The young men donned their hats and, with great effort, grabbed hold of a cart handle and began to pull it up the mountain trail. It was heavy, laden with some 500 pounds of supplies and, of course, the women in their bonnets and aprons.

A scene straight out of the Mormon Migration of the 1800s?

Not quite. It was last week on some timber company land in the mountains of Lassen County.

While the clothing styles were authentic and the handcarts were really loaded with supplies, the "pioneers" were modern-day teens from Vacaville's The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Their trek was one aimed more at spiritual growth than moving carts from one location to another.

"It was a tremendous experience," said Eileen Call, one of the adult church members who helped coordinate the three-day trek held June 25-27 near the town of Chester. "I think it gives the teens a really good taste of what the pioneers experienced. It was only three days and the real pioneers traveled 1,200 to 1,300 miles, while we only walked 12, but it gives you a feel for what they went through."

The trek was the Vacaville church's second in four years, recreating parts of the months-long journey across the Great Plains to Salt Lake City that more than 70,000 Mormons made between 1846 and 1869.




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