Faith Quest

(Warning: Super long post! Read at your own risk!)


Meet Ma and Pa Kirkwood / Robertson:

Yes, we were a Ma and Pa on our Stake's big "Faith Quest" Pioneer Trek this past week. I decided to chronicle most of the details of the trip here since I know I won't get around to it elsewhere. Sorry if its TMI for you!

We got asked to do it back in January, and I was very hesitant. I know they only asked 2-3 couples per ward so I should have been flattered of the invitation, but I was really nervous! We didn't give them our answer right away! I have all sorts of special health and dietary considerations that don't usually mesh that well with camping, though I love it. So we did some thinking for a week, and even with my concerns I had the distinct thought come to me: "If the pioneers could do it, I can do it." So we said we'd go and from then on it was a lot of work! I can't even explain all the planning that went into it, and we don't even know a fraction of it. Our stake leaders did a phenomenal job in planning and executing the whole thing. WOW.


I had so many worries going into it. I was worried about our family working together, about them whining a lot or having problems, I was worried about getting the right food I need since I have special restrictions in that area, I was worried about staying hydrated enough, I was worried about hacking out 30 miles of hiking in 3 days, pulling a handcart, bathroom availability, getting enough sleep, remembering all the pioneer stories, the 12-hour bus rides, helping my kids.... the list went on and on. Plus it didn't help that almost everyone I told I was going said "Really? Will you be okay on it?" I fasted the 2 fast Sundays before the trek for strength on the trek. I had Collin give me a blessing and had my name put in the temple. I know that might sound silly, but if you know my background you'll know it's not.

So anyway, after tons and tons of mutuals, emails, hikes, strength-training classes, 3-mile runs and equipment gathering through the last 6 months, Trek time finally came! We had 4:20am wake up Monday morning to be at the church at 5:00! We gathered our 9 kids together and off we headed to SLC.

We spent the afternoon in downtown SLC, at the Church History Museum, and we also watched Legacy. Quite the adventure when keeping track of 150 kids! We kept good track of our 9 though! :) We spent Monday night in a hotel which was also fun keeping track of those kids. We had a pizza dinner then a great fireside where a descendent of Captain Willie of the Willie Handcart Company (he is a stake pres.in Utah) spoke to us. Then after our first of nightly Ma and Pa meetings it was off to bed! We had family time each night so that first night Collin and I did a little devotional about choosing to spend their time on the trek wisely. Our family was awesome. More details on them to come.

So it was 5 am we had to be at breakfast the next morning (I was proud of how well I did that early considering you all know I am NOT a human being before 9:00am!) The kids were only allowed to pack a duffel bag the stake had given them, and some sleeping gear. Tuesday morning we transferred everything we'd need for the next 3 days into 5-gallon buckets, and the weight couldn't exceed 17 lbs. (that's what they got on the actual treks) Being the over-packer I am, I was also proud to fit everything I needed in there. Of course, Collin's was only half full but what do you expect, he's a guy and we were camping.

We drove the 6 hours up to the Martin Center in Wyoming that morning. If you're wondering, we actually had semi-nice travel busses so we watched videos and listened to lots of Primary Colors and had some good old times. It wasn't awful....till Friday. But I'll get to that later too.



After a couple of make-me-cry videos at the Martin Welcome Center we loaded up our carts for the first time! We hardly had to put anything in it so it was a nice "warm up"! It was only a 6-miler hike that day as well.

We had a super great family. They were really young! 6 of our 9 kids were only 12. Eliza, Tucker, Hayden, Elise, Joe, Isaac, Jaci, Aaron, and Annie were our kids. We were the Kirkwood Family--each family was named after an inspiring pioneer. The story of James Kirkwood is a really touching one. I think I'll put it further in the post.

