When we returned to Truckee, I committed to learning about the place. I wanted to be more than a tourist. I wanted to learn something of the history, culture, geology, and biology of this town that Hannah and I love so much. Reading about the Donner Party seemed like a natural place to start, which led me to purchase The Best Land Under Heaven. We also visited the Donner Memorial State Park Museum. We browsed the various exhibits recounting the dreadful history of the Donner Party, which nicely complemented the book, but it was a separate exhibit on the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad that truly caught my attention.

In the late 1860s, thousands of Chinese migrants converged in the uppermost heights of the Sierra Nevada near Truckee, to build the most difficult stretch of the Transcontinental Railroad. It was grim, difficult, and dangerous work. Track wound along precarious mountain summits. In numerous places, these migrants had to blast their way through solid granite using black powder. When that proved too slow, demanding administrators introduced nitroglycerin. As many as 1,200 Chinese migrants lost their lives. What they accomplished was extraordinary: the completion of a railway through some of the most hostile terrain in the country, a feat that many experts considered impossible. A transcontinental trip that used to last months could now be completed in days. This iron weaving came just years after the Civil War, during a time of healing, reconstruction, and reunification of a broken country.

I knew the general contours of this history, but like most Americans, never gave it much thought. My U.S history textbook in high school mentioned the terrible conditions under which Chinese railroad workers constructed American railroads. At Stanford, my kids and I took a moment to marvel at the golden spike, which Leland Stanford ceremoniously hammered into place, completing the railroad.

However, an exhibit at the Donner Memorial State Park Museum triggers another association: one that hits closer to home.

Back at the van, I fish out my Kindle and search through my digital copy of East of Eden, my favorite novel.

East of Eden is a magisterial book, as weighty as scripture, spanning multiple generations in a profound contemplation of the human condition. Each character speaks to me in different ways, but one of my favorite characters in the book—perhaps in all of literature—is Lee, the free Chinese servant of Adam Trask, one of the book’s main characters. When Lee first appears, he speaks pidgin, a dialect that evokes all the worst stereotypes of Chinese migrants to the U.S. Later, we discover that Lee is a sophisticated autodidact who speaks English not just fluently but eloquently. Lee is a genius, well-versed in many academic disciplines and gifted with deep emotional intelligence and a keen understanding of human nature. Even so, he shows extraordinary humility as well as loyalty to the Trask family.

Like Mark Twain’s humanizing depiction of Black slaves and fierce criticism of slavery, Steinbeck’s depiction of Lee feels ahead of its time. Lee speaks pidgin in public, he says, because that’s all most people can see and hear: “Pidgin they expect, and pidgin they’ll listen to. But English from me they don’t listen to, and so they don’t understand it.” Steinbeck seems acutely aware of his society’s deep prejudice against Chinese-Americans, and he endows Lee with traits that showcase the best of humanity.

Lee’s wisdom, empathy, and sensitivity to the goodness and suffering of the human condition do not come out of nowhere; they were forged in hardship. In Chapter 28, during a conversation with Adam Trask about whether Adam should disclose a difficult truth to his boys, Lee recounts his father sharing the terrible truth behind Lee’s birth.

This is the passage I vaguely remember, as I look at the museum poster board with its grainy photos and captions about Chinese railroad builders. There is a connection here.

I find it quickly. Describing his parents’ migration from China to the U.S., Lee says, “In San Francisco the flood of muscle and bone flowed into cattle cars and the engines puffed up the mountains. They were going to dig hills aside in the Sierras and burrow tunnels under the peaks.”

This is it! This is the connection I was grasping for. Lee’s parents toiled in these very mountaintops, above the town of Truckee, near Donner Summit. I can see their handiwork every time Hannah and I climb here. Each time we clamber up onto the slab of School Rock, we can see the ugly serpentine tunnel wending its way through the opposing rock face, just beneath Donner Peak.

Previously, I held the tunnels in contempt. I saw them as symbols of bold visions sold by fortune-seeking developers. I have read so much about the environmental calamities unleashed by entrepreneurial humans in these mountains, like the drowning of the Hetch Hetchee Valley behind the O’Shaughnessy Dam. Developers even wanted to drown Yosemite Valley, a crime against nature so terrible that it makes me shudder; thank God other voices prevailed. These tunnels seem to fit that pattern: festering wounds carelessly blasted through pristine granite older than human history. I understand their existence—human civilization always requires compromises with wilderness—but every time I look at them, they remind me that our taming of wilderness entails a price.

