One of the ma’s on a trek I went on actually passed away because of the heat and humidity in Oklahoma. Her body just couldn’t take it and her organs shut down. Our trek ended the day after she started having major complications so I think I was only there for a day and a half. On top of that experience was all the weird trek stuff they had us do. It was an awful experience.
I recommend "gates of hell" about the pioneers. The whole thing was a massacre with up to 20% death rate and brigham young robbing them while having them prove his stupid idea. They died like the flies and got whipped with their kids being herded in front of the group so they wouldn't bother the older ones, who dropped stayed down unless someone went back and got him/her. Great book, horrible story.
My ward did trek about 4 years ago. My ward back then was so toxic and I was bullied by not just the older girls in my tent (yeah we got tents and girls and boys were separated) but also by my Ma and Pa. I had JUST had foot surgery and was barely cleared by my doctor to be able to go and so I had a hard time walking. I would twist my ankle pretty bad multiple times a day and instead of having compassion my Ma would stand next to me annoyed that I was hurt thinking I was exaggerating. I also struggle with dehydration and so the long stretches in the sun were NOT good for my health. I honestly wish I never went. Only bad memories came from it and I don’t look forward to ever having another one. Another girl (she’s my friend) had also just had surgery but for her liver and everyone was so concerned for her but saw me as an annoyance for also having JUST had surgery granted mine wasn’t as major. Sounds stupid to be jealous of that but when you’re 13, and being treated like shit, away from home and anyone who will listen, you can’t help but feel miserable. Anyways I hated trek and never want that again.
Ughhhhh. Mine was 3 days long. We had to build our own handcarts. We chased, killed, and cooked our own chickens. My friend got her period for the first time. I forgot to bring a hair tie. My ma and pa did go through our stuff, but I just held my “contraband” (chewing gum) in my pocket. For the women’s pull, they told us that the men got attacked and killed by Native Americans. I got my hair washed with Dawn dish soap by one of the leaders. I had to lay my head on a rock and they used a cold cold bucket of water. During a “trek prep” meeting they told us “if you think you’re not ready, you’re right. And if you think you’re ready, you’re not.” The only positive thing I can think of is that they had our parents write us letters and gave them to us during some study time. It was very sweet. I did cry. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk
It was Mormons who blamed Mountain Meadows on Native Americans by dressing up and wearing war paint. They then used a flag of Parlé to slaughter everyone. Blame it on the Jews again (since I assume they believed that Native Americans were all descended from Jews as per BoM).
For mine, parents had to write to us too, but I don’t get along with my mom and her letter was super condescending. She told me she hoped the trek would break my spirit.
Grew up in Utah, I was forced to go on Trek as a 12 year old. I was very surprised when a friend told me that their ward didn't let 12 or 13 year olds go. Really makes me wish my ward was like that
Yes, back then they did drink whiskey . . . and wine . . . and beer. My g-g-grandfather on my mother's side, was a Danish immigrant/convert who settled in the Sanpete valley, in the Mount Pleasant area. Three wives, 20 kids, and lots and lots of Danish beer.
Some pioneers used whiskey as a "anesthetic" while they cut off a limbs or digits due to frostbite. A lot of LDS members refused this if it was offered. Imagine the pain. As a side note a young Joseph Smith had to have part of the bone from a leg removed when he was a kid. He refused and whiskey to numb the pain.
The church always told us Trek was good for us to experience how the pioneers suffered for us. You don’t have to nail me to a cross so I can experience how Christ suffered. The church told me I was born when I was because I was valiant in the pre-existence. Sucks to have been born in the 19th century and have to pull carts across wild wilderness. Serves them right. They should’ve been more valiant in the pre-existence.
Truly.... Glad I waited to show up in 1954 in the 20th century. My ancestors were just a bunch of wimps and stayed in New York state when the LDS church first got started and didn't follow the rest of the group. Still stayed Mormon but missed all the "fun" traipsing over the Rocky Mountains...... No video games when I was a kid but we did have Schwinn Bicycles. I must have been a bit more "valiant." LOL
Did trek in Utah. I had come out to my TBM mom that I no longer believed so she made me go in the hopes it would 'help me feel the spirit again'. I was 16, it was over 100 degrees and I have really intense seasonal allergies. I got heat exhaustion pretty severely one day and collapsed. People just thought I was being dramatic because they new I didn't want to be there. They tried to force me up and to keep going, I don't remember what happened very well at that point because I was pretty delirious but at some point they gave up and had a truck come pick me up and take me to the next camp. The nurses there immediately loaded me down with icepacks and my body went into shock. I started shivering and dry heaving and that is all I remember of that day, until it was fully dark and my friend was holding my hand sitting beside my alone blanket covered body, yelling my name to get my attention. I guess my eyes were open but I just wasn't doing anything.
Clearly, you were severely dehydrated and suffering from heat exhaustion. I presume the organizers had emergency procedures and equipment in place but still, a piss poor response. In (non-LDS) Scouting, the Scouts are taught to monitor each other on hikes and treks, keep hydrated by monitoring mandatory water consumption, and moderating the activity to the weather. The people running these treks sound like clueless religious zealots.
The problem I have with stuff like this is that you are totally unprepared in way that the pioneers never were. They were used to walking, to physical labor. And if they weren't at first, they became conditioned as they went farther (and not through mountains at the beginning of the trek). They would have stopped long before dark, especially in the summer. A meal of broth would have been extremely rare. This is like the British family in the "1900 House" (a BBC/PBS show from 2000). They talked about how hard it was to keep the house running, but they were making mistakes no family from 1900 would have made, because they'd grown up in the late 1800s.
I was one of two women in my "family", and the other girl had back problems, so I literally was forced to push that fucking cart up the steep hill ALONE, without being allowed to talk or cry for help. When the men in my family tried to help me, the church leaders stopped them. They ended up in their knees CRYING next to me, wanting to help me so bad, cuz I was CLEARLY in severe pain and I just couldn't do it on my own. It was literally IMPOSSIBLE.... The whole trip was some the worst, most traumatic memories from the church.....
Damn that sucks ass. My sister was literally bleeding from her feet and they still made her walk, but they let her off like the last day. But hey, at least you survive. You’re a tuff girl.
The church Ward is supposed to represent a big loving and helpful family, sister. But It seems to me that only a dysfunctional family would First Make You Suffer shame and pain before any help is rendered. Instead of playing pretend, with real whips, how about instead we go break our backs and help the suffering in our own City, in this century. Heck if you really investigate you would probably find many in your own ward who only Pretend that a visit once a month is good enough, but in reality are literally dying emotionally or physically because they need help children and any number of things
that's asinine . the brethren back in the day would have helped , in fact that's how some men and women fell in love while crossing the plains I bet . They should have let those guys help you out !! Sorry that happened to you - it was unnecessary and uncalled for
Not allowing the men to help will the physical labor is the most unrealistic thing I've ever heard. Pioneer times were all about gender roles....and guess who was expected to be physically stronger and more able? The men.
I grew up in Utah and Trek came up in my ward every few years. I never went. I always said that according to the leaders of our church, I was saved for the last days. If I was meant to pull a handcart I would not have been born in the last days.
I did Mormon Pioneer Trek in 2015. I am a guy and I washed nobody's hair. I definitely remember being very hungry. The first night, we were given a slop of chicken cubes, but due to the cold weather, the food had partially frozen (an unusual cold snap in the hills of Connecticut), so we were eating partially frozen chicken bits. Sunday was the worst because the food was minimal and we were doing a testimony meeting and every single kid (at least a hundred) got up and bore their testimony about how the event was so special and they just felt the spirit. All I could think about was the promise of whatever food they had available. I had braces at the time, but I didn't care. I tore into the apple and granola bar they gave me. My wires were busted, my mouth was shot. Two months ago, in church one guy talked about how God doesn't ask us to do anything we aren't able to do ("We can't run faster than we are able" or something). I thought about the pioneers and the people that died trekking across the plains because the prophet said so. Either the prophets can't discern who is able to fulfill their commandments, or God instructs his people to die.
I did trek in the mid-80s. I think I remember being told it was one of the first treks ever. At least in the infancy of the program. I had forgotten much of what you described, but yes even back then we did all the same things. I vividly remember the first day and into the night. I did have a wristwatch that apparently nobody noticed, and it was just after 1:00 A.M. when we finally stopped for the feast of beef broth. I remember the hair washing...odd. I remember at the beginning they mixed us all up and then separated us into "families"...there were three or four stakes worth of youth, I was from one of the Roosevelt Ut. stakes, and there were a couple of stakes from Bountiful and West Bountiful. We were supposed to tell our ma and pa if we knew anybody in our family, and oddly enough nobody knew anybody else! ( I had one girl from my ward and two other people from my high school but not the same stake) My horror story was on the second day for dinner we made fry bread and one kid in our family who was kind of an annoying, loud, smart @$& threw his dough into the pot when I was leaning over to put mine in, and the boiling oil splashed up on my face and into my left eye. So for the rest of the trip I had blisters on the side of my face and I tore off my shirt sleeve and made an eye patch. Most of them thought I was being funny or something , but it was actually because it was sooo painful when any air hit my eye... Nobody looked at it, examined it, nothing. My ma and pa asked if I was okay and naturally I said it was fine, which it wasn't, but that was just a knee-jerk reaction I had learned from years of beatings from dear old dad. "If you're going to cry I'll give you something to cry about!!" Literally My mother did take me to the optometrist when I got home. He said there was some scarring but too late to do any good, but use these eye drops for the pain and hopefully the scar tissue will go away...Keep praying, and do you want a Priesthood blessing? (The local optometrist was in the stake presidency!) I seem to have blocked much of my youth from my memory...until someone brings up something like this from the past, and then I take a little trip down memory lane. My left eye has never really been one hundred percent. I guess my faith wasn't where it needed to be...