Off on our first adventure! We hiked to Martin's Cove. It was really neat to see. I think I was expecting to be like, bawling as we went through, thinking of all the pioneers that suffered and died there. But instead I had a really peaceful feeling. When I thought of all those that had come through there in desperate times, the thought that kept coming to my mind was "thank you." I feel indebted to the pioneers in so many ways. So, we had a lot of stories told and were able to sit in the peacefulness of Martin's Cove a lot too.

There is a monument of the "Valley Boys" a little ways out of Martin's Cove. This is also a very touching story if you don't know it--they were the young rescuers who came to help the Martin Company make it into Martin's Cove. Most of the people in the company were so exhausted and near death they sat down at the banks of the Sweetwater (which they had to cross to get to the Cove) and wept. The Valley Boys carried everyone across. Most of them ended up having serious problems with their legs from the injuries they suffered from helping all the people across. So in honor of that, we had a sacred river crossing--all the Priests (16 and up boys) carried all the young women across. It was great to watch and a really emotional experience because the boys were so willing to help anyways.



We then headed out of there (just missed a rainstorm--yess!) and drove an hour to the Willie Center area. We then had to pack our handcarts with everything--sleeping gear, buckets, pillows.... and roll it .25 m into camp. This was a good shot Collin got of the sunset behind our kids.

We were about an hour and a half later than planned getting into camp, so it was a race against time to get everything set up before the sun went down. There was a wicket windstorm going on while we had to set everything up. I realized a couple of things: one, I am stronger than I thought, since I set up our girls' tent, and single-handedly staked our tent down in the blowing wind using just a stupid rock to pound the stakes in, and two, those dang pioneer dresses are HARD to do anything in! Especially in that crazy wind, it was blowing my dress and bonnet all up in my face! We finally, finally got camp set up after dark. It had been about 8 hours since we had lunch, and the planned dinner was a simple one of biscuits and broth. I know they planned it to be simple, but I think the fact that everyone was so hungry made it absolutely delicious! Our family loved it anyway. So we ate by flashlight since we had lantern problems and the wind was so bad we couldn't even light a match. We were also all required to try SKILLY- an awesome mixture the pioneers lived off for most of their time on reduced rations--a nasty mixture of flour and water. I was not a fan.

Wednesday was definitely the craziest day. We hiked 10 miles total--around the Willie Center area. We did have to bring most of our stuff along in our handcarts, but our family did awesome at taking turns and the cart rolled along great!


So just after lunch was our silent women's pull. It was about 2 miles up a steady incline where the men had to just walk alongside us pushing the carts up the hill alone. It wasn't necessarily hard physically for me, but what really got me emotional was when we neared the top--people who had already made it came running down and helping anyone who needed help. That happened many times through the trip, and I think that is what I got most out of the whole trek--that it's just how our church is. People are always there to help.

Just as we got to the top of that hill, a CRAAAZY wind blew in! I am talking insane. It was right as President and Sister Erekson were trying to have us all share our feelings about the womens pull. The wind got worse and worse--blowing sand up everywhere and coating us with it, and thunder and lightning were coming in the distance as well. We were trying to listen but all kind of looking around like, "shouldn't we be booking it off this hill?" So we finally did--right as the clouds opened up and poured as the wind was whipping everywhere. Collin and I were just laughing as we tried to put on our flimsy ponchos--I suffocated like 3 times, and once I put my head in an arm hole--I had to have 2 people help me get the stupid thing on because of the wind! So, it was freaking windy and rain whipping all around as we booked our handcarts down the hill--the thunder and lightning ended up getting so close we had to do the "emergency procedure" where we all spread out across the fields 15 feet away crouching on the balls of our feet. The thunder was so loud and the lightning was crackling all around us--I'm sure I wasn't the only one praying as hard as I could. Thankfully we were all okay and only had to sit like that for about 20 minutes. We did have to wait in that valley for another 30 minutes for the storm to pass, though. But besides being drenched and having to pee, we survived! (the picture above is of everyone getting up from their "lightning crouch")

Later that day the kids got some alone time to read letters from their parents...

