Trek 2026

Our last June adventure was pioneer trek with our stake. It became a family affair since Mike, Aaron, Max, Bradley, and I all went.

I will preface this post by saying that I did not want to go on trek. In fact, when the stake young women president and secretary came over to ask Mike and me to be a Pa and Ma, it took me by complete surprise, so they got my unfiltered reaction, which was to collapse on the couch while saying, "My worst nightmare!" 

But even though it was the absolute last thing I wanted to do, we still said yes. Maybe that was because I'm just used to saying yes in the church. Or maybe it was because I had already turned down trek one time before when Aaron was a toddler. Maybe it was the thought of being there with all three of my big boys, which seemed like a rare opportunity. Or maybe I realized we all have to take our turn with helping with these types of experiences in order for them to happen. Or maybe I had an inkling that in the midst of all the bad scenarios I was picturing, maybe, just maybe, there would be some good.

Whatever the reason, I spent the next five months stressing and dreading it. I'm the kind of person that likes to get undesirable things over with first and then reward myself with a good thing. But instead, it was the opposite this summer: first, we had the cruise (so relaxing); then we had Oregon (so lovely). And through it all, it was like I could see this dark cloud looming on the horizon . . . TREK. Sounds dramatic, but that's how I felt. 

But we're now on the other side of it (BLESS!), and I can say with conviction that I do not regret going. Yes, some of my fears came true (as well as some things I hadn't thought of), but the positive outweighed the negative for me. Even though I kind of wonder why we still do trek, I also had the realization that forming these friendships and making these connections might not be possible any other way, and I don't know that I'd want to give that up. 

Even though I typically share mostly highlights from our adventures, in this case, it seemed appropriate to share both the highlights and the lowlights since they were so intertwined with each other. Let's look at the experience through the lens of "Good Idea, Bad Idea," á la Animaniacs from the 90's, but with more good ideas than bad because overall, it was a good experience.)

Good Idea: Chesterfield, Idaho

We started and ended in the small pioneer town of Chesterfield, Idaho. This little town still has 27 preserved structures, including an operating mercantile. 

It was a gorgeous little piece of land: hills that provided beautiful views, stretches of trail that were surrounded by trees, a wide open sky stretching across the horizons. 

I have not heard about any other stakes doing trek here, and I don't know why. Why are we commonly choosing desolate Wyoming or buggy Utah Lake when you could have this instead?

Because there's an actual town, we felt like we were actually leaving something (believe me, I looked longingly at the four solid walls of the Amusement Hall as we pulled our handcarts away from it) and also coming home to something at the end. 

Bad Idea: Three Nights

I was dreading the nights the most and for good reason. It's just really hard to sleep on the ground with the sounds of night and the elements all around you. When I agreed to trek, I thought, Well, at least I'll have Mike at night. But no. Several weeks before trek, I found out that the men and boys from two families would be sleeping in one tent and the women and girls from two families would be sleeping in one tent. When that third night finally rolled around, I breathed a sigh of relief that I had almost made it. In my opinion, two nights on the trail would have been plenty sufficient. 

Good Idea: A Make-Believe Family

Our trek family consisted of Mike and me, an uncle, and eight kids (four girls and four boys). We knew two of the kids in our family prior to trek, and the rest we met the morning of. We were nervous, and I'm sure they were nervous too, but somehow we bonded quickly. It was actually kind of delightful, the camaraderie and sense of ownership and pride that developed almost immediately. We called ourselves the Roundy Family because we had the goal to be well-rounded just like the Savior and center our time around Him. Anytime we needed to get everyone's attention, Uncle Jordan would call out, "Roundys, ROUND UP!"

Aaron, Max, and Bradley, in their respective families, had the same experience: meeting people they didn't know before, finding ways to connect, and creating shared memories.

We were assigned a cousin family, who we shared tents with and often hung out with in the evenings or downtime. Aaron happened to be in our cousin family. His Ma and Pa were just the best (and their real son happened to be in our family), and I loved that we got to do all of our "parenting" with them. 

