From the moment we meet James Frazier Reed -- proud, headstrong, yet a devoted husband and father -- traveling with his wife and four children in the "Palace Car", a huge, specially built covered wagon transporting the Reeds in style, the stage is set for trouble. And trouble comes quickly as flaring tempers separate Reed from the others, and as fateful wrong decisions cause the group to arrive at the foot of the Sierra Nevadas too late to cross into the promised land before the snows block the way.

The novel follows Reed on his solo passage over the mountains ahead of the storms, and during the next five months as he tries to rescue his family. And through the amazingly imagined "Trail Notes" of Patty Reed, recollecting late in life her experiences as a child, we also follow the main group, progressively stranded and starving on the Nevada side of the Sierras.

Snow Mountain Passage is an extraordinary tale of pride and redemption, of the sheer endurance and bravery required in the creation of a new country, and of the thrilling early days of California.