Two men named Gerry are driving through the desert regions of Death Valley, traveling towards an unknown destination. They pull over and set out on foot, presuming they're getting close to what they've come to find. Before long, the Gerry's are lost in an unforgiving desert without food, water, or other provisions, and the harder they try to find their way back to their car, they only dig themselves deeper and deeper into the desert.

At the height of the California gold rush in 1849, a wagon train of men, women, children, and their animals stumbled into a 130-mile-long valley in the Mojave Desert while they were looking for a shortcut to the California coast. What ensued was an ordeal that divided the camp into remnants and struck them with hunger, thirst, and a terrible sense of being lost beyond hope, until a twenty-nine-year-old hero volunteered to cross the desert to get help....