My experience on Pioneer Trek

Now that we've been home from trek for a week, I'm ready to kind of give a run-down of our experience. Pioneer trek is an activity (often attended by church groups) where you bring very basic supplies, get sorted into a "family", load your supplies into a handcart, and pull the handcart to various places for several days along a rocky dirt path, setting up camps each night to rest. This gives you the slightest glimpse of what the pioneers went through to get here and settle our state. We only went for 4 days and 3 nights and we went during the summer, with plenty of clothing and food and water to get through. Pioneers would have gone in all kinds of weather and been at it for months at a time while struggling to be adequately clothed or fed or hydrated. Many died along the way. The hubbie and I were a "ma" and "pa" and we were given 7 "children" for the week, 3 girls and 4 boys.

I should say that I've wanted to go so badly since I was 13 years old. My church group was going that year but you had to be 14 to go so I missed the chance. I love physical challenges (that seem within my ability to accomplish). My little bro & his wife went and had a great experience as a ma & pa and I wanted that, too. We were not originally selected to go and I felt heartbroken but we campaigned and were asked eventually to do it and I felt like all my dreams were coming true.

I did all the preparations that were suggested (other than reading all the books on the list because we were called to the task too late to have enough time for that). I did all the physical activity required to prepare and wrote a personal history and learned songs and engaged in many pioneer activities and research. We left on a Wednesday. The Sunday before, my ears were really plugged up. On Monday they started ringing nonstop. It continued on Tuesday. I did everything I could possibly learn of to try to get them back to normal. Nothing made a difference. On Wednesday morning, my ears were still ringing. I was very frustrated. We met our "kids" and had breakfast together. There were a few hundred people in the room and it was noisy as can be and my ears were very plugged and very ring-y so it was hard for me to enjoy introductions with the kids. We got on a bus and headed out. Somewhere along the way, the ringing stopped and my ears became unplugged. I was incredibly grateful for this one little difference so once we arrived, I could actually hear properly.

The first day was our longest and we walked 9.4 miles. I was excited for it but didn't realize that more of our kids would try to get out of helping than not so much of the weight of getting our cart where we needed fell to Preston & I. I have no problem walking long distances. Walking long distances while pulling a handcart...very different experience. It was exhausting. We had one kid though that really carried the group. I saw him get exhausted and that just made his determination and commitment grow. He was a workhorse! We got to our camp for the night and still had to set up camp. We had a tent for the girls and homemade tarp structure for the boys. We had a very nice, fairly new tent. It had been fine the last time we used it but when we went to set it up, a part was broken. Luckily in modern day, we have duct tape so we were able to tape it up to make it usable. Two of our girls just immediately went to sleep in the tent instead of really interacting. We were supposed to have kind of a spiritual discussion with our kids but they were all so worn out that I don't think any of them were really open to it so that didn't go over that well. Everybody went to bed for the night. My body ached in crazy ways and I couldn't get comfortable so I didn't sleep well at all. I realized that I was raised very differently than these kids. When I grew up and went to Girls Camp and things like that, we were told to pack as little as possible so it was always just a sleeping bag. I had only packed a sleeping bag. Every single kid had packed some kind of padding. Some weren't too big but some were very big and bulky and I could tell that we were raised very differently. We woke up the next day and got going. I was more nervous about the day because I was starting out unrested and very sore. I was also sick about doing a woman's pull later in the day. That would be where the men went up ahead and the women would be responsible for pushing the carts up a challenging hill alone. This was to teach us the strength that was required from women alone when the men died or were away doing other necessary tasks and couldn't be with the women yet so many pioneer women continued anyway. I didn't feel like my 3 daughters and I could get our cart up a challenging hill with just us yet I was the adult so I felt a great responsibility to making it work. Taking down camp and re-packing the wagon proved to be a tricky thing but we got it done. We actually were the first family of 22 to be ready to go. Day 2 was to be 7.4 miles in total and after breakfast, we were on our way.

The walk was grueling. The hills were difficult and the physical toll was undeniable. We got to a point where the women's pull was to be and much to my relief, it was designed for success. The boys split up into different groups and pulled several of the handcarts up to the finish. The girls were grouped up so that each cart had 5-7 girls on it. No cart had to make due with just 4 people, which I had feared. It was challenging and felt long but it was doable. I felt very emotional and humbled by the experience. As we finally made it up the end of the hill, many men had their hats off and were singing to us. I have never felt respect as such a tangible thing as it was in that moment and it felt incredible. Logically, I knew that the men didn't just take it easy while we worked. They worked to prepare the way for us but we still got the experience of knowing how tough it would have been to pull just as women. Some men were crying and saying encouraging things to us. My husband, who knew how worried I was about this, came to check on me and seemed deeply concerned and that was a beautiful moment for me. We spread out a blanket and had a picnic lunch with our family. Our workhorse son had pushed & pushed & pushed himself and went to stand up but couldn't feel his legs and fell on top or our youngest son. He cried and was taken to medical people to get monitored. Our workhorse son put so much blame on himself and couldn't be comforted, even though the only reason he even fell was because of how hard he pushed in every moment, never allowing himself proper time and care to recover. My heart really ached for him. The younger son ended up being okay and we packed up and kept walking. We got to camp about 2:30. We set up and again two of our daughters just curled up to sleep immediately. About 4:00, everybody was required to attend a hoe-down. I had gone to a hoe-down a month before the trek and had the time of my life but after logging nearly 17 miles with a handcart across rough paths, my feet were not cheering for the experience. We had to bother and bother and bother our girls to get them up and over to the hoe down and then we found out they hadn't really participated once it started anyway.

