McKibben Family Blog: Pioneer Trek Day 2

Pioneer Trek Day #2

Thursday July 14th

They woke us up at 7 am and gave us an hour to get ready, take down tents, repack our hand carts and eat a simple breakfast. The breakfast consisted of chocolate muffins, go-gurts and oranges. They also threw in a meeting for all of the ma's and pa's during this hour. We were instructed to try to slow the kids down because they were moving too fast. We also learned that there would be no bathroom stops (with the port-o-potties) because we were walking through native american's sacred lands and we weren't allowed to bring trucks through. So, all bathroom stops were to be in the woods with umbrella's as cover. So.much.fun! We also learned that there would be a water crossing sometime in the afternoon. I thought this would be kind of fun because we didn't have one on our last trek and it would be a way to cool off a little bit. More on that later.

Since we were the first company to leave yesterday, we were rotated to the end for today. So we waited around for awhile until it was our turn to leave.

Maggie's company was the first...this is a picture of her family. She is in the front on the right behind the stick.

This is Maggie's company

Maggie's family trying to fix something. She's there on the right with the purple gloves.

Maggie's family...

This is our family. This morning, the walk was actually quite enjoyable. It was beautiful scenery, no big hills, lots of shade because of the beautiful trees. I tried to help out as much as I could this morning, when the conditions were nice. :)

Beautiful Mt. Hood in the distance

Maggie and her family taking a break.

Supposedly this cabin that we passed was called Grandma's Cabin. I don't remember the story that went with it...Maybe I'll ask Maggie or Garrett later to see if they remember it and add it in.

lots of breaks!

Maggie and Emma

After walking most of the morning, I started feeling the beginnings of some blisters. So I had our medic (John Robison from our ward) look at them and help me get them taken care of with moleskin. I was pretty frustrated because I wore the same hiking boots at our last trek and didn't have a single blister. I think the terrain on this one caused many people to have lots of blisters. Throughout the whole trek, I think I had around 6-8 blisters. Some were really bad, too.

Our family was finally getting to the big clearing.

Our family with Mt. Hood peeking behind the trees.

So many trekkers!

We live in such a beautiful place!

It seemed like we stopped later for lunch than normal...we were hungry! They had sub sandwiches, large pickles, oranges and goldfish. Everything was so good...except the pickles...Yuck!

After lunch, they told us to change into our water shoes for the water crossing. Remember how excited I was about this? As you can see in the picture above, it wasn't some pretty, flowing mountain stream like I had imagined in my mind. It was this stagnant, muddy water pit with who knows what lurking in it. Leeches come to mind? I did not want to get in that and splash water all over my face. I was pretty disappointed. Oh well, we had to get across it anyways.

Our kids, waiting for our turn.

Everyone needed to roll up their pants and tuck their skirts into their pantaloons so we didn't have to walk in wet clothes for the rest of the day.

This is Maggie's family trying to get their cart in the water.

and trying to get it back out on the other side.

Still waiting our turn

Our turn! So glad for strong men!!

The mud was so thick at the bottom that Garrett lost his sandal that was strapped onto his foot. Luckily Garrett found his sandal. One of our boys was only wearing slides and lost one of them and never found it again.

We made it across!

After getting across, they had this tarp laid out to sit down and clean your feet off. There wasn't any water and soap to clean them off though, just some towels. Considering that we were the last company to go through, we basically had to clean off our muddy feet with towels that all 3 other companies had cleaned their muddy feet off with. I was so grossed out that so many people's feet had touched those towels...and they were completely muddy. So our feet didn't get much cleaner. It was fabulous!

While we attempted to get clean, Holly Robison told us more pioneer stories and we also got our treat for doing the Trail of Faith. Today it was a Snickers bar. They had frozen them so they didn't melt when we tried to eat them in the hot sun. By the time we were cleaning off our feet, most of the people had been there for awhile and were getting anxious to get going. There wasn't much shade at this stop so they wanted to get out of the sun. We were rushed a long and didn't get much of a break, but it was totally understandable!

There were definitely more hills after lunch.

We hiked for a couple more hours, and then made it into camp which they named Pioneer Town. They were tentatively expecting us to arrive around one pm, but we didn't pull in until around 3.

We set the kids to work putting up tents because they had numerous activities set up for us.

We went to activities as a company and then rotated through. We stayed at each activity for an hour. Our first activity was Tomahawk throwing. Garrett is in the picture above and Maggie in the one below. I was just happy to sit and relax. Well, relax as much as you can while sitting on a plastic bucket.

Our second activity was shooting .22 rifles, which Garrett was excited about. On our walk down to the area where they were shooting, I somehow hit my pinkie toe on a branch or a root on the ground. If I had been wearing my hiking boot, I would've been fine. But I had changed into flip flops to let my poor feet air out. I probably would've been OK had my pinkie toe not been covered by a huge blister underneath the toenail and around the whole toe. As soon as I hit it, blood and liquid squirted out everywhere. And it started really throbbing. So, Garrett started helping me hobble up the hill to find a medic to get it bandaged. Luckily, there was a lady in her truck right there and offered me a ride up to the medic tent. So, Garrett got to stay and shoot. I was pretty much there for an hour. There were many people there with blisters getting fixed up.

By the time I got back to our camp, they had started dinner and were just about ready to eat. That night we had Taco Salad that was pretty much chopped up and ready to go...we just had to heat up the meat. Garrett already had that going. He is such a saint!

They pretty much had enough food for everyone to have one serving. I felt bad for these boys who were putting forth so much energy all day long...I knew they were still hungry. When I had finished up my dinner, I offered what I had left to one of the boys and he happily devoured it.

After our dinner break, we had two more stations to rotate through.

The next one we went to was "Ephraim Hanks" who was retelling his story of going out and helping to rescue the Willie Handcart company. Ephraim was played by our good friend Dave Jensen who did such a great job of telling Ephraim's story. (He did this last trek, too)

The last activity was either whittling wood, making a bracelet or making a pioneer doll. Garrett made a bracelet, but none of those interested me, so I just watched Garrett.

There was supposed to be a square dance, but since we got in later than we were supposed to, they had to cancel it. They brought out a bunch of left over food and let people eat and talk. I was so glad they brought out food for these kids! They also had someone come and speak as Brigham Young, but I don't remember much about it. The trek choir sang a song and then they tried to get everyone back to their tents for family devotional and bedtime.