I remember when I was at track, we had the same no electronic rule, except all of the leaders had their phones. I specifically remember trying to fall asleep and I kept hearing my leader's phone playing Disney movies. I was PISSED
Man I must be the only person that had a fun time during trek. I understand how some parts of it are just wrong but overall it was a fun time with enjoyable memories with my friends.
I'm from GA and they had us do ours during the winter since so many youth got heat stroke from previous years where they held it in the summer. I attended trek in 2014 and had a ton of fun. A lot of my trek family were much more relaxed Mormons, I think there were 2 converts in my "family", and everyone was pretty chill. We went by our normal names, but referred to our "ma and pa" by their titles bc we thought it was funny. We gave our "grandparents" southern grandparents names which was fun too. I remember our family pretending we were amish if we passed by anyone lol. We held our trek in a military base since it was one of the only places that was out in the middle of nowhere and wouldn't have a lot of foot traffic like the Appalachian trails usually do. The only electronics we were allowed were watches to keep track of the schedule, which was nice. I don't think people went through anyone's stuff, since I remember seeing some girls wearing mascara, but I think phones were only taken if found. We didn't have the young men wash our hair, I don't think they would have done that anyways since we live in a pretty swampy area. Lots of other families sang church songs, but we didn't really chime in. We did do the women's pull, but half way through some church members had come dressed in in their temple clothes (not the ceremonial ones) and helped the women pushed the carts. At the end we were greeted with by all the young men. I remember this being a pretty cool experience and feeling the spirit. We did have a square dance and games that happened new years eve which was super fun, and we had tons of food brought in and set off some fireworks. I made great friends during that time even though my "family" barely talked about gospel stuff. Although I'm questioning my faith now, it was definitely something I wouldn't have changed in my teen years and have very fond memories of looking back.
I blocked most of my Trek experience but I do remember that was the WORST 3 days of my life! I was BRUTALLY bullied but everyone. Even the leaders. I got severely dehydrated at one point. I had to stay home from the biggest hike the girls did because my ankle was fucked up and I could barely walk and was still very dehydrated and wasn't doing very well. Everyone made me feel like shit for having to stay back. And they kept me busy cooking and helping the entire time even though I was sick and and hurting and just not doing well.. and I was like barely 14 at the time.. it was AWEFUL. So glad I am out of that cult and never have to go again!
I was a teenager in the 80's. It must have been right before they started doing these treks. Instead they would take us into the woods, starve us, and make us do physical labor. At the end there would be a testimony meeting, then they would feed us.
I was never mormon but growing up in Utah, almost everyone around me was. I love your videos and I love how you take the time to learn and ask questions instead of following opinions blindly. You're such a great role model! Would you ever consider starting a podcast?
I've never been a mormon but one of my best friends was and I remember when she had to go on this trip!! we live in Maryland and are 21 now, but she went when she was about 16 and I just remember how stressful and blatantly abusive it all sounded!!! she had to make her own garments of course and hATED IT, and at the point I'm almost sure she knew there was something fishy going on with Mormonism but after that trip she had enough and basically stopped believing in any of it. She was telling my mom and I all about it when she got back and we were just listening with our moths wide open the whole time. Wow, thank you for this video I'm shook af
she had an awful experience at the actual trek.. like it seemed like they were playing survivor/ lord of the flies or some shit lolol. also they had to do an immense amount of physical labor everyday. idk if some treks are worse than others (I assume they are) but it just really never sat right with me...
I never went on trek myself, but that's because - get ready for this - they stopped holding it in my area (Oklahoma/Arkansas, for context) when I was 13 or so, because someone in a neighboring stake DIED from heat related issues. Yup. Can't remember if it was heat stroke or what specifically, but an actual death. Which is..insane, to put it mildly!
I did that once when I was a teen. My parents convinced me to go even though it fell on my 16th birthday. We maybe only walked for 2 hours a day over the 2 days we were there. We never carried anybody over the river and we never had to wash the girl's hair (thank god!). We did do the thing where all the guys just left and then they made us come back and act like angels and push the handcarts while the girls pulled them. While we were gone they told us something about the Mormon battalion but I am a bit hazy on those details. They assigned us names but nobody seemed to embrace it enough to actually use them but our "Ma and Pa" kept trying to get us to call them by their pioneer names. Also funny story we had a kid fake sprain his ankle about 20 mins into the first day and we had to pull him in the handcart up all those hills and stuff. He lived up the street from me and I found out a few days later that he was perfectly fine when I saw him biking around. What an ass, it's kind of funny now but I was livid pulling him around at the time. He probably weight 250lbs and of course he was in my family group. One positive thing came from Trek for me though. During Trek is when I decided that it was time to just come out and tell my parents that I wasn't going to go on a mission. The Trek didn't push me to do it or anything but at that point I kind of thought the longer I waited the harder it would be. I was always a loner so I had a long time to just think while we were up there. It took me a few months to build up my courage to tell then but Trek was where I actually made the decision that I for sure wasn't going. Needless to say my life got a lot easier past that point. The stress leading up to a mission is almost unbearable (at least for me).
I looked at both the trek and the mission and was like: well those sound unpleasant, I'll pass. 😄 I was so oblivious I didn't even realize there was a social stigma.
Trek was the one thing my strict parents never made us do, THANKFULLY I live in AZ and they had it during the hot desert summers and I distinctly remember someone telling a story of someone getting heat stroke during it during sacrament meeting :/
We had each family carry a babydoll full of sand that we had to pass around. Our baby’s head kept falling off so when we set up camp and needed to put a tarp up for rain our ma and pa put the baby’s head on a stake to prevent the stick from piercing the tarp 😂 Everyone stopped by to laugh at or judge us. I was part of trek during its very first year roughly 16 yrs ago, it was 12 miles in the north Georgia mountains, no weird names, don’t recall if our bags were gone through, definitely no hair washing! When our men returned from the Mormon battalion they stood at the top of the hill and just watched us pull the carts up in misery 😩 I was 17 and didn’t want to be there, was already “rebelling” by Mormon standards, so I didn’t even want to participate in the day of activities. My trek family was super chill though.
I grew up in Michigan and they did it every 4 years. The one I "should" have gone on happened over the weekend that happened to be my18th birthday and there was no way I was going. I now live in Texas and they do it here as well. One of my friend's daughters went and they left the church not long after. Her middle daughter wouldn't have gone if you paid her. She knew long before the rest of us that this was a bunch of lies. 😂 We're all happy exMos now.
I never went to EFY because they usually interfered with my family's summer vacation. My parents were never super crazy about us going on every single little trip. In fact my Dad uses them against me now and bring up the fact that I got to go on "all of these trips when I was a teenager". Yeah, church trips. It's not like I was going to Florida with my friends for spring break. 🙄
I was Laurel class president and I refused to go. They even were going to let me pick my own ma & pa and choose my siblings and I still was like nahhhhh. I’m so glad I didn’t go haha
@Susan Mance That would have gone against the sexism and misogynist views. Good, faithful, temple-worthy, full tithe paying, Mormon men do not make a career out of being a cosmetologist. That is a woman's job. Only if something happens to her husband such as death or disability so that before the woman is remarried to another man, sorry sealed to another man, she would be able to provide income for her family of 15.
I’m from Idaho and we did trek. Travelled to Wyoming for it 30 hours on a greyhound bus. I also snuck mascara and my iPod. I REALLY did not want to go. My parents forced me to. We’d go to the store and shop for stuff we needed and I would cry and run away I hated every part of it.
We did tek in WV and it was fucked. They told us to come hungry and that we would be fed before we left but THEY LIED and let us starve for the next 7 hours when they gave us a single orange. A single orange after pulling a handcart in the hot summer sun for 7 hours. We stopped at like 5 pm when we were given the orange, and then went until after 11 pm and were not fed until we set up our camp, well after midnight. What were we fed? A single cup of instant broth and a roll, which was soggy because of the rain. As we were setting up, a massive lightning storm came and drenched our entire camp and all of us were completely soaked. Most people didn't sleep through the night and were exhausted. Our stake president wanted us to keep going but the medic shut the whole thing down after that first day because the weather freaked out and temperatures dropped dramatically where we were and he was afraid he wouldn't be able to resuscitate multiple kids dying from the cold, especially since all our stuff was soaked through. They also had us do the women's pull which was torture for everyone. They had us do it on a long, shadeless, uphill section for like an hour or 2 in the bright sun. The boys were crying because they felt so guilty watching us struggle. There was a girl who passed out and they told her group family to leave her on the roadside for the medic to come and check on her. We just had to walk past while she sobbed. They also dump searched our stuff like we were smuggling illegal items and refused to let me carry my own medication with me. I was pushed to do trek, despite my hangups since I was dealing with severe mental health struggles, and then was not even allowed the accommodation of being able to keep my medication with me, even though we discussed it with the leaders beforehand. The amount of water we were allowed was also rationed and we were all definitely dehydrated. It was hell but I convinced myself it was okay because God or whatever. We later found out our trek was based on some old-school byu survival manual the stake president was obsessed with, but was taken out of curriculum because it was too severe. He literally wanted us to suffer and struggle.
I highly recommend John Larsen's heartbreaking account of the Willie and Martin handcart companies on Mormon Stories Podcast. Go listen to it but I mean get ready to cry your eyes out. These poor people were ACTIVELY stolen from and neglected by the church over in Utah while being abused and starved on their grueling trip 💔. My ancestors were among those European converts and handcart pioneers and it gets super personal. I'm Oregon raised, so of course we did the Trek thing, following (at times) actual historical pioneer wagon trails through the mountains. Flirted with a nerdy boy in my "family" group the whole weekend so that probably made it fun for me. Reading all your horrible experiences, I have to give props to my former leaders for making good decisions! No live animal slaughters, no river crossing, girls washed their *own* hair in the river! The last day we had "ran out of food" so the ma's and pa's cooked biscuits in a pan made of only flour and water.
