Trek 2012 Recap

We got back from Trek on Wednesday afternoon.  I had NEVER been so dirty in my whole life.  Really.  Here's how Trek went:

Sunday:

We took our Trek buckets and sleeping bag, pad and pillow to the drop-off to be packed onto trailers.  We dropped off the three youngest at their grandparents' house and came back.  The three Trekkers tried to get to bed earlier than normal, but all three of us had trouble sleeping because of excitement.

Monday:

6 o'clock came very early.  We dressed in our pioneer clothes: long-sleeved, button-down shirts for everyone, leggings, skirts, aprons and bonnets or straw hats for the girls, long not-denim pants and hats for the boys and socks and tennis shoes for everyone.  Some boys also wore vests or suspenders.  Everyone had a fanny pack or small day pack.  I made poached eggs on toast for breakfast.  Tasty, but I had a hard time eating.  Too much excitement, I thought.  I had to be at the church at 7 for a quick leader meeting.  The youth came at 7:30.  Lunches were packed into coolers and we had a quick devotional to start Trek.  Then we met in the gym and were introduced to our "baby pioneer", a doll, who had its own story of a real baby pioneer.  This doll had to be carried the whole Trek and even had to sleep with someone at night.  We couldn't put it down in the handcart or leave it in the tents.  Our baby was Flora Loder Jacques, who soon was called Back Loader by the boys in our Trek family.  Our Trek family consisted of me, Brother F., D. (boy -18), S. (girl -17), A. (girl -16), D. (boy -15), B. (boy -14), C. (boy -13), and S. (girl -12).  It was a good mix of kids.

We loaded up the vehicles and headed out.  Our destination was Mosida, out by Elberta and across Utah Lake from Payson.  It was very hot and dusty.  Once we got there, we used the Honey Buckets (port-a-potties), divided up into families, got instructions from the Senior Missionaries serving at Mosida, got medical instructions from our medical staff, loaded up the handcarts, filled the water and Gatorade coolers and set off on the trail.  Our goal was to walk 4 miles before lunch and 4 miles after lunch.  The next Honey Buckets were at the lunch stop.

It was very hot, about 95 degrees, and there was absolutely no shade anywhere.  The wind was blowing quite hard and dust got everywhere.  Our family got to pull the medical handcart first, as well as our own cart.  Each family got a turn with the medical handcart during the Trek.  The family handcarts weighed from 400 - 600 pounds with everything in them.  It was important to load it carefully so it was balanced.  Each handcart had a lunch cooler, 2 5-gallon water coolers, everyone's loaded buckets, extra buckets from those who weren't in families, and a family flag.

There were 4 companies with 3 families in each.  The Trek Master was in the lead, with the Grandma and Grandpa (our bishop and his wife), along with a special cart for Sister M. who can't walk well.  That was pulled by young men.  The Company Leaders, Trek Master, Medical Staff, etc. had walkie-talkies to communicate any problems.  At each water stop, lunch break and other stops, the families in each company switched around and sometimes the companies moved to a different order.  That way everyone got to lead and everyone got to be in the back (eating everyone's dust, as it was put).

We walked and walked and walked and walked, just like pioneer children, sometimes singing songs.  Dust in the Wind became a common choice with our family.

The medical staff was kept busy starting about a half an hour in until the very end of Trek.  Blisters were the most common injury, but we had slivers, headaches, sunburn, allergies, bowel issues, heat exhaustion, physical exhaustion and vomiting.  The vomiting was me.  We finally stopped for lunch and potties and I was having a hard time wanting to eat.  I just felt gross and queasy.  Not from the walking or the heat or anything Trek related.  It was very weird.  I was drinking plenty of water, so I knew I wasn't dehydrated.  I was fine sitting or crouching, but as soon as I stood up, I felt worse.  So I just sat for a while.  During lunch there was a very low-flying airplane that went over and circled around.  It came back and dropped 2 packages with parachutes.  There were Creamies in those packages.  It was supposed to represent a rescue party.  It was very cool.

We finished up lunch and started walking again.  I was feeling better, but still had occasional waves of nausea.  We went about 2 miles and stopped to refill our water coolers from the truck with the water tank.  While we were stopped, one of our adult leaders, Sister J., got heat exhaustion pretty bad and had to be taken in the truck to the main building for medical help.  She was in and out of conscienceness.  It was pretty scary.  I was feeling pretty gross at this point, and once we started walking again, I didn't make it far before I was throwing up on the side of the trail.  The medical guy had me sit down and rest until I felt better, which was pretty quick.  I got to ride in the medical handcart the rest of the way back to camp.  I felt well enough to walk, but they wouldn't let me.  I just had to get what was in my stomach out and felt much better after that.  I didn't have any problems with that the rest of the time.  It turns out that my husband was having similar problems and stayed home from work that same day.  

