In the earlier days of the California gold excitement the main road from Truckee and Dormer Lake went into Nevada County and thus on to Sacramento.

In 1862 the supervisors of Placer County, urged on by the merchants, sent up a gang of men from Placerville to build a road from Squaw Valley, into the Little American Valley, down the Forest Hill Divide, thus hoping to bring the emigrant travel to Forest Hill, Michigan Bluff, and other parts of Placer County.
It was also argued that emigrants would be glad to take this new road as all the pasture along the other road was "eaten off." Over this historic road we are now about to ride.
As we look up it is a forbidding prospect.

Only brave men and sanguine would ever have dared to contemplate such a plan.

The mountain cliffs, separated and split, arise before us as impassable barriers.

Yet one branch of the old trail used to pass through the divide to the right, over to Hopkins Springs, while the one that was converted into the wagon road took the left-hand canyon to the main divide.
We now begin to ascend this road at the head of Squaw Valley, and in five minutes, or less, are able to decide _why_ it was never a success.