Leaving Yokohama for San Francisco aboard the Oceanic on Jan. 7, 1890, Nellie immediately encountered a four-day storm that practically brought progress to a halt. Much to her relief, the storm finally abated, and the world’s fastest ship eventually made up almost all of the lost time and arrived in San Francisco Bay on Jan. 21, actually a day ahead of Nellie’s schedule. All the local and even national newspapers trumpeted her arrival. Things looked incredibly promising for her to break Fogg’s record. Nellie was due to arrive back in New York City on Jan. 26, which would make the trip around-the-world in 73 days. And then, two serious problems arose.
A terrible blizzard had pummeled the American West and shut down all railroad traffic. Seven feet had fallen on the Sierras, the largest snowfall ever recorded, with drifts of twenty feet on the California side and thirty to sixty feet on the Nevada side. The Donner Pass was closed for 15 days. “I read of the impassable snow blockade,” wrote Nellie, “and my despair knew no bounds.” Ironically, she had traveled over eighteen thousand miles without a missed connection or delay, but now, in her own country, she faced the most serious challenge to her goal. As the World put it, “Guessers who felt quite sure that all elements of uncertainty would be practically eliminated after Miss Bly reached San Francisco will see that there is more uncertainty now than at any time during the journey.”
As if that weren’t enough, Elizabeth Bisland was making great time and encountering no such weather problems on her westward journey from Ceylon to Europe. She arrived in Brindisi, Italy on Jan. 16, and was now heading on the mail train toward Paris. If all went according to schedule, she would arrive in New York on Jan. 22 — Nellie’s projected arrival date before the snow blockade in the West. John Brisben Walker, Bisland’s publisher at Cosmopolitan, was confident that Bisland would win the race and spread the word among the press that she, and not Nellie Bly, would arrive first back to New York.