Bad Idea: Breaking Your Daughter's Toe

At the beginning of the second walking day, we had to navigate through some very rough terrain. The trail was narrow with steep banks covered in scrub oak and brush on each side. We typically pulled the handcart with four people in the front and three in the back. On this particular morning, we started out in the same way. However, knowing what I know now, I would only have had two people pulling in the front (the ones who were actually in the handcart box and not on the exposed edges). As we pulled the handcart through the tight, bumpy trail, we tried to get some momentum and pull fast and hard. However, one of the girls was in the edge position and got forced off because of the banks and brush. The handcart wheel went right over her toe, and when we called out to stop, it wasn't actually all the way over her foot yet and landed right on top of it. Although she tried to brush it off, it was obvious she was in a great deal of pain. Luckily, her real mom was on trek as well and in the family right behind ours. The trek doctor took a look at it. Although he couldn't tell for sure if it was broken without an x-ray, he suspected that it was (and an x-ray confirmed it after she got home). He said she could continue to walk if she wanted, which she did. I was so glad her real mom was there because I don't think I would have felt comfortable with her continuing to walk without her mom's approval. But talk about tough! Over the next two days, she walked a total of eight miles on that poor, broken toe. 

Good Idea: Pioneer Clothes

Yes, I actually am all for the pioneer clothes. There was something about it that helped the whole experience just feel different, set apart from our regular lives. I felt this kinship with those around me in our aprons and hats and bandanas. Without the pioneer clothes, it would have just felt like walking around on a dirt road, but the pioneer clothes made it a unique experience.

Bad Idea: Dust

However . . . I will say that I have never been so dusty in my entire life, and because I was wearing a skirt, that dust traveled right up my ankles and legs.

Good Idea: Handcarts

As with the pioneer clothes, I liked the handcarts. It gave everyone a job and sense of purpose, a way to contribute to the family by each taking a turn. We had some kids who stayed on the handcart the entire time and never seemed to get tired or need a break. The rest of us would swap in and out for the other spots. 

Every morning, we loaded them up with our buckets and water, our family flag waving from the back. The terrain was often quite difficult to navigate (and did result in a broken toe, as already mentioned), but I loved seeing the long line of handcarts stretching out across the prairie. I have to admit, it did make me feel a connection with the past, and I loved the unity that came from pushing and pulling together.

Bad Idea: The silent pull

I think I was in the minority with this being a negative experience, so I don't want to dwell on it too much, but I will share a few thoughts and observations. 

The silent pull is a tradition for most treks. It usually comes towards the end and involves a very steep hill. Sometimes it's just the girls and women who pull. In our case, it was just the youth. It almost always has a crowd of adults and/or young men looking on, watching the struggle. And the whole thing is done in complete silence. 

We were told to start out with three of the kids in our family, and then, as the pull became more difficult, we could tap in other kids to join them. I liked this method far better than how it's been done in the past where people get tapped out so it gradually gets harder instead of tapped in so it gradually gets easier. However, Mike and I didn't communicate well about this, so we never tapped anyone in, so the three kids we chose to start ended up pulling our handcart all the way up the hill by themselves. 

At that point, we were still not allowed to talk, and we, along with several other families, ended up going the wrong way, over the worst terrain, until someone got our attention, and we had to turn around and head back over the same bumpy trail. And then remember, one of our daughters had a broken toe, so she had to be so careful and not walk too fast. So I stayed back with her as handcart after handcart passed us by, including, eventually, all the other leaders in their cars. We finally made it to a quiet, grassy area next to a stream where we were supposed to have a peaceful moment to contemplate the spiritual experience we'd just had. Luckily, for most of the people on trek, the silent pull was one of their favorite parts. Sadly for me, it was the opposite. 

Good Idea: The food

Happily for us, they did not try to recreate the real pioneers' experience with food in terms of quality or quantity. We ate so well. There was always more than enough, and it was always so good. Sometimes the food committee fed the whole group all together, and other times, they gave us a cooler with all the supplies, and we prepped and ate it as a family. Besides three hearty meals each day, the food committee also delivered a bag of new snacks to us every morning, and there was always dessert in the evening. As we were pulling the handcarts, there were usually floaters at the ready to boost morale with jolly ranchers or freeze-dried skittles. And our water dispenser was always kept full. 

Bad Idea: Tarp Tents

Ugh, I despise these things. I hope they abandon these structures in the future in favor of actual tents with walls and a door that you can zip closed. 

