Youth Pioneer Trek

This past weekend, Rick and I had the opportunity to be a Ma and Pa for our Stake Youth Conference pioneer trek. We had never been on a trek before but looked forward to be able to experience what the early pioneers had to face as they travelled from Illinois to Utah. It was a lot of work getting everything ready for the trek, but we were excited for the experience. The Stake devided the youth up so that no one really knew each other very well in each "family" so that the youth would all get to know each other better. We had a great group of youth - hard working strong boys and determined and positive girls. We called our family "Porter's Posse" after Porter Rockwell, a body guard to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and also a U.S. Marshall.

Once all our family had arrived for the trek (minus Jason and Ce-Ce who wouldn't be able to do the first leg of the trek), we loaded up everyone's gear into our handcart and joined with the 2nd company to start our trek.

Most of the family during the trek on Friday evening

Savannah, Tarryn, Shelby, me, and Katie getting ready to head up a hill

Everyone had to help whenever we came to a hill

"Heart attack hill" - we were a bit scared once we saw it

Enjoying an easy section of the trek

Pa Chase and the boys were in the front of the handcart most of the time

The girls pushed from the back

Cavan, George, and Dallan taking a break before a big hill

Thank goodness we had such strong boys!

We had to hurry to get to our camp before it got dark

Once we got to our first stop, the boys set up our tents while the girls made up sandwiches for dinner. After dinner there were speakers that shared pioneer stories with the youth and then we had a family devotional. We got to bed around 11:00 and all had a hard time sleeping (I hurt my knee that first day and it throbbed all night long).

Saturday morning we had to be up at 6:00 to eat and take down camp. All our kids were great about getting us loaded back into our handcart since we wanted to be some of the first handcarts that would leave. Once we were all ready, everyone met in the meadow where the men and boys were all taken to join the Mormon Battalion. The women all watched the men get into groups and get ready to leave for awhile. We were definately nervous about having to push the handcart without our men!

The battalion heading up a hill - we hoped they wouldn't go too far!

As we first left camp, we travelled on flat paths, but soon enough we reached a nasty hill. I was really hoping the men would arrive just in time to save us, but we had no such luck. At first, we we able to push and pull up the hill but before we made it half way up, all the handcarts had to start doubling and tripling up the women so that we could get each handcart to the top. It was neat to see the girls get a handcart to the top and then imediately turn around and go back to help another group. Most people helped 2-3 carts up the hill and we were beat once we were finished - but we felt such a sense of accomplishment being able to do it on our own without the men.

At the top of the hill, we had a visit from Mary Fielding Smith who told us about how she got her children to Utah without being a burden to the company she travelled in. It was an inspiring story of the strength of a woman! After her story, the men joined us and we were so happy to have our strength back.

We had plenty more hills, but somehow they seemed much easier with the whole family together again.

Finally we headed downhill and into the valley where we would make our camp for the rest of the youth conference. (The downhill parts were sometimes just as hard as the uphill parts because the handcarts were so heavy that we had to keep them from running away from us)

Once we made it to our camp, we set up our tents again and enjoyed the activities the rest of the afternoon. (I'll post pictures of those separately) Doing this trek gave us a small glimpse of what our pioneer ancestors had to go through to enjoy living in religious peace. We are so grateful that they endured such hardships so that the church could thrive and we can all reap the rewards of their efforts.