I remember begging my mom not to make me go to trek and she forced me to go. 90 percent of the experience was awful. We had fun times but most of it was being miserable with the awful “family” I was placed with and being in so much pain because of my feet and knee problems. There was also so much sexism in the things we did and so much tension between the people I had to spend it with. To top it all off it was either unbearably hot or windy to the point where my eyes hurt so bad from the dirt. Worst 3 days of my life
I’ve actually gone on trek and shattered my Growth plate. They drugged me with pain meds and forced me to keep going. Everyone told me to stay and I fought back and insisted on going home. They finally said yes and I got a ride home and went to the doctor. He said I had shattered it. The most embarrassing thing is that they wanted to put me in the young adults cart. I was mortified and it was the first thing that me question my faith.
@@KidsandKittens217 yeah I’m good to go now. I raised hell so they had no choice. Thank goodness my mom has a lab science degree and taught me to stand up for my health. Or else it could’ve been way worse
I’m from Montréal Quebec and they did a special version of this to us during a boy-scout jamboree… They had organized a big scene with the local police department and a farmer nearby without telling us anything about it at all. Cops pulled up in the camp in the middle of the night and told us we weren’t allowed to be on the site anymore and that we had to leave immediately. We took our most important belongings and left, we slept in the woods on the farmer’s property. They made us believe we were doing this illegaly cause we had no where else to go… We were a group of maybe 50 lids or more with only a few adults. This was so irresponsible and damaging for young kids to make them live through this kind of trauma just to make them experience what the pioneers had to go through. All these adults agreeing to such a harmful and stupidly dangerous idea is mind bugling to me 😒 To make matters worse, if I remember right, they hadn’t noticed the parents either…
When I went the women’s March was up this enormous hill and it was just my ward so they let 12-year-olds come (I was a 12 yo) and the boys stood on the sides and cheered us on and it was at the hottest point of the day and I just wanted to cry
Exmo from PA, my sister did a baby trek up a hill for a picnic and home before dark. My trek was three days of hell in NV we didn't come up with new names but we did take on the family names of our 'ma' & 'pa' (we became the swansonites). All our stuff was in 5 gal tubs and they went through our stuff as an Indian raid halfway up the hill, and we went 10+ miles a day. I had heat exhaustion episodes almost every day. It was awful. However when my family was overseas we didn't do trek but that could have been the region. (Middle east)
It's on brand that the adults were lying to you the whole time. "It's just a little bit further..." Yeah, I'm so surprised to learn now that the organization was lying to me too
The one thing the church teaches is how to lie straight faced. Lie to your bishop so you can go on youth baptism or lie to your children so they don't just walk away. No matter how you cloak it, it is lying.
@@ghostest1719 there is a WHOLE over 100 comment thread (on a different video) of me and a Mormon who came to this page to lie that Mormons aren't trying to force their religion on people (Prop 8) and that the church isn't sexist and that women are equal in the church. Apparently, me not keeping my cool against them was "hateful," but all the hating Queer people and voting to take their rights away isn't to this person. SOOOOOOOOO many lies.
What a horrible, traumatic experience! Misogyny, child abuse, predators! No wonder you were uncomfortable having a strange boy wash your hair,! They were indoctrinating the girls into submitting to men whether or not they wanted to. This event is a form of torture. They make you so tired, hungry & sleepy to the point you will do anything just for it to stop! So disgusting🤬. Glad you made it thru & got out! And your children won’t be subjected to this atrocious situation!
at general conference a couple of years ago, someone called rape "nonconsentual immorality." They don't care about consent and clearly, not even for the boys. I'm sure there were soooooo many boys who absolutely did not want to part take in washing the girls' hair.
I grew up in southern Alberta, Canada and we called it josephs legacy. had a huge meltdown the morning was to leave, so my sister and dad left without me. I remember my dad yelling, crying, saying that I was breaking his heart. I remember for the whole day my mom would give me looks and say comments, making me feel guilty. The next day I went because I thought it would be better to face my fears of heatstroke and oppression than disappointing anyone any further.
When was this? I'm from Calgary and we called it "Trek" (mid-90's). & It sucked almost as bad as the stories people are telling from the States, but with a healthy measure of "let's not get sued/create a PR disaster" that seemed to round off the roughest edges. (Though I gather this was learned the hard way from previous Treks???)
On our second day we didn’t do activities, we sat and journaled ALL day about our ancestors and I didn’t even have any. I was less bored walking with strangers for 12 hours the day before. Never talked to anybody, never made any friends. Walked away with a sprained ankle, but thank god no one washed my hair.
Did anyone else have the fake babies on their trek? They gave each family a 10 lbs bag of sand with stuffed limbs/head and we had to take turns carrying it the whole trek. Couldn't put it on the cart and had to carry it like a real baby or we got in trouble. We woke up the last day and all the babies were gone. They told us all our babies were dead and took us to a tiny gravesite that had the names of all the babies. It was actually super dark and twisted.
I went on 2 treks. The first one was much more grueling than the second. I’m not sure if it was the age difference. Both my experiences were akin to yours. Broth for dinner, zoom cereal for the next breakfast. On one we had to kill and pluck our own turkeys. Many kids were traumatized by just that one event. 0/10.
In California, We never had trek when I was a teen in the early 90’s. They did start doing it when my daughter was a teen. She didn’t want to go so I didn’t make her. I know a lot of parents who made their kids go.
I grew up in New York State and we didn't have anything there other than the annual Hill Cumorah pageant. My 15 year old niece, however, lived in Utah and did this Pioneer Trek thing. On hers the girls had to carry a baby DOLL the entire time and every once in a while the "Ma" would come over and tell her that her baby had "died" and they would all pray over it and bury it on the side of the road. And then go on...She was horribly traumatized....It's a wonder there weren't child abuse charges filed!
@@weaksohyeah Agreed. I couldn't believe it when my niece and her friends told me this was part of the "Trek" to make it more "realistic" in understanding what the LDS pioneers endured to get to Utah. Morbid. She said they also gave them limited food to try to duplicate the hunger the pioneers endured. I hope they have cut back on these things for God's sake. Good Grief.
@@kkheflin3 Oh my life so the starvation is on purpose?! So misguided. And the guy was a freakin con man! Just so ridiculous and gross. No no no Thanks for sharing! I'm British and had NO IDEA
I experienced this on a trek, except the baby died once, not "every once in a while". It was a simulation of history, meant to give a tiny glimpse of what they went through. As for being traumatized, the point was to learn to empathize with someone's pain .... to walk in their shoes, so to speak. For me, it was a very sad and touching moment. But it was a doll. If the loss of a doll caused excessive trauma, then something is off. May she never watch "Old Yeller" or "Bambi", lest there be abuse charges.
They do it here in south central PA on the Appalachian trail. I felt so bad for the youth because ticks were really bad last summer and they’re walking in deep woods. Also, the “parents” (incl an ER Nurse manager) complained that it’s too bad they had to actually feed them and give the kids regular breaks.
Love the beanie and no face shirt! My Treck was horrible we literally stopped for so many breaks, took forever to get there, there was nothing fun about it no dancing no activities, could only hang out with the people in my group one of them being my sister which at the time we both hated each other, made my depression a million times worse realizing what the pioneers went through, would have been better if they had some fun activities and I could have hung out with my friends
I had some severe health problems on trek and my "pa" was a doctor. he told me to walk it off. My problems started on day one and by the last day i couldnt walk. I got examined by a doctor when I got home and had dislocated my hips, tailbone, pelvis, both knees and had somehow twisted my entire shin bone. the whole time i had so much pain and heat exhaustion and a doctor told me to walk it off😅
I almost forgot about the hair washing, that was awkward. I could tell the girl was uncomfortable, so I tried to lather the shampoo in her scalp like a little massage, but now that I think of it it probably made her more uncomfortable lol. We did it in those bobbing for apples tin basin things not the river. Also some kid got bit by a snake in another company but he was taken away in a golf cart. Not sure what happened after that. Edit: Also I smuggled my moms old cell phone, so I can play snake and tetris
Your experience was so different than mine! Especially with food. We were allowed to bring our own snacks and we had big dutch oven dinners, etc. We had a list of stuff to bring and not bring but I don't remember them going through our stuff this time... (but back when Survivor was a thing, one of the YW leader's nieces was on the show, so we did a survivor themed youth conference and they took away EVERYTHING we brought and we had to complete challenges to earn it all back- yes, even the sleeping bags! But that's a story for another time!) We slept in tents. It was actually a lot of fun. Like you, we learned pioneer dances, games, and sang hymns as we walked. The "men" had to go away and join the battalion, and the women had to pull the carts themselves for a few hours. Instead of using a different name, we were told to research a pioneer ancestor (if we had one) and bring a story about them to share. We read the stories on the last day and had a big testimony meeting. The hair thing is really weird, we didn't do that. But honestly I might have repressed that memory. I know this is an unpopular opinion here, but I don't think trek is child abuse. It did help me gain a lot of perspective about modern comforts that I often take for granted. Clearly though, my leader roulette was better than yours. Had I only been given broth, I might be thinking differently. Oh, and indoctrination. Indoctrination sucks!!
