LDS Youth Show Pioneer Spirit

By Sharon Cliff

with photographs by Ken Freeman

Teenage boys in collared shirts, suspenders and wide brimmed hats, girls with bonnets and aprons — and not a cell phone in sight. More than 250 youth and roughly 100 adults spent the better part of last weekend connected to handcarts, not technology, as they trekked across 15.5 miles of Texas prairie to experience some of the challenges faced by their Mormon pioneer ancestors.

The Pioneer Trek at Lyndon B. Johnson National Grasslands is an activity held every four years for local high school-aged youth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Taylor Egan,15, of Flower Mound, described the experience as “life changing.” “It was probably one of the most incredible things I’ve ever done. These stories we’ve heard about but never experienced for ourselves; I thought we’d go and have a fun time or whatever but I came out wanting to be better, and to live up to the legacy of the people that went before us.”

Twenty five “family” groups, made up of a married “Ma” and “Pa” and 10-12 youth, pushed handcarts loaded with the basic clothing and gear each member could fit into a five gallon bucket.

“I expected it to be a little easier — I expected it to be a lot easier! The weight of the cart, and the weather, made it more tiring,” said Josh Ostreicher, 17, of Flower Mound. Oestreicher is  part of the youth committee that helped plan the trek. “Today no one has to pull a cart across the country; it made you appreciate the hardships they had to go through, the physical and the mental.”

Larissa Parker, 17, of Flower Mound, also a member of the youth committee, did not expect the terrain to be so rough.

“Some of [the trail] was in a forest area; it was really narrow so tree branches would hit you in the face. Then we’d be in a prairie that was just grass, then we’d have these gullies. After the second day my calves were hurting, my back was kind of hurting, and I had callouses on my hands from pushing the front of the cart.”

Trekkers took turns walking or pushing their family hand cart, with the exception of one family who had two carts. Their second cart was for Baden Combs,14, of Flower Mound, who uses a wheelchair in daily life due to Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. The cart was specially designed to keep Combs from being jostled or having to use his core to stabilize himself.

“I was a little anxious at first about trusting my family,” said Combs, “but as the weekend went on and I got to know them better I was able to trust them easier because I could tell that they really wanted to help me go all the way.”

Exhibiting true pioneer spirit, the group never complained.

“You went knowing you were going to do some physically hard things,” said Sarah Combs, Baden’s mother, “but they were absolutely selfless, not even batting an eye that they had this extra work to do. They just did it.”