Trek 2010

The Judd family

I was asked to be a part of the youth handcart trek. I was an "aunt" with the Judd family. Jill and Jeremy were the "Ma and Pa". We had some great kids in our group: Jamie, Madison, Reid, Willie, Elvis, and Jordan. We meet on Thursday at 5:30am and prepared for the adventure. The first 7 miles on the first day was pretty good. I thought this is going to be easy, then the next four miles were straight up. It was extremely difficult and utterly exhausting. But what good kids we had. They worked so hard.

Ariane, Madison, Jamie, and Jill

(This was at the beginning, because we still look clean)


Pushing the handcart through the water. It was freezing snow run off water. We let the men take care of the pushing through there! What good guys!

My parents

They got to come and walk as the patriarch and his wife. Usually the patriarch is too old to walk, so many groups never get to have their Stake Patriarch on the trek. It was fun to have them. Dad saw this adventure as a way to bird watch the whole time. He loved it! Mom loved the fact that they could go wherever they wanted. They were not assigned any one cart, so they did not really have to push.

Here is the final entry into "the valley". It really was beautiful. We hiked up by the Mormon Immigrant Trail. We camped under the stars (with rain the first night!). We did not have tarps to put over us, so that was an interesting experience. We had hot, sunny weather. We had spiritual experiences and incredible moving opportunities. After three days, we were exhausted, sore, tired, smelly, united, happy, and accomplished. Really, and amazing experience.