I got super lucky with mine… I’m guessing it was in 2015, and we had an actual chef in our stake that cooked delicious filling meals for us every night, plus more than enough snacks and large sack lunches. The basic concepts were all still the same but besides the awful larping aspect of it I really enjoyed the week of being outdoors and camping/hiking (but I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors, most of the other kids were miserable the whole week and I felt bad for anyone that hated hiking or wasn’t in shape). Plus no awkward hair washing lmao
Zelph on the Shelf spoke abt their trek experiences and read others’; it reads like very strange coercive child abuse. I am very sorry you had to experience such a thing. The taking of names is disconcerting to say the least. Most emxo experiences I have heard from trek sound like needless sadism from the “Ma and Pa.” I sort of don’t understand how trek is legal. These experiences are hard to listen to just from an empathetic front; I am basing a fictional religion on Mormonism and its dictatorial cruelty so I hope I am able to bring comfort and awareness to the kids going through this crap someday. Thank you for sharing and thank you for your work.
I was raised by a sing mother. My mom and I weren’t the best Mormons but we went every Sunday. (I just found out a few years ago she never believed in the Joseph smith story.) Our family isn’t from Utah or even the United States so she told me I didn’t have to go. However she was a photographer and happened to be the only photographer in our ward. They roped her into going to take pictures and I was excited to have our apartment to myself for the weekend but nope, she forced me to go because she had to go. We got lost on the first day and ended up walking like 12 miles. That whole experience was awful.
When our ward went, I flat out refused. They tried so hard to get me to go even offering to let me ride in the RV they were bringing for the leaders so they could be comfortable (which seriously was BS... torture the kids while the adults have an RV). I remember telling my mutual leaders that I couldn’t suppose our ancestors who went through that hell would wish it on us, and also if ‘everyone’ wanted the full scope of ‘the burden’ the guys should do the whole thing in dresses because honestly? That shit just makes it worse. No regrets I didn’t attend. Also never went to girls camp either on the explanation that I was ( and still am) an unapologetic townie... and if God wanted the ‘chosen generation’ to suffer he wouldn’t have given us electricity and indoor plumbing. Again, zero regrets.
I'm from Kentucky and I'm remember going through the pioneer trek experience. It was hot, miserably long, and I remember washing alot of dirt out of my hair when I got home. Luckily, we only had to camp out for one night, and we slept in tents. Thankfully, they didn't have the young men wash the young women's hair. I had to carry a baby doll while we were hiking to represent a real baby, so I had to walk through the water, instead of being carried across it. I had to go by a different name and they went through our stuff too.
So listening to you describe this was weird for me. At first I was like "Huh. I must have left soon enough as a teen to not do this." Because I never had to pull a cart or dress up or anything like that. Basically.... I never larped with my church. Then you started describing the activities and the eating and all that and I'm like..... "Wait..... I think I did a waaaaaaaaaaaay simpler version of this at Young Women's Camp one year!" We didn't leave the designated area for the camp, but we did trek all over the place and made it to different activities. Each one had some sort of message about God. We did bracelet making. Candle making. Archery. We got a little booklet filled with pictures of flowers and plants and each had some story next to it that was religious and we needed to find each plant. A bunch of different stuff. It wasn't "pioneer" food but at one point we learned how to cook different things on a fire. I distinctly remember one being how to make a cake in an orange peel. Shit you not. You made cake batter. Cut the top off an orange. Scooped though the orange. Filled the orange peel. Put the top back on. Wrapped it in foil. Then threw it on a fire for like.... 10 minutes. Open foil, orange, and then inside is orange flavored cake. Then we didn't have a square dance, but we ended the day with "Singing Trees". Each ward picked a tree and stood under it and we sang a hymn (I can't remember which one). Every girl had a flashlight and what happened was the first ward sang a section of the hymn with everyone in that ward shining their flashlights up into the tree they were under. Then they shut off their lights and moved on to the next ward. It was to make it look like the trees furthest from you were "glowing and singing". This continues till every ward is done and then we all sang the song together with all our flashlights on. MY WARD WAS LAST! It was like midnight and I was exhausted. I was so tired that I fell asleep standing up. We hadn't eaten for hours at that point either. My leader saw I had fallen asleep and when we got back to our tents she made me go to bed without eating because "If you were too tired sing you are too tired to stay up to make smores with the other girls." So I had to go to bed with an empty stomach smelling the other girls roasting smores.
I'm going to be that weird person to say of course you did square dancing. The Mormon church is racist and Square Dancing has a SUPER racist history--they essentially started Square dancing, because they didn't want people doing lindy hop and other swing dancing because swing dancing was created by Black people.
I am from the UK and also lived in salt lake I did the awful trek but they do no do the trek in the UK. I am an ex Mormon but I will say the church in Utah is far different than the church where I am from, I hated it when I lived in Utah and loved it when I was back home I moved back to Utah when I moved out and did not want to be apart of the Utah Mormonism finally left the church and did my own research on it and I am more than glad I am no longer in the religion! Great videos I enjoy hearing yours and others personal experiences on the church that are similar to mine!
We did it in Wyoming too. It wasn’t terrible but it was horribly hot. Food wasn’t terrible. The “ma and pa” got a tent and all the kids had to sleep outside. I wanna say we ended up walking 22 miles round trip.
It should be illegal. On my trek we were starving and exhausted. My first night I went to sleep on the ground in a sleeping bag feeling light headed and hungry because we didn't eat much and had hiked ten miles. I remember hallucinating that night, thinking bugs were crawling on my skin but every time I went to slap them off of me they weren't there. I was sixteen. I saw a teen boy get sick from hiking without food and he threw up on the trail. One of the leaders got sick too. many years later I contacted one of those leaders to talk about it and they laughed it off, saying it's safer now that they have doctors come along. I would never send my kids on something like this and am angry that my parents sent me.
I did mine in the tri cities desert. The men didnt wash our hair or drag us across the river. They tried but it was 103°F outside and I wasnt about to miss the chance to cool myself off. We had tents. I wish we hadn't because there was a storm the second night and since we were on a plateau our tents attracted lightning. I slept through everyone evacuating down into the vineyard below. The only reason I made it out of there was cause my sister of my party came back for me. Lightning had hit 50' from my tent. I am really greatful for her. It was brave. they told her not to go up I honestly think they might have just left me up there if it wasnt for her. I cant believe they only gave you broth. We were able to cook cast iron food. Though Ma and Pa weren't aloud to help most of time. The one thing that made me super upset was when the bishop brink in charge over chlorinated the water. This was the second day. We had just walked 6 miles. Got to the water and it burned my insides when I drank it. They made the joke it was better then having dysentery. They gave us mio to "mask to taste" of the chlorine. It successfully made mio flavored pool water. One girl ended up passing out and having a seizure because she refused to drink the water. All in all I gained a few freckles and had an intense experience. There was so much more I wish I could share with someone, but I would end up writing a book.
While others' trek experiences could be called "Cult Evidence Exhibit A", mine was actually very fun, because I was "siblings" with one of my favorite people in the world. She was a funny, beautiful redhead with whom I already had great rapport and common interests. When we were near each other we talked and joked up a storm. Literally one of the best experiences of my life. But a couple things: during the "women's pull", would there also be fewer items in the handcarts? The men would have taken at least SOME of the supplies with them as they traveled wherever they needed to go to take over Mexico. (And while they may have never shot at anyone (as far as I know), their presence would have had an unethical influence. For example, they terrified the people of Tucson, who thought they would attack, if I remember correctly.) Also, the pioneers would have been smart enough to have pulleys for some of those uphill stretches. We had a hard stretch that would have been a lot easier with pulleys. As an engineering major, this dawned on me. A basic pully offers no mechanical advantage (i.e. trading force for distance-you choose to move something farther but using less strength), but at least you could use your bodyweight to your benefit to move the handcarts. More advanced pulley systems would make it a cinch. When you hear about people moving wagons up or down incredibly steep areas, I'm guessing they had pulleys.
I got to go on Trek twice! The first time was in Utah and I got SUPER bad heat stroke & exhaustion on like the second day. Second time was in Texas and we legit walked around a ranch all day In one huge circle, it the Texas heat, in August 🙃
We went to Martin's Cove in Wyoming and followed one of the actual trails the pioneers went on. One girl sprained her ankle the first day and so she rode in the handcart and her family pulled her for the rest of trek. We were given pioneer names, but none of us really used them unless it was in a snarky or sarcastic way. We had to fit all our stuff in a 5 gallon bucket and my Ma and Pa did go through them. No electronics, makeup, etc. allowed. Our women's pull was done in the middle of the day up the steepest hill of the whole trek. The boys (who had gone to the Mormon Battallion) lined either side of the hill and watched us pull. My family had 6 boys and 3 girls so it was ROUGH. We had no activities at all. We also had the river crossing where the boys carried the girls, but no hair washing. We ate similar food - oatmeal for breakfast, apple and Nature Valley bar for lunch, and broth for dinner. We slept on a tarp in sleeping bags, used our spare clothes as pillows, and woke up with ice in our hair. Most people left with moderate to severe sunburns. I myself had second degree sunburns on the very few parts of my body that weren't fully covered by pioneer garb in 100 degree or more heat.
Even though I’m definitely not mormon anymore my trek experience was a lot different and I actually had a ton of fun. We never washed the girls hair and we had big extravagant meals made for us. We also kept our real names and they didn’t go through our stuff. I actually had my phone with me. Our ma and pa were not active members actually and were super chill about everything. We didn’t even really do scriptures or pray a lot. We would also stay up till like 1 am hanging out and playing games. We did pull a lot that was probably the only similarity though.
