Pioneer Trek

In our stake, every three years, they put on a pioneer trek for the youth, handcarts and all. Mikah participated and James was portable support. (You can ask him what that means.) They wanted me to go, but they didn't want to deal with the other three kids.

They were bused in to a wilderness area just north of Boise, that was the last of the air conditioning. They were put into families and started off. Along the way they put them in a few situations similar to the pioneers. After the first day, it was put to them that they should turn back, that they wouldn't make it. No one wanted to turn back. I don't know what they would have done if they truly wanted to turn back The next day, they took all the men for the Mormon battalion. They lined them up along the sides of one of the steepest hills they had to climb and had to watch as the women pulled the handcarts up by themselves. The last day just outside of final destination, they allowed them to enter in to Placerville with no shoes on, just as the pioneer entered the Salt Lake valley. They had family and friends waiting to greet them.

They had a fireside after they got back and showed a slide presentation of what they did. I don't know if I would have been able to do what they did. 29 miles in 4 days pulling a handcart. I guess you just have to remember that the pioneer didn't have the conviences that we do now. There was no other way they were going to get to the Salt Lake valley. For those of you that have a copy of James Leithead's story, he does have their account of their handcart trek.