An adorable picture.... seeing this made me so glad there were no mirrors to look in those 4 days!

Collin's hair got cuter and cuter. Due to the straw hat he wore by day 2 he had a wicked faux-hawk!!

So a few hours after the thunder storm episode, Pres. Erekson got us all together and told us that the storm had not been kind to our camp. So all Ma's and Support Team had to immediately hike back to camp to work on fixing things up, while the rest of the trekkers and Pa's finished the last 3 miles.
I was shocked when I got back to camp! It really was insane. I knew the storm had been crazy, but our poor camp really got it bad! 2 tents had blown a couple of miles away and leaders had to drive down in their trucks to find them. All the tents' rain flys had gotten blown off, some of them were missing and we never did find them. Quite a few tents had broken or missing poles, and a lot of tents had completely blown over and across the field. Almost all the tents had a good amount of standing water in them, and most of the sleeping bags and other stuff was wet. Tarps had blown away, supplies had gotten knocked out of their buckets and blown everywhere. I guess they had just set up a big dining shelter when the wind came up, and it literally flew up in the air and crushed (of all the tents) our own boys' tent. The fiber glass tent poles were literally shredded! I would never have believed it if I hadn't seen it. So needless to say, it was totally insane. And us Ma's had WORK to do! Again, my testimony of the willing workers and helpers in the Church was strengthened. We all got right to work emptying wet stuff out of tents and laying it out to dry, putting up rain flies, finding missing pieces, rigging tents, inventorying supplies.... it was a lot of work with not a lot of time to do it. We did well in getting most stuff pretty dry--Collin and I were lucky and only had a little water in our tent, and our girls' tent was completely dry and still standing as well. Our boys' tent was unrepairable so they had to share with another family.
Anyway, so through all this work there was another storm brewing on the horizon. Seriously, at that point it was like, "are you kidding me!" So we had to work even faster to get everything BACK into tents, right as everyone was coming back into camp. We did it--and literally just when I had grabbed my dinner, the sky opened up again with more wicked wind and rain. We all had to take shelter with our food in tents; Collin, Hayden, myself and a couple of bishops took cover under one of the collapsed dining shelters. The rain turned to big hail pelting everything...but thankfully the storm died down before anything worse happened.
It was CRAZY! I was okay to handle it knowing we would only be camping for 3 days, but it was easy to imagine how it would be if that was truly where we lived as we were trekking across the country. Man that would be hard. Time and time again I gained more admiration for the hard work the pioneers did.
So, this is our family flag while still looking nice...

And this is what it looked like towards the end of the week! Picture mud splattered across most of it, and you have what it looked like when we came home. I like to think it is a representation of what we went through!

So Thursday was the big day! The 15-miler over Rocky Ridge. The 4 of us in this picture pulled us almost the whole way up Rocky! I just recently finished reading the Gerald Lund "Fire and the Covenant" which is a great novel about the Willie Handcart Company. If you don't know the meaning of why Rocky Ridge is so important, the Willie Company had to hike over it in a -50 degree blizzard, after they had been literally starving and dying for weeks, to get to their rescuers. The hike wasn't easy for us on a nice day with adequate nutrition and health--I can't even imagine how any of the pioneers made it over in the state they were in. It is easy to see how many miracles happened through all of that.
Rocky Ridge is just that--it rises about 700 feet in 2 miles, so it is pretty steep and really is covered in rocks. We had to get a running start for a lot of the big slabs of rock to get the handcart over them. It took everyone helping push and pull and was a lot of work. Once at the top it wasn't steep much more--but there were still a lot of rocks and it was a hard time going.


There were about 5 giant mud bogs we had to pull through. Collin was such an amazing champ (like he would be anything less), and pulled or pushed our cart almost the ENTIRE 15 miles. I think he took a break for less than 2 miles total. Crazy. But that is how he is. I was joking with him that he would have been one of the first pioneers to die if he had lived back then--just because he would be using his strength to help everyone and would wear himself out. It's not really that funny, but I know it's true. And I love him for it!
Anyway, 15 miles was long for me. I did a lot of snacking on those Jelly Belly sport beans and they helped me out a lot. We all alternated water/gatorade and did alright--but the last 4 miles or so my feet were really screaming at me!