I’m jealous:) we had beef jerky and apples most of the day and dinner we had small meals:p I was hungry most of the time:p don’t think I got enough water either:p
My trek experience was so great thay I actually went twice. I live in Utah and we did trek out in the middle of Wyoming, at the church historic sites (Martin's Cove, Rocky Ridge, Willie's Meadow, Rock Creek Hollow, etc.) And I had a great time. No weird shit like burying baby dolls, washing hair, or being called by pioneer names. We did carry the name tags with us to represent the pioneers but we just got called by our regular names. Delicious meals, great company, wonderful experience. My two biggest things during my first time were that I got a really bad sunburn on my arms because I rolled my sleeves up and took off my bonnet, and I didn't do my hair at all so it was so windy that I was unable to brush it at all the whole time and when I got home, I brushed out a ball of hair the size of a golf ball. Didn't make those mistakes the second time 😅
I was in Colorado Springs for most of my youth, and they bussed us all out to Martin's Cove in Wyoming for ours so it lasted 4 days (I think, it's been a long time). No body had to wash my hair, but on the second day we only got "hard tack" biscuits for breakfast and then spent hours pulling with no snacks or lunch. We had to cross the "river" (a decent sized stream, really) where I slipped and got soaked almost to my waist, but it was like 100 degrees that day and still early afternoon so I actually kind of liked it. Except the being starving part. About an hour later we were taking a water break when they finally rolled up with a cart of bagged lunches. Best apples and jerky I've ever eaten. They said it was to help us feel how grateful the Willie and Martin companies must have felt when the rescue teams finally arrived, but even as a 14 year old I was pretty sure since I wasn't frostbitten and hadn't buried anyone that day that I probably didn't have any idea what those pioneers felt like. The next day we did our Mormon Battalion experience and the brothers just stood to the side and watched us pull our carts up the sandiest hill they could find in Wyoming. Which was awesome, since my family had more sisters than any other family on the trek. Except 2 of them and our Ma were sick (probably heat sick, but no one would admit to that) so that was not fun for them. Honestly, the worst part for me was when I peed myself a little (I forget which day) because we were drinking a ton and for some reason on the last leg of the day's hike they kept stopping the whole company every few minutes so it took an eternity to get back to camp and the "toilets." Most of the other families just let folks go run off and pee in the brush, but not my Ma. The boys could do what they want but it wasn't lady-like for the sisters to do such a thing. When we finally made it to camp my sisters and I took off running to the different toilets but someone beat me to mine. Thank goodness my (real) Mom was paranoid and make me pack extra underwear. I used to think my Trek was awful, but after hearing other people's horror stories I realize I got off easy.
I had the "joy" of experiencing one of these in Ohio. It was a joint venture with a ward in Michigan. The hottest 3 days of that summer. Only one kid had to go to hospital afterwards. I didn't want to do it, but was made to go. One of the kids in my "family", would pull the cart with me and we'd sing "Heresy" by NIN quietly together. Luckily a few years later when I was out on my own doing the adult thing I quietly left the church.
I’m not Mormon but I read the book Devil's Gate: Brigham Young and the Great Mormon Handcart Tragedy. It was a very interesting read. Not related, but I’m an avid backpacker so I have walked somewhat long distances carrying all of my needs on my back thru the mountains, sometimes for 200-450 miles. Not quite the same thing but sort of. I enjoyed hearing about your experience. I heard if people doing that & wondered what that would be like. Funny they kept you in the dark about how long it would be. And super weird about the hair washing. I can’t imagine that it was a thing back in the day, Lol.
I don't remember why, but my brother and I didn't go to trek. Everyone who did go said it was great, but I thought it sounded awful. Your story makes me glad I skipped it. I did do the BoM camp twice, though. Much more enjoyable.
Not my Trek story. We were in a heavily Mormon area. I was too young at the time, and I was so upset I didn't get to go because all my siblings (none of us Mormon) went on the Trek. (I am now grateful I didn't go.) They had a rattlesnake show up at their campsite. The pa killed the rattlesnake (never got details on how), and their family all ate it at dinner. They said it tasted like rubbery chicken.
A kid sprained her ankle and my family (which was basically the SCRAWNIEST KIDS for some reason) had to PUSH HER. IN OUR CART. THE WHOLE WAY. She wasn't even in our family!!! Ugh. I forgot how mad I still am about that!
Im glad I didn't go. I instead went out with my first to the beach. Plus I just happened to graduated from high school and wasn't gonna missed out my summer for trek
We did it in Wyoming. Did 36 miles total in 3 days, in mid July, with no trees in sight the entire time. We did 17 miles the first day alone. That specific trail we were on, 3 other stakes that summer had done AND all of them had multiple people FLOWN to hospitals due to dehydration and exposure as well as having IVs. And our stake STILL chose to do it. I myself got heat streak day 2 and had to spend the night in the “medical” tent. (Oh and they still made me do the woman’s pull that day as well) and when I got home I had to go to the doctor to have my feet checked due to the amount of blisters and stress fracture in my foot from the cart rolling over it. They asked me 4 years later if I wanted to do it again, it was a QUICK HARD no for me.
Physical exhaustion,
sleep deprivation,
social isolation,
identify deformation,
thought inculcation....
Indoctrination.
Exactly. It's all boundary pushing exercises.
all of the activities are intended to be abusive and to break the kids down to false humility
Lifetime PTSD for some.
Wow. No silver linings.
Exactly! The parents of these poor kids should be ashamed of themselves or jailed. preferably jailed!!!!
One of the ma’s on a trek I went on actually passed away because of the heat and humidity in Oklahoma. Her body just couldn’t take it and her organs shut down. Our trek ended the day after she started having major complications so I think I was only there for a day and a half. On top of that experience was all the weird trek stuff they had us do. It was an awful experience.
I recommend "gates of hell" about the pioneers. The whole thing was a massacre with up to 20% death rate and brigham young robbing them while having them prove his stupid idea. They died like the flies and got whipped with their kids being herded in front of the group so they wouldn't bother the older ones, who dropped stayed down unless someone went back and got him/her. Great book, horrible story.
My ward did trek about 4 years ago. My ward back then was so toxic and I was bullied by not just the older girls in my tent (yeah we got tents and girls and boys were separated) but also by my Ma and Pa. I had JUST had foot surgery and was barely cleared by my doctor to be able to go and so I had a hard time walking. I would twist my ankle pretty bad multiple times a day and instead of having compassion my Ma would stand next to me annoyed that I was hurt thinking I was exaggerating. I also struggle with dehydration and so the long stretches in the sun were NOT good for my health. I honestly wish I never went. Only bad memories came from it and I don’t look forward to ever having another one. Another girl (she’s my friend) had also just had surgery but for her liver and everyone was so concerned for her but saw me as an annoyance for also having JUST had surgery granted mine wasn’t as major. Sounds stupid to be jealous of that but when you’re 13, and being treated like shit, away from home and anyone who will listen, you can’t help but feel miserable. Anyways I hated trek and never want that again.
Ughhhhh.
Mine was 3 days long.
We had to build our own handcarts.
We chased, killed, and cooked our own chickens.
My friend got her period for the first time.
I forgot to bring a hair tie.
My ma and pa did go through our stuff, but I just held my “contraband” (chewing gum) in my pocket.
For the women’s pull, they told us that the men got attacked and killed by Native Americans.
I got my hair washed with Dawn dish soap by one of the leaders. I had to lay my head on a rock and they used a cold cold bucket of water.
During a “trek prep” meeting they told us “if you think you’re not ready, you’re right. And if you think you’re ready, you’re not.”
The only positive thing I can think of is that they had our parents write us letters and gave them to us during some study time. It was very sweet. I did cry.
Thank you for coming to my Ted talk
That’s insane!
But why dish soap? My hair and scalp are crying.
Other than the hairwashing, & the details of why we had to do a women's pull, this sounds identical to my experience.
It was Mormons who blamed Mountain Meadows on Native Americans by dressing up and wearing war paint. They then used a flag of Parlé to slaughter everyone. Blame it on the Jews again (since I assume they believed that Native Americans were all descended from Jews as per BoM).
For mine, parents had to write to us too, but I don’t get along with my mom and her letter was super condescending. She told me she hoped the trek would break my spirit.
Grew up in Utah, I was forced to go on Trek as a 12 year old. I was very surprised when a friend told me that their ward didn't let 12 or 13 year olds go. Really makes me wish my ward was like that
How hilarious would it have been if you pulled out a bottle of whiskey; hey, the pioneers drank that shit at the time.
Priceless. Absolutely priceless. Whiskey! Love it!
80's child... so glad this wasn't a 'thing' when I was a mormon kid. But if it had been... I would have been the one with a flask of whiskey.
Yes, back then they did drink whiskey . . . and wine . . . and beer. My g-g-grandfather on my mother's side, was a Danish immigrant/convert who settled in the Sanpete valley, in the Mount Pleasant area. Three wives, 20 kids, and lots and lots of Danish beer.
Some pioneers used whiskey as a "anesthetic" while they cut off a limbs or digits due to frostbite. A lot of LDS members refused this if it was offered. Imagine the pain. As a side note a young Joseph Smith had to have part of the bone from a leg removed when he was a kid. He refused and whiskey to numb the pain.
So true and a six shooter
The church always told us Trek was good for us to experience how the pioneers suffered for us. You don’t have to nail me to a cross so I can experience how Christ suffered. The church told me I was born when I was because I was valiant in the pre-existence. Sucks to have been born in the 19th century and have to pull carts across wild wilderness. Serves them right. They should’ve been more valiant in the pre-existence.
Truly.... Glad I waited to show up in 1954 in the 20th century. My ancestors were just a bunch of wimps and stayed in New York state when the LDS church first got started and didn't follow the rest of the group. Still stayed Mormon but missed all the "fun" traipsing over the Rocky Mountains...... No video games when I was a kid but we did have Schwinn Bicycles. I must have been a bit more "valiant." LOL
The funniest thing I read in a long time! 😂😂
@@kkheflin3 all my ancestors were smart, they waited for the fucking railroad to finish lmao
Did trek in Utah. I had come out to my TBM mom that I no longer believed so she made me go in the hopes it would 'help me feel the spirit again'. I was 16, it was over 100 degrees and I have really intense seasonal allergies. I got heat exhaustion pretty severely one day and collapsed. People just thought I was being dramatic because they new I didn't want to be there. They tried to force me up and to keep going, I don't remember what happened very well at that point because I was pretty delirious but at some point they gave up and had a truck come pick me up and take me to the next camp. The nurses there immediately loaded me down with icepacks and my body went into shock. I started shivering and dry heaving and that is all I remember of that day, until it was fully dark and my friend was holding my hand sitting beside my alone blanket covered body, yelling my name to get my attention. I guess my eyes were open but I just wasn't doing anything.
