wait for the download, but you'll be able to watch them "whole," once the download is complete.

I will have to give those a try UncleGoo.

Read the book "Ordeal by Hunger" by George Stewart. Read it years ago, and constantly recommend it to people. Frightening, heartbreaking, and a great account of perseverance.