Emigrant Gap is a gap in a ridge on the California Trail as it crosses the Sierra Nevada, to the west of what is now known as Donner Pass. Here the cliffs are so steep that, back in the 1840s, the pioneers on their way to California had to lower their wagons on ropes in order to continue. The Emigrant Gap was so named because it was a low gap on a ridge where the emigrants' wagons crossed from the American River drainage to the Bear River drainage.