That is horrible. You poor thing. I bet that did NOT change your mind!
Holy Fuck!!!!! What the hell? You could've died. You should've gone to the ER. What are these people thinking??????
That is so sad. How could they not realise how ill you were!
Clearly, you were severely dehydrated and suffering from heat exhaustion. I presume the organizers had emergency procedures and equipment in place but still, a piss poor response. In (non-LDS) Scouting, the Scouts are taught to monitor each other on hikes and treks, keep hydrated by monitoring mandatory water consumption, and moderating the activity to the weather. The people running these treks sound like clueless religious zealots.
You’re lucky you lived through this
The problem I have with stuff like this is that you are totally unprepared in way that the pioneers never were. They were used to walking, to physical labor. And if they weren't at first, they became conditioned as they went farther (and not through mountains at the beginning of the trek). They would have stopped long before dark, especially in the summer. A meal of broth would have been extremely rare.
This is like the British family in the "1900 House" (a BBC/PBS show from 2000). They talked about how hard it was to keep the house running, but they were making mistakes no family from 1900 would have made, because they'd grown up in the late 1800s.
Thiiisssss! It’s not historically accurate at. All.
I was one of two women in my "family", and the other girl had back problems, so I literally was forced to push that fucking cart up the steep hill ALONE, without being allowed to talk or cry for help. When the men in my family tried to help me, the church leaders stopped them. They ended up in their knees CRYING next to me, wanting to help me so bad, cuz I was CLEARLY in severe pain and I just couldn't do it on my own. It was literally IMPOSSIBLE.... The whole trip was some the worst, most traumatic memories from the church.....
Damn that sucks ass. My sister was literally bleeding from her feet and they still made her walk, but they let her off like the last day. But hey, at least you survive. You’re a tuff girl.
The church Ward is supposed to represent a big loving and helpful family, sister. But It seems to me that only a dysfunctional family would First Make You Suffer shame and pain before any help is rendered. Instead of playing pretend, with real whips, how about instead we go break our backs and help the suffering in our own City, in this century. Heck if you really investigate you would probably find many in your own ward who only Pretend that a visit once a month is good enough, but in reality are literally dying emotionally or physically because they need help children and any number of things
that's asinine . the brethren back in the day would have helped , in fact that's how some men and women fell in love while crossing the plains I bet . They should have let those guys help you out !! Sorry that happened to you - it was unnecessary and uncalled for
Not allowing the men to help will the physical labor is the most unrealistic thing I've ever heard. Pioneer times were all about gender roles....and guess who was expected to be physically stronger and more able?
The men.
I grew up in Utah during the 70s 80s and 90s. Sunday’s were awesome , everyone was in church and all of us sinners had the whole state to our selves.
I grew up in Utah and Trek came up in my ward every few years. I never went. I always said that according to the leaders of our church, I was saved for the last days. If I was meant to pull a handcart I would not have been born in the last days.
😂🤣😂 Great reply!
Love that!, made me giggle, thanks
Prriceless comment! Absolutely priceless.
I did Mormon Pioneer Trek in 2015. I am a guy and I washed nobody's hair. I definitely remember being very hungry. The first night, we were given a slop of chicken cubes, but due to the cold weather, the food had partially frozen (an unusual cold snap in the hills of Connecticut), so we were eating partially frozen chicken bits. Sunday was the worst because the food was minimal and we were doing a testimony meeting and every single kid (at least a hundred) got up and bore their testimony about how the event was so special and they just felt the spirit. All I could think about was the promise of whatever food they had available. I had braces at the time, but I didn't care. I tore into the apple and granola bar they gave me. My wires were busted, my mouth was shot.
Two months ago, in church one guy talked about how God doesn't ask us to do anything we aren't able to do ("We can't run faster than we are able" or something). I thought about the pioneers and the people that died trekking across the plains because the prophet said so. Either the prophets can't discern who is able to fulfill their commandments, or God instructs his people to die.
I did trek in the mid-80s. I think I remember being told it was one of the first treks ever. At least in the infancy of the program. I had forgotten much of what you described, but yes even back then we did all the same things. I vividly remember the first day and into the night. I did have a wristwatch that apparently nobody noticed, and it was just after 1:00 A.M. when we finally stopped for the feast of beef broth. I remember the hair washing...odd. I remember at the beginning they mixed us all up and then separated us into "families"...there were three or four stakes worth of youth, I was from one of the Roosevelt Ut. stakes, and there were a couple of stakes from Bountiful and West Bountiful. We were supposed to tell our ma and pa if we knew anybody in our family, and oddly enough nobody knew anybody else! ( I had one girl from my ward and two other people from my high school but not the same stake)
My horror story was on the second day for dinner we made fry bread and one kid in our family who was kind of an annoying, loud, smart @$& threw his dough into the pot when I was leaning over to put mine in, and the boiling oil splashed up on my face and into my left eye. So for the rest of the trip I had blisters on the side of my face and I tore off my shirt sleeve and made an eye patch. Most of them thought I was being funny or something , but it was actually because it was sooo painful when any air hit my eye... Nobody looked at it, examined it, nothing. My ma and pa asked if I was okay and naturally I said it was fine, which it wasn't, but that was just a knee-jerk reaction I had learned from years of beatings from dear old dad. "If you're going to cry I'll give you something to cry about!!" Literally
My mother did take me to the optometrist when I got home. He said there was some scarring but too late to do any good, but use these eye drops for the pain and hopefully the scar tissue will go away...Keep praying, and do you want a Priesthood blessing? (The local optometrist was in the stake presidency!)
I seem to have blocked much of my youth from my memory...until someone brings up something like this from the past, and then I take a little trip down memory lane.
My left eye has never really been one hundred percent. I guess my faith wasn't where it needed to be...
Sigh. Why are people such jerks sometimes? I am outraged on your behalf. And so sorry you had to go through all of that. Hugs
I remember when I was at track, we had the same no electronic rule, except all of the leaders had their phones. I specifically remember trying to fall asleep and I kept hearing my leader's phone playing Disney movies. I was PISSED
Man I must be the only person that had a fun time during trek. I understand how some parts of it are just wrong but overall it was a fun time with enjoyable memories with my friends.
I'm from GA and they had us do ours during the winter since so many youth got heat stroke from previous years where they held it in the summer. I attended trek in 2014 and had a ton of fun. A lot of my trek family were much more relaxed Mormons, I think there were 2 converts in my "family", and everyone was pretty chill. We went by our normal names, but referred to our "ma and pa" by their titles bc we thought it was funny. We gave our "grandparents" southern grandparents names which was fun too. I remember our family pretending we were amish if we passed by anyone lol. We held our trek in a military base since it was one of the only places that was out in the middle of nowhere and wouldn't have a lot of foot traffic like the Appalachian trails usually do. The only electronics we were allowed were watches to keep track of the schedule, which was nice. I don't think people went through anyone's stuff, since I remember seeing some girls wearing mascara, but I think phones were only taken if found. We didn't have the young men wash our hair, I don't think they would have done that anyways since we live in a pretty swampy area. Lots of other families sang church songs, but we didn't really chime in. We did do the women's pull, but half way through some church members had come dressed in in their temple clothes (not the ceremonial ones) and helped the women pushed the carts. At the end we were greeted with by all the young men. I remember this being a pretty cool experience and feeling the spirit. We did have a square dance and games that happened new years eve which was super fun, and we had tons of food brought in and set off some fireworks. I made great friends during that time even though my "family" barely talked about gospel stuff. Although I'm questioning my faith now, it was definitely something I wouldn't have changed in my teen years and have very fond memories of looking back.
I blocked most of my Trek experience but I do remember that was the WORST 3 days of my life! I was BRUTALLY bullied but everyone. Even the leaders. I got severely dehydrated at one point. I had to stay home from the biggest hike the girls did because my ankle was fucked up and I could barely walk and was still very dehydrated and wasn't doing very well. Everyone made me feel like shit for having to stay back. And they kept me busy cooking and helping the entire time even though I was sick and and hurting and just not doing well.. and I was like barely 14 at the time.. it was AWEFUL. So glad I am out of that cult and never have to go again!
I was a teenager in the 80's. It must have been right before they started doing these treks. Instead they would take us into the woods, starve us, and make us do physical labor. At the end there would be a testimony meeting, then they would feed us.
I was never mormon but growing up in Utah, almost everyone around me was. I love your videos and I love how you take the time to learn and ask questions instead of following opinions blindly. You're such a great role model! Would you ever consider starting a podcast?
Thank you!! I honestly don’t see myself doing a podcast, but if I ever did it would have to be when my kids are older.
I've never been a mormon but one of my best friends was and I remember when she had to go on this trip!! we live in Maryland and are 21 now, but she went when she was about 16 and I just remember how stressful and blatantly abusive it all sounded!!! she had to make her own garments of course and hATED IT, and at the point I'm almost sure she knew there was something fishy going on with Mormonism but after that trip she had enough and basically stopped believing in any of it. She was telling my mom and I all about it when she got back and we were just listening with our moths wide open the whole time. Wow, thank you for this video I'm shook af
she had an awful experience at the actual trek.. like it seemed like they were playing survivor/ lord of the flies or some shit lolol. also they had to do an immense amount of physical labor everyday. idk if some treks are worse than others (I assume they are) but it just really never sat right with me...
