For nearly two centuries they have been telling the story of the days of the wagon trains heading west to Oregon and California. This mass migration saw nearly half a million people take the life or death gamble to start new lives in far away wilderness. In some places freeways or farms cover the old trails — but we found a group of passionate volunteers researching, marking and trying to save the old trails used by pioneers moving west in the 1840’s and 1850’s.

Teams from Trails West and the Oregon-California Trails Association are preserving the old trails used on the “Great Western Migration.” A team from Trails West took us on a section of the old Applegate Trail — a sort of short cut for pioneers heading toward Oregon. Big sections are without water, in arid desert and even today cross a forbidding landscape.

Along the Oregon, California and Mormon Trail, you find the signs of their work — the preservation of this important part of American History. Because out here, they are Hunting the Trails.