It was so great when we finally rolled into camp though. We all felt good about what we accomplished, and really doing the entire Rocky Ridge hike that the Willie Company did kept tears in my eyes a lot of the portion. I felt them walking along with us. It was a really great experience.

We camped at Rock Creek hollow--the exact area the Willie Company camped in once they made it over. It is where they buried 13 that died over the night after their Rocky Ridge hike. Among those 13 was James Kirkwood--who our family was named for. He was a 10-year old boy whose little brother, Joseph, also had to make the hike over Rocky Ridge. Joseph's feet were frozen and he couldn't make the walk. So James carried his little brother over the entire hike, sometimes on his back, sometimes in his arms. When they finally made the 15 miles into Rock Creek, James set his little brother gently down by the campfire, and collapsed. It was so powerful to see the memorial to the 13 pioneers buried there; they have the "cemetary" fenced off and we all took turns going in. I wish I had taken a picture of the memorial, but I was too overcome to think about it. It is a really peaceful place.
Collin looked a-plus after 3 days of no showers and pushing through waist-high mud all day.

We had a delicious "Rescue Dinner" that night! It was great to walk around camp barefoot and rest our feet. We had a fireside and yummy dessert that night. After family prayer it was off to bed after midnight.

So, although it was a lot of work and a hard week, I felt like it went really well. Really, I was SO blessed. I know Heavenly Father helped me out through everything. Looking back, I'm amazed at how well everything went for me. It was a miracle in my eyes. Really truly. I'm so grateful that things went so well. And part of that is how lucky I am to have the best husband in the world! He is the best partner I could ever ask for in something like this, or in anything. He is such a hard worker and yet spiritual giant. It was a great experience for us together.

But....the story doesn't end there! Like I said, the week went great..... until FRIDAY! That is the day I truly thought I would die! I really didn't know if I would make it! Here's why--our bus had serious malfunctions. There was some problem with the antifreeze, where it was constantly leaking. So about every 45 minutes we had to pull over on the side of the highway for 10 min. while the driver would pour more water in. Not so bad until the sun came up and it was like 95 degrees! AND..... the air conditioning didn't work! So it was sweltering hot on our bus and well, just completely AWFUL!! I get claustrophobic on busses anyway, and this was like the worst-case scenario. When we stopped for lunch in Brigham City, I was having a panic attack. I really didn't think I could make it all the way to Boise! I almost hitched a ride with someone. But in the end I said a prayer and sucked it up. I had brought a little face-cooler fan and a neck cooler for hiking, which I never used--but I used them on that bus ride! I was blessed to be able to stay calm, even on those horrible stops where there was no air moving and it was like 90 degrees on the bus! horrible as it was, it was also a testimony building experience for me. For one, I realized that we can never be sure when our difficulties will be over. We all thought we were "home-free" once the big 15-miler was over, and all we had left to do was an "easy" day riding on the bus! Boy were we wrong. Heavenly Father picks when these things happen! And another, more important thing I was reminded of is that we're never alone in our suffering. Even though I was absolutely freaked, everyone else on the bus hated it too. And we were able to come together and have some fun to make the trip home fly by as fast as it could, even though it took 13 hours. It would have been a lot worse without the other 40 people on the bus with me. And that is how it is in all our "real" trials. Even though we feel like we're the only one suffering, we're not. There are others out there going through hard things too, and if we just share and realize that we can help each other out, it makes it so much easier.

So, I learned so much and my testimony was strengthened so much on this trip, more than I could ever list on here. Thanks for bearing with me on the incredibly long post, but it's my journal entry so deal! I'm so glad Collin and I felt it was right to go, and that we did it. I would jump at the chance to go again.