I never went on trek myself, but that's because - get ready for this - they stopped holding it in my area (Oklahoma/Arkansas, for context) when I was 13 or so, because someone in a neighboring stake DIED from heat related issues. Yup. Can't remember if it was heat stroke or what specifically, but an actual death. Which is..insane, to put it mildly!
I did that once when I was a teen. My parents convinced me to go even though it fell on my 16th birthday. We maybe only walked for 2 hours a day over the 2 days we were there. We never carried anybody over the river and we never had to wash the girl's hair (thank god!). We did do the thing where all the guys just left and then they made us come back and act like angels and push the handcarts while the girls pulled them. While we were gone they told us something about the Mormon battalion but I am a bit hazy on those details. They assigned us names but nobody seemed to embrace it enough to actually use them but our "Ma and Pa" kept trying to get us to call them by their pioneer names.
Also funny story we had a kid fake sprain his ankle about 20 mins into the first day and we had to pull him in the handcart up all those hills and stuff. He lived up the street from me and I found out a few days later that he was perfectly fine when I saw him biking around. What an ass, it's kind of funny now but I was livid pulling him around at the time. He probably weight 250lbs and of course he was in my family group.
One positive thing came from Trek for me though. During Trek is when I decided that it was time to just come out and tell my parents that I wasn't going to go on a mission. The Trek didn't push me to do it or anything but at that point I kind of thought the longer I waited the harder it would be. I was always a loner so I had a long time to just think while we were up there. It took me a few months to build up my courage to tell then but Trek was where I actually made the decision that I for sure wasn't going. Needless to say my life got a lot easier past that point. The stress leading up to a mission is almost unbearable (at least for me).
yeah, the ONLY benefit of being a woman in that church is a lack of expectation about going on a mission. I am sooo glad I was never expected to go.
I looked at both the trek and the mission and was like: well those sound unpleasant, I'll pass. 😄 I was so oblivious I didn't even realize there was a social stigma.
Trek was the one thing my strict parents never made us do, THANKFULLY
I live in AZ and they had it during the hot desert summers and I distinctly remember someone telling a story of someone getting heat stroke during it during sacrament meeting :/
I can’t even IMAGINE having to do it in the Arizona heat 😩😩
@@ExmoLex yeah I'm pretty sure that's the reason my parents never made us do it because it was downright dangerous
Grew up in southwest Missouri. So trek for us was in mid July. Temp 90-100 and 100% humidity. I ended up getting heat stroke and they could care less.
Yep! I didn’t do it but a lot kid my friends did.
We had each family carry a babydoll full of sand that we had to pass around. Our baby’s head kept falling off so when we set up camp and needed to put a tarp up for rain our ma and pa put the baby’s head on a stake to prevent the stick from piercing the tarp 😂 Everyone stopped by to laugh at or judge us.
I was part of trek during its very first year roughly 16 yrs ago, it was 12 miles in the north Georgia mountains, no weird names, don’t recall if our bags were gone through, definitely no hair washing! When our men returned from the Mormon battalion they stood at the top of the hill and just watched us pull the carts up in misery 😩 I was 17 and didn’t want to be there, was already “rebelling” by Mormon standards, so I didn’t even want to participate in the day of activities. My trek family was super chill though.
I grew up in Michigan and they did it every 4 years. The one I "should" have gone on happened over the weekend that happened to be my18th birthday and there was no way I was going. I now live in Texas and they do it here as well. One of my friend's daughters went and they left the church not long after. Her middle daughter wouldn't have gone if you paid her. She knew long before the rest of us that this was a bunch of lies. 😂 We're all happy exMos now.
I never went to EFY because they usually interfered with my family's summer vacation. My parents were never super crazy about us going on every single little trip. In fact my Dad uses them against me now and bring up the fact that I got to go on "all of these trips when I was a teenager". Yeah, church trips. It's not like I was going to Florida with my friends for spring break. 🙄
My wife's bishop/pa died on their trek...suddenly the adults had a way to call for help
I was Laurel class president and I refused to go. They even were going to let me pick my own ma & pa and choose my siblings and I still was like nahhhhh. I’m so glad I didn’t go haha
Lazy
Why did the guys have to stop at just washing the girls hair? They should have also done a cut and color. Good training for future hairdressers.
ha ha ha
@Susan Mance That would have gone against the sexism and misogynist views. Good, faithful, temple-worthy, full tithe paying, Mormon men do not make a career out of being a cosmetologist. That is a woman's job. Only if something happens to her husband such as death or disability so that before the woman is remarried to another man, sorry sealed to another man, she would be able to provide income for her family of 15.
It's a way of indoctrinating and normalizing abuse. I'm so glad that she escaped and she will not be putting her kids through that.
I’m from Idaho and we did trek. Travelled to Wyoming for it 30 hours on a greyhound bus. I also snuck mascara and my iPod. I REALLY did not want to go. My parents forced me to. We’d go to the store and shop for stuff we needed and I would cry and run away I hated every part of it.
We did tek in WV and it was fucked. They told us to come hungry and that we would be fed before we left but THEY LIED and let us starve for the next 7 hours when they gave us a single orange. A single orange after pulling a handcart in the hot summer sun for 7 hours. We stopped at like 5 pm when we were given the orange, and then went until after 11 pm and were not fed until we set up our camp, well after midnight. What were we fed? A single cup of instant broth and a roll, which was soggy because of the rain. As we were setting up, a massive lightning storm came and drenched our entire camp and all of us were completely soaked. Most people didn't sleep through the night and were exhausted. Our stake president wanted us to keep going but the medic shut the whole thing down after that first day because the weather freaked out and temperatures dropped dramatically where we were and he was afraid he wouldn't be able to resuscitate multiple kids dying from the cold, especially since all our stuff was soaked through. They also had us do the women's pull which was torture for everyone. They had us do it on a long, shadeless, uphill section for like an hour or 2 in the bright sun. The boys were crying because they felt so guilty watching us struggle. There was a girl who passed out and they told her group family to leave her on the roadside for the medic to come and check on her. We just had to walk past while she sobbed. They also dump searched our stuff like we were smuggling illegal items and refused to let me carry my own medication with me. I was pushed to do trek, despite my hangups since I was dealing with severe mental health struggles, and then was not even allowed the accommodation of being able to keep my medication with me, even though we discussed it with the leaders beforehand. The amount of water we were allowed was also rationed and we were all definitely dehydrated. It was hell but I convinced myself it was okay because God or whatever. We later found out our trek was based on some old-school byu survival manual the stake president was obsessed with, but was taken out of curriculum because it was too severe. He literally wanted us to suffer and struggle.
I highly recommend John Larsen's heartbreaking account of the Willie and Martin handcart companies on Mormon Stories Podcast. Go listen to it but I mean get ready to cry your eyes out. These poor people were ACTIVELY stolen from and neglected by the church over in Utah while being abused and starved on their grueling trip 💔. My ancestors were among those European converts and handcart pioneers and it gets super personal.
I'm Oregon raised, so of course we did the Trek thing, following (at times) actual historical pioneer wagon trails through the mountains. Flirted with a nerdy boy in my "family" group the whole weekend so that probably made it fun for me. Reading all your horrible experiences, I have to give props to my former leaders for making good decisions! No live animal slaughters, no river crossing, girls washed their *own* hair in the river! The last day we had "ran out of food" so the ma's and pa's cooked biscuits in a pan made of only flour and water.
I remember begging my mom not to make me go to trek and she forced me to go. 90 percent of the experience was awful. We had fun times but most of it was being miserable with the awful “family” I was placed with and being in so much pain because of my feet and knee problems. There was also so much sexism in the things we did and so much tension between the people I had to spend it with. To top it all off it was either unbearably hot or windy to the point where my eyes hurt so bad from the dirt. Worst 3 days of my life
If only y’all got to sing the “Krusty Krab Pizza” song
We did trek when I was 17, in California. We actually pulled our carts over Melissa Corey Peak. But we got actual food.
I’ve actually gone on trek and shattered my Growth plate. They drugged me with pain meds and forced me to keep going. Everyone told me to stay and I fought back and insisted on going home. They finally said yes and I got a ride home and went to the doctor. He said I had shattered it. The most embarrassing thing is that they wanted to put me in the young adults cart. I was mortified and it was the first thing that me question my faith.
@Joseph Stahle That's terrible that such a serious injury would be ignored by them! I sure hope your health has recovered without permanent damage.
@@KidsandKittens217 yeah I’m good to go now. I raised hell so they had no choice. Thank goodness my mom has a lab science degree and taught me to stand up for my health. Or else it could’ve been way worse
Wow. Just- wow.
Born and (mostly) raised in Mormon Utah… and I have never heard of this!! It’s so strange to think some of my friends have probably done this..
