Feasibility Study

4-Trails Feasibility Study - The California Trail Study Routes

The National Park Service (NPS) is preparing a feasibility study to evaluate some 64 routes for possible addition to the Oregon, California, Mormon Pioneer, and Pony Express National Historic Trails. This study was authorized by Congress — in response to years of sustained public interest — under the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009.

The 41 California Trail study routes listed in the Act are shown in the table below.

Eastern Routes	Central Routes	Western Routes
Blue-Mills-Independence Road	Cherokee Trail, including splits	Bidwell-Bartleson
Westport Landing Road	Weber Canyon Route of Hastings Cutoff	Georgetown- Dagget Pass Trail
Westport-Lawrence Road	Bishop Creek Cutoff	Big Trees Road
Fort Leavenworth- Blue River	McCauley Cutoff	Grizzly Flat Cutoff
Road to Amazonia	Diamond Springs Cutoff	Nevada City Road
Union Ferry	Secret Pass	Yreka Trail
Old Wyoming- Nebraska City Cutoff	Greenhorn Cutoff	Hennes Pass
Lower Plattsmouth	Central Overland Trail	Johnson Cutoff
Lower Bellevue		Luther Pass Trail
Woodbury Cutoff		Volcano Road
Blue Ridge Cutoff		Sacramento-Coloma Wagon Road
Westport Road		Burnett Cutoff
Gum Springs-Fort Leavenworth		Placer County Road to Auburn
Atchison- Independence Creek
Fort Leavenworth-Kansas River
Nebraska City Cutoff
Minersville-Nebraska City Road
Upper Plattsmouth
Upper Bellevue

 

The eastern routes are generally situated from the east bank of the Missouri River in Iowa and Missouri, through eastern Kansas, and across Nebraska. The central routes are generally in Wyoming, northern Utah, and eastern Nevada. The western routes are in Nevada and California. Some of the study routes, such as the Overland Trail and the Bidwell-Bartleson Route, cross more than one of these geographic regions.

Other trails in the feasibility study include Oregon National Historic Trail, Pony Express National Historic Trail, and Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail.

Please visit the website dedicated to this project at: http://parkplanning.nps.gov/projectHome.cfm?projectID=31277

There you can find scoping meetings dates and locations, add your name on the project contact list, review scoping reports and other documents, enter comments, and generally follow the progress of the study.

The map below shows the general location of trail routes. Please click on the map to enlarge.

 

Map of 4-Trails Feasibility Study Trail Routes (162 KB pdf)

 

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