The California Trail is an emigrant trail of about three thousand miles (forty-eight hundred kilometers) across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri River towns to what is now the state of California
After it is established, the first half of the California Trail follows the same corridor of networked river valley trails as the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail, namely the valleys of the Platte, North Platte and Sweetwater rivers to Wyoming
In the present states of Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah, the California and Oregon trails split into several different trails or cutoffs.