Here's how it worked: in groups of two families, you received supplies for two "structures": a tarp for the ground, a handful of rebar to pound into the ground at intervals along the tarp, pvc pipe to fit onto the rebar and curve over the tarp, and another tarp to throw over the pvc pipe. That's it. It was as exposed as it sounds.

The girls and women all slept in one, and the boys and men all slept in the other. And after the first night, when I hardly slept because the tarp kept whapping me in the head and I was so afraid of what creatures might crawl into the tent (not unfounded--the next morning, I learned that a mouse had crawled up another leader's arm in the night and when she shook it off, it hit another leader in the face), I begged Mike to somehow make the tent more secure. He ended up taking the bottom tarp and curving it up along the sides and tying it to the poles, so it was kind of like a boat. It took him a lot longer to set up our tent than the other groups, but it helped me feel so much more secure. 

(Still though . . . next time, real tents, please.)

Good Idea: Family building activities

On our first morning, we were given supplies to make a family flag. Since we had named ourselves the Roundys, we decided to draw a wagon wheel at the center of our flag with each person writing their name on one of the spokes. Underneath the wheel, we wrote Luke 2:52, which encompassed our family goal to be Christ-centered and well-rounded.

We were given a few props we had to incorporate into a skit that we performed one evening along with all the other families. 

On one of the afternoons, we participated in a rotation of games with all the other families. We had a disappointing loss at volleyball, crushed tug of war, and became deeply invested in an ultra-competitive game of Heads Up!

We gathered our buckets around the lantern one night (no campfires allowed) as we shared Peaches and Pits (i.e., highs and lows) from trek. I was so grateful we had so many opportunities to connect with each other and build friendships.  

Good idea: Random coincidences

This is just a silly story, but I love it so I'll share: As we were getting ready to pull the handcart for the first time, Mike pulled out his gloves and discovered that he had accidentally brought two right-hand gloves. Jordan overheard and said, "Are you serious?? I brought two left-hand gloves!" They traded and both were good to go for the rest of Trek.

Good idea: Names of Christ

At the very beginning of trek, we had a little fireside where we talked about all the different names of Christ. The overflow of the chapel had names of Christ all along the walls. We were encouraged to take a stone and write a name of Christ on it, something that we found particularly meaningful. My very favorite name of Christ is "Giver," but this was not one of the ones up on the wall, so I decided to choose something else to help me look at Christ in a new way. I chose "Dayspring." At the end of trek, we each got a necklace with "Jeshua" written in Hebrew on it. Max has been wearing his ever since. 

Besides the names of Christ, the hymn "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" was a running theme throughout trek with each day focusing on a different part of the hymn. My favorite line was in the last verse: "Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee."

Good idea: Letters

Ahead of time, real parents (not Ma's and Pa's) were asked to write letters to their children, and these were collected by the leaders. At the halfway point of walking one day, we stopped in a beautiful grove of trees. A few horses and riders approached, and they handed off packets full of letters that were then distributed among all the kids. Each person was encouraged to take his/her letter to a quiet spot where it could be read in peace with plenty of time to ponder and pray. It was so nice to just be able to be still and listen to the breeze through the aspens and think about all the things.

Good idea: Bishop's night

On the final evening, the bishops from each ward arrived (some of them had been on trek with us the whole time). The youth from our ward got to hang out with our bishop and his wife. They sat around and chatted and drank soda and got to relax with the people they know best. As for the ma's and pa's, we were relieved from our duties for an hour, so we also sat around and talked with each other, commiserating on some of our experiences over the last three days. It was kind of therapeutic. 

Good idea: Beautiful sunsets and rain

We enjoyed some stunning sunsets that stretched all the way across the horizon. And on the last night, it rained (while we were attempting to sleep), and the next morning, we discovered it was the perfect amount to keep all the dust down but not create mud or puddles.

And that pretty much sums up our trek experience. A lot of good, a little bad, and the best, best people to experience it with.  As we spent those four days (and three nights!) in the middle of nowhere, we formed friendships, strengthened testimonies, and developed character. 

In the weeks and months since trek ended, I have found it absolutely delightful to bump into my trek daughters and sons at various events. We had a little reunion with our family and our cousin family a few weeks after trek and found that, even without the pioneer clothes and handcarts, those friendships were still intact. 

So I do not regret going in the least. 

But would I do it again? 

Haha, I'm not committing to anything.