<Li> Emigration Canyon (Donner Hill) (1,283 miles (2,065 km) west)--About a year before the Latter - day Saint emigrants, the Reed--Donner wagon train carved the first road through the final geographic obstacle between Big Mountain and the Salt Lake Valley . About halfway through, the group changed course and went up and around the final constriction near the valley's mouth . The resulting exhaustingly brutal climb over rock and sage most likely contributed to the historic tragedy that befell the travelers three months and 600 miles (970 km) to the west . When an advance team from the Latter - day Saint vanguard company came through, it chose to stick to the valley floor and hacked its way through to the bench overlooking the Great Salt Lake basin in less than four hours . </Li> <Li> Salt Lake Valley (1,297 miles (2,087 km) west)--Although the Salt Lake Valley had a special meaning to each emigrant, signifying the end of more than a year of crossing the plains, not all of the pioneering Saints settled in the Salt Lake Valley . Settlement outside the Salt Lake Valley began as early as 1848, with a number of communities planted in the Weber valley to the north . Additional townsites were carefully chosen, with settlements placed near canyon mouths with access to dependable streams and stands of timber . Latter - day Saints founded more than 600 communities from Canada down into Mexico . As historian Wallace Stegner stated, the Latter - day Saints "were one of the principal forces in the settlement of the West ." </Li>

Distance from winter quarters to salt lake city