We got to camp and set up all the tents.  I think that was the most tents I've ever seen in one place.  The girls were on one side and the boys on the other with the leaders in the middle.  We had canopies set up for the families with stoves and tables.  There was a huge tent that was used for cooking.  We had a devotional, which included a couple of "pioneer moments", stories from handcart treks in history, and we were told that dinner was going to be 4 ounces of flour mixed with water and a bit of oil and cooked in oil.  That's what many of the pioneers got to eat on their treks when it got bad.  We went and made our flour cakes.  With salt and pepper, it wasn't too bad.  We had another devotional and learned we got real food: baked potatoes, chili, salad, rolls, cobbler, etc.  There was much rejoicing.  After dinner we had another devotional and went to bed.  It was still pretty hot outside.

During the night we could hear coyotes calling to each other.  There was one right by our camp and a bunch far away.  It was pretty cool.

Tuesday:

We woke up to bagpipe music played on these big speakers in the Senior Missionaries' truck.  It was pretty silly.  We had a devotional to start the day and then had breakfast and made sack lunches for the walk.  The handcarts were loaded up with water and buckets and lunches.  Our goal today was to walk about 9 or 10 miles.  It was a very windy day.  The dust blew so much it was hard to walk against it at times and was hard to see most of the time.  The dust got in eyes, ears, noses, teeth, in shoes and socks, down shirts, and everywhere else.  The wind kept blowing my skirt up until it looked like I just had an apron on.  Thank goodness we had to wear leggings.  We stopped a few times for water breaks before we had lunch.  Lunch was a welcome thing.  I had a much better appetite than the day before.  We were soon headed off again.  A few more miles, then we were stopped again.  We were divided up into boys and girls.  The boys went off in one direction as the girls stayed and listened to a song and short talk.  This was the Womens' Pull, to represent those women who had their husbands get called on missions or get sick or die and they had to make the trek alone.  The women leaders had to let the girls pull the handcarts by themselves through 1/2 mile of thick sand.  We could help them if they were really struggling, but should let them do most of it alone.  It was very hard.  Most handcarts only had 3 girls to move them.  Many of the leaders and girls cried.  At the end of the 1/2 mile, the boys and men were standing on both sides of the trail singing Come, Come Ye Saints as we went past them.  Many of them were emotional as well.  It was a very neat experience.  Several of the girls were completely exhausted physically and needed to be taken by truck to the main building.  Everyone was okay, just worn out.  The boys didn't make us pull the handcarts after that.

We still had about 3 miles or so to go to get back to camp.  Now the weather was getting a bit cool and the wind kept on blowing.  About 2 miles into this section of the walk, we stopped and changed into water shoes and rolled up our pants and skirts.  We had to push our handcarts through a Water Crossing, which was about 12 feet by 60 feet and 3 or so feet deep.  Everyone got wet.  You could hear when the carts behind you got to the water because the kids would scream.  We walked about 1/4 mile to the main buildings to drop off our carts and wash them down.  We changed back into our tennis shoes and put on sweatshirts and jackets as the wind was now quite chilly.  Not quite a mile later of walking, with me carrying a bucket, wet sandals, our baby, backpack, bag for someone else and a hat and other things, we got back to camp.

We got out of wet clothes, if we were lucky, and helped get dinner ready.  We had pulled pork sandwiches, baked beans, salad, rolls and pie for dessert.  After cleaning up from dinner, we had a testimony meeting and devotional.  It was very special.  Freezing, but special.  I know most of us will always remember the experiences we had, and especially the testimony meeting.  When I went to bed, I kept my shirt and sweatshirt on and put on my pajama pants on over my leggings.  I was quite toasty during the night and slept well.  No coyotes that night.  I did hear snoring from another tent, though.

Wednesday:

We woke up to the bagpipes again and got dressed and started packing up our sleeping bags and buckets.  Breakfast was had and lunches were packed.  We started loading up the trailers and trucks.  Taking down the tents was very exciting.  Most of the tents had small voles or mice under them to keep warm and when the tents were lifted up, they went running all over.  One tent had about 7 or 8 under it.  2 rodents went running right under my skirt and I had visions of me reinacting my little brother's mission video of the mice going up his pant leg.  I jumped pretty high out of the way, I must say.  There were also lizards and many large beetles.  I got to hold a lizard twice.  It was cute.  When everything was put away, we played pioneer games.  Some were leg wrestling, stick pull, stick ball, capture the flag, mancala, jack sticks, etc.  It was fun.  We didn't have the handcarts this day, so we just stuck around camp.  We had a group picture taken, too.  Then was lunch and a final pick-up of camp.  We had our final devotional and pioneer moments.  Then we packed up the cars and drove home.  We arrived at the church at about 3:30 to a large group of parents and siblings waiting for us.  Some waved white handkerchiefs.  It was neat.

I'm so glad I was able to go on this Trek.  I know my son and Daughter #1 were as well.  We have so many fun memories and stories to talk about from this adventure.