Locals go back to basics

Teens' trek recaptures the pioneer experience

A group of 500 Las Vegas Valley residents took a three-day trek along a Wyoming section of the Oregon Trail in an effort to learn more about the pioneers who passed that way in the 1850s.

Shortly after they survived the trip, adult leader Cindy Mortensen and youth participants Jeffrey and Jared Salls, Taylor and Jaclyn Beckwith, and Mortensen's children, James and Rebecca, gathered to talk about their experiences.

The trek group, made up of youth ages 14 to 18 and adult leaders from the Lone Mountain Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, embarked from Las Vegas with only a sleeping bag and a five-gallon bucket full of clothing and gear for each participant.

To fully recapture the pioneer experience, church members were required to dress the part.

Young men wore long sleeve vintage-style shirts, wide brim hats and long pants. The girls went all out, decking themselves out in bonnets, aprons, ground-brushing long dresses, full underskirts and bloomers.

While most of the boys were able to find appropriate clothing at thrift stores, the girls stood no chance of picking up their wares.

"We had to make it all," Taylor Beckwith said.

Cindy Mortensen said several evenings and weekends were dedicated to stitching the girls' clothing.

With limited space, conveniences were not allowed on the trip.

"We couldn't take CD players or radios or really anything electronic. The only thing with batteries you were allowed was a flashlight," James Mortensen said.

Teen primping supplies such as cosmetics and curlers weren't banned, but as the girls on the trek soon learned, just getting up and hitting the trail was enough work.

"You could bring makeup but by the end of the trek, no one used it. I put makeup on my first day, but by the end of the day, I didn't even have the energy to wash my face," Rebecca Mortensen said.

With clothing and supplies prepared, the group set out for Wyoming in nine chartered buses and drove through the night arriving at the Morton's Cove visitors' center the next morning.

At the visitors' center, they learned stories of the pioneers that had taken to this stretch of the Oregon Trail before them. Dragging homemade handcarts holding all their possessions, many travelers died and were buried along the way.

A 500-member handcart company, led by James G. Willie, left Iowa for the west on July 15, 1856 and a second company of 576, led by Edward Martin, left on July 28. Both companies were caught by unseasonably early winter storms in the mountains of Wyoming.

Many of the travelers were elderly or very young. Freezing conditions, lack of food and the physical rigors of the journey claimed the lives of many. The Willie Company lost 57 and at least 145 of the Martin Company members died before they reached their destination in the Utah Valley.

Every member of the contemporary Las Vegas group survived their 25-mile section of the trail with little more than blisters and bruises. But Cindy Mortensen said for their group, the trip wasn't about survival, it was about learning.

"The goal was not to make the youth drop. It wasn't about starving or freezing. We wanted to bring them all home," she said. "We didn't want to focus so much on the hardships as we wanted to give the youth a sense of the sacrifices that were made and the faith of the people who carried on in spite of the hardships that befell them."

To get that sense of hardship, group members spent portions of three days pushing and pulling handcarts along the same paths the Martin and Willie companies followed in 1856.

Several symbolic trials were added to the youth's adventure. On the first day, the boys were ordered to walk away from the carts and let the girls pull alone to demonstrate the challenges pioneer women experienced when the men were asked to go off and fight in militia battles.

At the Sweetwater River crossing, young men were asked to carry company members across the water.

The gesture was made to re-enact the actions of three 18-year-old pioneer men, C. Allen Huntington, George W. Grant and David P. Kimball, who carried nearly every member of the Martin Company across the then snowbound stream. In later years, all three died from complications of the strain and exposure they were under that day.

"It wasn't as deep or as cold for us," Jeffrey Salls said.

"It was only up to there," Jared Salls said pointing to mid calf on his leg.

The journey along the trail's Rocky Ridge was the most eye-opening for many of the participants.

"It was steep, rocky and tough," James Mortensen said.

"I can just imagine it with snow. We didn't take the handcarts through that area; we just hiked through with our backpacks. But they had to drag their carts through too," Cindy Mortensen said.

While the youth group didn't encounter snow storms along the way, they did struggle with the weather. Their last night at camp, winds whipped through threatening to topple tents.

"Nobody slept at all," Rebecca Mortensen said.

Some youth stayed up late talking, while others worried their tents would collapse.

"We just duct-taped ours," Jaclyn Beckwith said.

In spite of the challenges, the journey was not without fun. Along the trail, youth were invited to a square dance. When they returned to Las Vegas, another dance was held, highlighted with photo slides from the journey.

Back home, the teens said they were grateful to return to flushing toilets and their own beds.

"When I got home I washed my hair. It was so dirty, it hurt. My bathtub was filled with mud," Jeffrey Salls said.

"It felt so good just to shave," James Mortensen said.

Rebecca Mortensen said she returned home with more than blistered dirty feet.

"I never really appreciated what the pioneers did, but now that I've seen it myself, I do," she said.


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