More in June: Handcart Trek!!

As soon as the boys and I got back from MN, we set about getting ready for Youth Conference for Big and Middle Bro. Our church has a 3-ish day "Youth Conference" for ages 14-18 each summer. This summer, they went to Martin's Cove, WY.

This is what Wikipedia says about Martin's Cove:

 About 100,000 people visit the site each year, of which the majority are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Every year thousands of LDS Youth participate in "Handcart Treks" through the area near Martin's Cove. These Treks involve dressing up in period clothing while spending several days pulling handcarts and camping out along the Mormon Trail. The highlight of their Trek is visiting Martin's Cove and nearby Devil's Gate along with the LDS Visitors' Center.

I will spare you the fun details of all the work I had to do to help get the boys all their clothes and supplies and such for the trip.  It was all worth it though!   They had a wonderful experience!

They met at the church at 3am on a Wednesday morning.  I snapped this real quick before they left!  Love my boys!

They had about 100 youth attend this adventure.  They had 3 of those big tour buses to take all the youth the 10 or 12 hour drive to Martin's cove.  They were assigned to Trek families (each having a Ma and Pa and the youth were trek brothers and sisters).   They sat with their "families" on the buses and had fun watching movies, playing games, and chatting.

You can kind of see in this picture how each "family" had a handcart.  Each family also had their own flag which they designed and flew on the handcart.

Below is a picture of the "Men's Callout".  This was a when the men had to take another path and the women pushed the handcarts on their own for a bit.

This was a gravesite area.

There were three river crossings.  For one of them, everyone just waded across and pulled the handcarts through.  During another, all the men/boys carried the girls across the water.

  

They were supposed to arrive back home Saturday night around 11:30pm. Due to bus trouble they didn't get back until around 2am Sunday morning! (that made 9am church fun! :)

The boys were exhausted!  They were physically worn out, covered with mosquito bites, and sunburned.  But  they had a great adventure!   They worked hard, were filled spiritually, and had fun!  So glad they could have that experience!