I'm not going to lie-my feet never did delight in this hoe-down but I still had fun and enjoyed the music. We had dinner and then held a devotional with our kids. This time our approach was even more casual and much to my surprise, the kids were not only open to it, we introduced ideas and it was our kids that carried the conversations and engaged. I loved that experience. One of the girls in our group that was always sleeping said her biggest struggle was mental illness and she talked a little bit about it. She has a crazy schedule at home, usually getting up at 4 a.m. each day and go-go-going until 11 or so every single night so it's impossible not to feel sympathetic toward her decision to just constantly climb in the tent and sleep as often as possible. I felt proud of our kids for the ways they started to open up. We went to sleep. I was literally right on a huge rocky lump from my shoulder to my hips. I didn't realize until everybody was going to sleep so I didn't have many options. I was so tired that I opted to just make the best of it and while I didn't sleep wonderfully, I did sleep a bit, more than the night before.

On the 3rd day, it was more of a recovery day and we only had to go shy of 4 miles. It was still challenging though. Just before we headed out, we were given a list of challenges to give our family. One person had to carry a 10 lb. (flour) "baby." One person had to have their arm in a sling. Once person had to wear an eye patch. One person couldn't speak English. One person couldn't help in any way. In spite of the challenges, we got to camp early and had lunch. I told my husband not to set up the tent. He & I had done much of the work alone (except for our workhorse son) and once the tent was up, 2 of our girls would just go hibernate anyway. I said if they wanted to sleep so much, maybe they should help set up the tent. It worked like a charm. It wasn't long before they were pulling the tent out and getting it almost all set up on their own-they really were motivated! Later, everybody was supposed to attend 11 game stations. I tried getting the girls up to go but they weren't interested at all. With them not being our own kids, I had an issue with boundaries. The only way we could get them there would be to drag them out of the tent in their sleeping bags and that seemed to me like overstepping. We just let them stay and sleep. We caught a lot of crap for not having our whole family with us. I know that this is where I felt most rebellious. For some kids, they could do all this physical stuff and still go play games like champions and that's great. For some kids (and me), the physical challenges had been great and playing games just felt like too much. I wish this would have been more optional. Once the games were over, there were so many kids that kept playing that I think they still would have gotten plenty of participation even if it wasn't mandatory. The other thing I felt was that there was a big division between the kids who're athletic and the kids who aren't so much that. I felt torn about this. I felt like an outsider. I know at least one of our sons did, too, and didn't want to participate. One of our daughters that didn't sleep, participated in this stick-pulling game and beat person after person after person.

She hadn't been helping much with the cart and I let her know that now we could see how strong she was and we would expect more from her the next day with the cart. All the kids got letters from home and some time to read them. One of our sons, who's friend had tagged along with our family a lot, really began to open up and I had a great time chatting the night away with them. The time for spiritual pursuits was spent in a large group and we found out that our 2 daughters who had slept alot hadn't felt physically challenged. We decided the last day would really be up to our kids to pull more of the weight. Preston & I didn't touch the cart for as long as possible on our final day, which was 6.2 miles. Our 3 girls ended up doing awesome pulling the cart, even though the daughter who had won stick-pulling said she regretted letting us know she was strong. One of the girls stepped in a deep hole and twisted her ankle too bad to go on though so she was out. One of our sons, who had struggled just to walk the entire trip, continued to struggle. Preston was the first to help with the cart and eventually, I felt like they needed me so I did step in and end up helping after all but our kids did more than they had and I felt like we had done all we could to make sure they had experienced challenges. Our workhorse son hit a point where he said he couldn't go on. For him to admit this must have meant he was so far past his limit but the kid who struggled just to walk said he couldn't go on either and our workhorse dug deep, put one arm around the other son, put his other hand on the bar to pull and pep-talked the other kid the rest of the way, probably 1-1 1/2 more miles. That was an inspiring event to witness. One of our sons who took it a little easy here and there early on really stepped up the more we gave him the chance to and he said he wasn't ready to go home yet. We made it to the buses, ate lunch, and got on the bus together. We were reunited with our injured daughter, who was given crutches and soda pop. Most of the kids slept on the way home. I wanted to but our bus driver drove horrible and kept almost falling asleep so I obsessed about keeping a watch on him. It was a scary ride! We got back to a parking lot. Everybody retrieved their items and headed home with their real families. We have plans to get together in a few weeks and I hope our kids choose to stay in touch longer. I can't believe how much love I feel for them after just a few days. I didn't like trek as a whole and found the physical toll it took to be miserable but when I think about all the little beautiful moments and experiences we had, I love it so much. Combined, I'm glad I got to go but I'm also glad it's over.

One last little note: We wanted to give our kids our contact information and knew they wouldn't have much room but also thought if we gave them a little paper, it would get lost. I had the idea of using empty prescription bottles. This also allowed us to give them a few little treats as well. When we handed them to our kids the last morning, they started bragging to other families: "Our parents gave us drugs!" I knew we were meant to be together because they had been naming the birds around our camp things like "Heroin" and "Methamphetamine." We were destined to be in a group together.