Now, lifting my eyes from the pages of East of Eden, I see the tunnels in a different light. They have just flared to life in my imagination. They are now imbued with a story.

Accessing the tunnels is easy. AllTrails includes a Donner Tunnels Hike, which appears to run in a straight line for a mile and a half. When we first arrived in Truckee, Hannah’s local friend told us to avoid the tunnels, which she described as a filthy eyesore. We agreed.

The Lee connection changes everything. Not only is East of Eden my favorite novel, it holds a central place in Hannah’s and my relationship. Our romance began to flare when a friend pointed out her tattoo of the world TIMSHEL, a reference to the novel. When we began dating, Hannah and I read the novel again, as well as the journal Steinbeck kept while writing it. We met at Prevail Coffee dozens of mornings to discuss our insights.

There’s no choice in the matter: we need to visit the tunnels. We need to visit Lee’s family history.

I feel self-conscious, developing such a powerful connection with a place via a fictional character, when so many real human beings lived, labored, suffered, and died here. But perhaps that is what fiction offers: it distills human experience into Story, a pure and essential form that our minds and hearts are hardwired to latch onto. A heartfelt attachment to an entire people is too much to hold, but an attachment to one well-crafted individual comes easily. That individual stands as a representative, holding everything else.

Still, if Hannah and I are going to make a pilgrimage to the railroad tunnels at Donner Summit, I owe it to those real, historical Chinese railroad workers to learn more of their history. I return to Word After Word Books, where I pick up the best single-volume history available: Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad by Gordon H. Chang, a history professor at Stanford, my alma mater, another connection. The book grew out of a six-year, cross-disciplinary effort to painstakingly recover a history that had largely been lost and forgotten.

The bookstore’s owner, Andie, spots the book in my hand. “That’s a fantastic book,” she tells me. We chat a bit, and I ask her if she’s read East of Eden. To my delight, she has. I tell her about Lee’s parents, about the connection to Donner Summit. I’m eager to tell anyone who will listen. My googling hasn’t yielded any mention of the connection. I feel as though I’ve stumbled across a forgotten treasure.

I wonder if I’m imagining all this. Perhaps there were other summits, other tunnels. I wonder how much Steinbeck knew, where he lived, what influences shaped this particular chapter of this novel.

I discover that Steinbeck lived on Lake Tahoe for two years, early in his writing career. Very little is known of these years. He worked odd jobs without enthusiasm, then wrote his first novel during the winter snows.

Tahoe would have put him in close proximity to Truckee and Donner Summit. He was here. He knew.

The Tunnels are, as advertised, an eyesore. The AllTrails route begins in a dirt lot at the mouth of one tunnel opening. The amount of graffiti is staggering; every surface is covered, layered like geological sediment. In any given tunnel section, one could scrape through the brightly colored spraypaint to travel backward through time. The visible layer broadcasts today’s concerns. FUCK NETANYAHU, I read as I enter the tunnel.

According to East of Eden, Lee’s father grew up in a small village in the Cantonese-speaking region of southern China. When he fell into debt, his family repaid it. Now obligated to his family, Lee’s newly-married father repaid them with a signing bonus he earned by agreeing to work in the United States. Midway through the ocean crossing, Lee’s father discovered that his bride had smuggled herself aboard, disguised as a man. Only once she was aboard did she learn she was pregnant, which put them both in great danger. When the railroad company learned she was a woman, it would not treat her kindly.

Lee’s parents arrived on the California coast, then found their way up into the heights of the Sierra Nevada.

They likely arrived on this very mountain top, working this very tunnel.

The first tunnel feels the oldest: a black maw blasted and carved out of the mountain, leaving blocky unfinished edges behind. It took an entire crew of Chinese railroad workers a full day to advance a few inches. The floor is uneven. A trickle of water dribbles through. We sweep our flashlights over the walls, studying the graffiti, which is appalling but also breaks up the endless, monotonous dark. Endless names and initials. “JESUS” and a cross, Christian vandalism, always amusing. BUSH DID 9/11. TRANS IS BEAUTIFUL.

