Pioneer Trek

 Luke and I were asked to be a "Ma & Pa" on the Pioneer Trek for the youth in our ward. Since we live in Wyoming we got to travel along the actual trail that the pioneers traveled to get to Salt Lake City. We walked thirty miles over two days pulling handcarts. Our ward had three handcarts and one rickshaw.

Here we are starting at Sixth Crossing nice and rested and clean and ready to start our journey!

This was our little handcart "family."

A lot of the land we traveled through is owned by the BLM. They required all the leaders to attend a 45 minute meeting to lay out all their strict rules. The main rule was to never leave the trail! So we had to wait for certain stopping points for bathroom breaks.

They looked like little log cabins, but were just port-a-potties in disguise.

At one point along the trek we did a Women's Pull to represent when the all the men were called away to form the Mormon Battalion or were too sick to pull. All the men hiked to the top of the hill while all the girls and women pulled the carts up the hill. Our ward only had about three girls per cart. At one point I thought I might pass out but we made it to the top!

When we finally pulled into camp for the evening the tents were already set up. We were very grateful! After dinner and a short fireside given by the stake president we called it a night.

We started bright and early the next day with some biscuits and gravy before packing up camp and hitting the trail. 

The weather was pretty cool for a little while which was a nice change. We shared some pioneer stories and sang some hymns along the way.

When we got to Rocky Ridge we found out how it got it's name. The rocks could not be avoided as they came in huge ridges that you just had to push over. We thought the carts would break, but none did.

Past Rocky Ridge we were happy to be nearly home. Everyone was in good spirits after we rested and had lunch.

After hours in the sun we were aching for some shade (me!). Every time we stopped people grabbed water and looked for a good place to sit or hide in the shade which was pretty much what was made by our carts.

 When we got back home we found Batman in our back yard! We found that appropriate since "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises" opened this weekend so we took Luke's parents to go see it. They didn't like it as much as we did.