“Trek was the most difficult, dusty and miserable experience of my life … but it was awesome,” declares Sarah Jenson. The 17-year-old Inglemoor High senior recently joined 150 other teens from Bothell, Kenmore and Woodinville on an authentic pioneer trek.
What motivated these kids to shed their cell phones, iPods and video games to push fully loaded handcarts up rocky trails for hours on end? Partly to honor the Mormon pioneers who trekked across the American frontier to the Great Salt Lake Basin in the late 1840s and early 1850s, and partly to learn they could do hard things and have a lot of fun in the process.
These youths and parent leaders, from the Bothell Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, began their journey at the Circle F Ranch near Ellensburg where each teen was assigned to a “family” of 10 to 12 with an adult “Ma and Pa” who acted as their pioneer parents for four days. Their gear, food and cooking supplies were loaded onto 14 authentic handcarts. Dressed in pioneer garb, each “family” began pushing and pulling its handcarts up the rocky trails, eventually gaining 2,500 feet of altitude over a distance of 14 miles.
Haley Pittsenbarger, a 15-year-old from Woodinville, reflected, “Since our family was pulling over 500 pounds, every rock along the trail was a challenge as the hours drew on — especially up the hills. Every time a bump or large rock in the trail would stop our handcart, our family would yell, ‘ONE, TWO, THREE, PULL!’ in order for us to muster up enough strength to roll on. We worked as individuals, but achieved as a family.”
The trek was designed to be difficult, and that first day every teen endured 10 long, hot, difficult hours of trekking into the wee hours of the night with little food, and the uncertainty as to when they would arrive at their destination.
After a day and a half on the trail, the trek finally ended at Tamarack Springs, where the participants enjoyed other aspects of the pioneer experience: they slept under the stars, square danced in a hoe down and cooked their own pioneer-era food from scratch. On Friday, they participated in an all-day “Frontier Fair,” which included black-powder rifle shooting, a taffy pull and making various 19th-century crafts such as toys, candles, nail-rings and ice cream. They played games such as seed spitting, horseshoes, tug-of-war and cow-pie throwing.
The purpose of the trek was not only to physically experience some of what the pioneers endured, but to also give the teens the chance to learn from their pioneer experience the importance of teamwork, courage, unity, patience, selflessness and compassion for others. Although they face very different challenges than the Mormon pioneers of 150 years ago, these young people learned they can apply the lessons from the pioneers to deal with challenges and difficulties in their own lives.
Liz Hardy of Kenmore, who worked with Marc Wilson of Woodinville in planning the trek, explains, “These teens, now a part of a new family, were given the opportunity to work through the problems of loading and successfully moving the handcarts, pushing longer and harder than they ever expected to do, along with other trials experienced on the trail. Working together and finding the ability within themselves to do their part, they were able to experience love, compassion and acceptance for people they hardly knew and grew to recognize that with everyone’s help, amazing things could occur.”
Coordinating and carrying out the trek was a huge undertaking involving countless hours and the dedication of many adult volunteers to provide an opportunity for these 21st-century teens to step outside of their high-tech lives, do something truly difficult and ponder how the lessons learned from the pioneers might aid them in their own life’s journey. It proved to be an inspirational event never to be forgotten.
Would Jenson do it again? “Yes … after I’ve forgotten all of the pain and suffering.”