The tunnels are poorly cared for. They are on private property belonging to the Union Pacific Railroad but are not well maintained. Locals have been fighting to protect these tunnels as a national landmark, but they have not yet been successful; there are too many colliding interests. Union Pacific has never officially opened the tunnels for public access, partly due to liability concerns, even as it turns a blind eye to the hundreds of tourists who hike here each day. I wonder how they ensure the structural integrity of tunnels. Maybe they don’t; maybe one day a catastrophic collapse will bury tourists. The neglect of this place adds to the air of sorrow: a forgotten history, a forgotten people.

I imagine Lee’s parents here, slaving away in the dark, swinging hammers or setting explosives. In the later tunnels, which are fortified with more modern concrete slabs, we encounter thin gaps and windows. Outside, beyond the endless dark, is indescribable beauty: lush meadows bright with wildflowers, neighboring granite peaks, pine forests fiercely clinging to their slopes. These views must have been both a blessing and a torment to the Chinese laborers within these tunnels. Such stark beauty so close at hand, and so unattainable.

Lee’s parents, laboring in the underbelly of these mountains, knew they must escape before others discovered their secret. They hatched a plan, stashing away rice and scraps of clothing, fashioning fishing line and hooks. When they were ready, they would flee to some alpine meadow, where they could fashion a home for themselves and prepare for the baby.

Their hope was beautiful, fragile, desperate. Every time his father told the story, Lee says, he yearned for the outcome to be different. Just once, he wanted this fairy tale ending to come true.

The third tunnel goes on forever. This one feels modern, with straight edges and beams framing the rockpiles on the inner wall. We wonder about the history of drilling and improvement. There is no one to ask, no signboards offering explanations. It feels like an abandoned subway in a post-apocalyptic film. The only variation on the endless walk is the graffiti, but even that starts to feel repetitive. We smell urine.

Eventually, somewhere deep in the third tunnel, we turn back.

Back between the second and first tunnels is a grassy opening, with overgrown footpaths leading off into the mountain slopes. We scramble upward, eager to be in nature again, then stand looking back at the tunnels with their endless outflow of tourists.

This is the spot, I think. This is where Lee’s parents might have escaped. I imagine those little figures below as railroad workers, busy, heads down, not looking to the hills. It would be the easiest thing for Lee’s parents to turn their backs and keep walking, higher into the hills.

Alas, this was not to be. A terrible tragedy befell Lee’s parents before they could make their escape, a tragedy that shaped Lee’s upbringing and his life.

But Hannah and I are here, now. We could make their escape for them, a symbolic gesture, a re-enactment of a past that Lee’s parents only dreamed of.

We continue up the dirt path, leaving the tunnels behind. It carves through thick, bright foliage. I imagine us as Lee’s parents, terrified, excited, hopeful, out in the fresh mountain air with the sunlight pouring over us. Only a little further to alpine meadows, to freedom.

When our forest path ends in deep, sucking mud, we double back and ascend a different path up over the tunnel. It descends again on the far side of the mud. There is no trail here, just easy walking amidst rockfall and grass. Little flowers carpet the terrain. I can picture Lee’s mother here, plucking a few flowers, tucking them away for her baby.

I want to do something for them, something to commemorate the arrival they never had. Erect a small cairn, maybe, or carve their initials into a stone. But I don’t know their names, and even though this little pilgrimage is weighty and serious, I feel a little silly. I settle for pausing, soaking in the sights and sounds, and holding Lee’s parents in my memory.

I have a new appreciation for the “ghosts of Gold Mountain” who carved a path through these mountain heights. I’m only a short way into Chang’s book, but finishing it will be my next commitment, my way of honoring the real laborers who made these tunnels.

Our pilgrimage ends back at the dirt lot where our dusty van awaits. We leave memory and imagination behind and return to the modern world, conceived by entrepreneurial visionaries with their dams and railways and interstates, and built by laborers like Lee’s parents. We start up the van and descend on a pleasant high back to Truckee, repeating the benefits of their work.