Trek 2015

I was asked to be one of the medical personnel for our Stake's Trek this year.  I  was super excited to walk amongst the "pioneers" and get a tiny glimpse of their struggles.  We met at the stake center early Wednesday morning.

These five were to be the transportation up to the trail.  There were around 300 youth, which they then divided into three companies. Amazing!

Helping to make signs for the buses, so the families would know which bus to get on.

This is Brother Parker, our Trail Boss.  With the crack of the whip, that meant it was time to start moving. He did this throughout the Trek, just as was done for the pioneers years ago.

Once the youth arrived at Base Camp, they had to quickly put their handcarts together, ...

(This is how they came!)

And load up their belongings, which had to fit in a bucket and bag.  Such amazing youth!

Here they are finishing loading up their carts.

Here we are, the medics.  (Me, Sean -an ER PA, and Chris -a paramedic). Great group!

In this picture, we have left Base Camp and have 14 miles to hike this day.

This was their first taste of a true trail.  There were so many rocks that they decided to get a running start. They were all so strong, at least at the beginning of Trek!

As we ventured a little further on this trail, an axel broke!  

This was a big event for the Trek because about the spot were the axel broke was near our turnoff to a new trail (though only the Trail Boss and President Lambert knew where to go).  The trail boss was way in front of us and Pres Lambert decided to stay with the broken axel group.  This led the rest of us (about 18 handcrafts) to forge on, missing our turn (though not realizing it, and getting pretty lost. We finally pulled into the designated lunch stop around 2pm!  Lunch was half of a dry sandwich, a chocolate chip granola bar and questionable fruit snacks.  President Jensen have a talk on the "Bears" in our lives and how to put a guard up against them and then we got back on the trail.  We ended up hiking in the dark, with one potty/Apple stop along the way.  We pulled into camp around 10pm, hungry as really tired.  They gave us chicken broth soup which was nice to at least have something warm.  We slept out in the open in our sleeping bags and I stayed super cold most the night. Turns out it got colder than predicted that night. Even the water on the jugs got iced. So crazy!

The next morning, they served up oatmeal packets and hot chocolate.  Being cold is one of my least favorite things (hence why we live in Arizona)!!!  This day we hiked into a pretty steep ravine (which was trying for many of the families) and met up with some Indians.  We finished off the day with pioneers games/crafts and a jubilee.  

The final day started out with the women's pull. Such a great moment on the Trek.  The girls were so strong and I think some of the boys had their eyes open to the strength of these girls.  After the