QUARTET'S DONNER TREK PASSES 100-MILE MARK.

Byline: Daily News

PALMDALE -- Antelope Valley College professor Lee Bergthold and three companions have traveled more than 100 miles in their 250-mile hike across eastern Nevada.

Bergthold and companions Al Caler, Tina Bowers and Connie Bolton-Simpkins are a day ahead of schedule after spending more than a week crossing three mountain ranges, so they plan to rest Thursday at a place called Rock House.

``They're going to refuel their bodies and kick back,'' said friend Mike Babcock, who is in touch with the hikers. ``They've lost a lot of weight but their spirits are good.''

The foursome hope to arrive June 6 at the community of Battle Mountain, on Interstate 80 in north-central Nevada.

The trek is the third and final phase of Bergthold's effort to investigate alternate routes that could have been taken by the pioneer Donner party, whose 1846 wagon-train trip allegedly ended in cannibalism while snowbound in the Sierra Nevada.

Bergthold, a former Marine Corps survival instructor who teaches photography at AVC, and Bowers hiked 350 miles from Battle Mountain to the fringes of Death Valley in December 1996 and January 1997.

In December 1999 and January 2000, Bergthold, Bowers and Caler hiked from Death Valley to the Salton Sea, covering 350 miles in 35 days.

This trek started May 6 north of Wendover, Utah, at a place called Donner Springs, where the Donner family and their wagon-train companions ended a disastrous shortcut that took them through the Wasatch Mountains east of what is now Salt Lake City and across Utah's salt flats.

Bergthold's party has been averaging about 11 1/2 miles a day, Babcock said. Temperatures have reached around 80 degrees in the afternoons.