We did it in Nevada. I was one of the "lucky" ones that got to go on two
I’m from Montréal Quebec and they did a special version of this to us during a boy-scout jamboree… They had organized a big scene with the local police department and a farmer nearby without telling us anything about it at all. Cops pulled up in the camp in the middle of the night and told us we weren’t allowed to be on the site anymore and that we had to leave immediately. We took our most important belongings and left, we slept in the woods on the farmer’s property. They made us believe we were doing this illegaly cause we had no where else to go… We were a group of maybe 50 lids or more with only a few adults. This was so irresponsible and damaging for young kids to make them live through this kind of trauma just to make them experience what the pioneers had to go through. All these adults agreeing to such a harmful and stupidly dangerous idea is mind bugling to me 😒
To make matters worse, if I remember right, they hadn’t noticed the parents either…
😳
When I went the women’s March was up this enormous hill and it was just my ward so they let 12-year-olds come (I was a 12 yo) and the boys stood on the sides and cheered us on and it was at the hottest point of the day and I just wanted to cry
Exmo from PA, my sister did a baby trek up a hill for a picnic and home before dark. My trek was three days of hell in NV we didn't come up with new names but we did take on the family names of our 'ma' & 'pa' (we became the swansonites). All our stuff was in 5 gal tubs and they went through our stuff as an Indian raid halfway up the hill, and we went 10+ miles a day. I had heat exhaustion episodes almost every day. It was awful. However when my family was overseas we didn't do trek but that could have been the region. (Middle east)
It's on brand that the adults were lying to you the whole time. "It's just a little bit further..." Yeah, I'm so surprised to learn now that the organization was lying to me too
The one thing the church teaches is how to lie straight faced. Lie to your bishop so you can go on youth baptism or lie to your children so they don't just walk away. No matter how you cloak it, it is lying.
@@ghostest1719 there is a WHOLE over 100 comment thread (on a different video) of me and a Mormon who came to this page to lie that Mormons aren't trying to force their religion on people (Prop 8) and that the church isn't sexist and that women are equal in the church. Apparently, me not keeping my cool against them was "hateful," but all the hating Queer people and voting to take their rights away isn't to this person. SOOOOOOOOO many lies.
What a horrible, traumatic experience! Misogyny, child abuse, predators! No wonder you were uncomfortable having a strange boy wash your hair,! They were indoctrinating the girls into submitting to men whether or not they wanted to. This event is a form of torture. They make you so tired, hungry & sleepy to the point you will do anything just for it to stop! So disgusting🤬. Glad you made it thru & got out! And your children won’t be subjected to this atrocious situation!
at general conference a couple of years ago, someone called rape "nonconsentual immorality." They don't care about consent and clearly, not even for the boys. I'm sure there were soooooo many boys who absolutely did not want to part take in washing the girls' hair.
Im glad I skipped that. Actually, I'm glad I skipped everything that I skipped in mormonism.
I grew up in southern Alberta, Canada and we called it josephs legacy. had a huge meltdown the morning was to leave, so my sister and dad left without me. I remember my dad yelling, crying, saying that I was breaking his heart. I remember for the whole day my mom would give me looks and say comments, making me feel guilty. The next day I went because I thought it would be better to face my fears of heatstroke and oppression than disappointing anyone any further.
When was this? I'm from Calgary and we called it "Trek" (mid-90's). & It sucked almost as bad as the stories people are telling from the States, but with a healthy measure of "let's not get sued/create a PR disaster" that seemed to round off the roughest edges. (Though I gather this was learned the hard way from previous Treks???)
Mine was 2015 July
The washing the girls hair part seems incredibly creepy.
Arizona does it
I am a bus driver in Idaho. We take mormon kids to the hand cart trails in Wyoming. Apparently they walk from Casper to Lander.
On our second day we didn’t do activities, we sat and journaled ALL day about our ancestors and I didn’t even have any. I was less bored walking with strangers for 12 hours the day before. Never talked to anybody, never made any friends. Walked away with a sprained ankle, but thank god no one washed my hair.
Did anyone else have the fake babies on their trek? They gave each family a 10 lbs bag of sand with stuffed limbs/head and we had to take turns carrying it the whole trek. Couldn't put it on the cart and had to carry it like a real baby or we got in trouble. We woke up the last day and all the babies were gone. They told us all our babies were dead and took us to a tiny gravesite that had the names of all the babies. It was actually super dark and twisted.
These people are nuts
So we did this in Texas…in 100+ degrees. Over 40 people had to get an IV drip due to dehydration.🙃
I went on 2 treks. The first one was much more grueling than the second. I’m not sure if it was the age difference. Both my experiences were akin to yours. Broth for dinner, zoom cereal for the next breakfast. On one we had to kill and pluck our own turkeys. Many kids were traumatized by just that one event. 0/10.
In California, We never had trek when I was a teen in the early 90’s. They did start doing it when my daughter was a teen. She didn’t want to go so I didn’t make her. I know a lot of parents who made their kids go.
I grew up in New York State and we didn't have anything there other than the annual Hill Cumorah pageant. My 15 year old niece, however, lived in Utah and did this Pioneer Trek thing. On hers the girls had to carry a baby DOLL the entire time and every once in a while the "Ma" would come over and tell her that her baby had "died" and they would all pray over it and bury it on the side of the road. And then go on...She was horribly traumatized....It's a wonder there weren't child abuse charges filed!
WHAT
WHAT THE FUCK
lol I'm sorry for the caps but this is beyond freakin belief. double yikes.
@@weaksohyeah Agreed. I couldn't believe it when my niece and her friends told me this was part of the "Trek" to make it more "realistic" in understanding what the LDS pioneers endured to get to Utah. Morbid. She said they also gave them limited food to try to duplicate the hunger the pioneers endured. I hope they have cut back on these things for God's sake. Good Grief.
@@kkheflin3 Oh my life so the starvation is on purpose?! So misguided. And the guy was a freakin con man! Just so ridiculous and gross. No no no
Thanks for sharing! I'm British and had NO IDEA
I experienced this on a trek, except the baby died once, not "every once in a while". It was a simulation of history, meant to give a tiny glimpse of what they went through. As for being traumatized, the point was to learn to empathize with someone's pain .... to walk in their shoes, so to speak. For me, it was a very sad and touching moment. But it was a doll. If the loss of a doll caused excessive trauma, then something is off. May she never watch "Old Yeller" or "Bambi", lest there be abuse charges.
@@bwbrady8372have you left the church already?
They do it here in south central PA on the Appalachian trail. I felt so bad for the youth because ticks were really bad last summer and they’re walking in deep woods. Also, the “parents” (incl an ER Nurse manager) complained that it’s too bad they had to actually feed them and give the kids regular breaks.
I'm also from south central pa. Franklin county area.
😮
Love the beanie and no face shirt!
My Treck was horrible we literally stopped for so many breaks, took forever to get there, there was nothing fun about it no dancing no activities, could only hang out with the people in my group one of them being my sister which at the time we both hated each other, made my depression a million times worse realizing what the pioneers went through, would have been better if they had some fun activities and I could have hung out with my friends
I had some severe health problems on trek and my "pa" was a doctor. he told me to walk it off. My problems started on day one and by the last day i couldnt walk. I got examined by a doctor when I got home and had dislocated my hips, tailbone, pelvis, both knees and had somehow twisted my entire shin bone. the whole time i had so much pain and heat exhaustion and a doctor told me to walk it off😅
I almost forgot about the hair washing, that was awkward. I could tell the girl was uncomfortable, so I tried to lather the shampoo in her scalp like a little massage, but now that I think of it it probably made her more uncomfortable lol. We did it in those bobbing for apples tin basin things not the river. Also some kid got bit by a snake in another company but he was taken away in a golf cart. Not sure what happened after that. Edit: Also I smuggled my moms old cell phone, so I can play snake and tetris
Your experience was so different than mine! Especially with food. We were allowed to bring our own snacks and we had big dutch oven dinners, etc. We had a list of stuff to bring and not bring but I don't remember them going through our stuff this time... (but back when Survivor was a thing, one of the YW leader's nieces was on the show, so we did a survivor themed youth conference and they took away EVERYTHING we brought and we had to complete challenges to earn it all back- yes, even the sleeping bags! But that's a story for another time!) We slept in tents. It was actually a lot of fun. Like you, we learned pioneer dances, games, and sang hymns as we walked. The "men" had to go away and join the battalion, and the women had to pull the carts themselves for a few hours. Instead of using a different name, we were told to research a pioneer ancestor (if we had one) and bring a story about them to share. We read the stories on the last day and had a big testimony meeting. The hair thing is really weird, we didn't do that. But honestly I might have repressed that memory.
I know this is an unpopular opinion here, but I don't think trek is child abuse. It did help me gain a lot of perspective about modern comforts that I often take for granted. Clearly though, my leader roulette was better than yours. Had I only been given broth, I might be thinking differently. Oh, and indoctrination. Indoctrination sucks!!
I am glad you had a good experience
I got super lucky with mine… I’m guessing it was in 2015, and we had an actual chef in our stake that cooked delicious filling meals for us every night, plus more than enough snacks and large sack lunches. The basic concepts were all still the same but besides the awful larping aspect of it I really enjoyed the week of being outdoors and camping/hiking (but I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors, most of the other kids were miserable the whole week and I felt bad for anyone that hated hiking or wasn’t in shape). Plus no awkward hair washing lmao
Zelph on the Shelf spoke abt their trek experiences and read others’; it reads like very strange coercive child abuse. I am very sorry you had to experience such a thing. The taking of names is disconcerting to say the least. Most emxo experiences I have heard from trek sound like needless sadism from the “Ma and Pa.” I sort of don’t understand how trek is legal. These experiences are hard to listen to just from an empathetic front; I am basing a fictional religion on Mormonism and its dictatorial cruelty so I hope I am able to bring comfort and awareness to the kids going through this crap someday. Thank you for sharing and thank you for your work.
Depriving people of food, sleep, and identity is a classic cult brainwashing technique :/
I already struggle with identity, so If I was forced to be called another name that would mess me up in the head so much
I would have packed a can of coffee, just to see ma and pa's reaction!
I’m from Melbourne Australia and we did pioneer trek here. Haha seems so crazy looking back haha
I never went to trek when I was Mormon but glad I didn’t this sounds like torture.
I was raised by a sing mother. My mom and I weren’t the best Mormons but we went every Sunday. (I just found out a few years ago she never believed in the Joseph smith story.) Our family isn’t from Utah or even the United States so she told me I didn’t have to go. However she was a photographer and happened to be the only photographer in our ward. They roped her into going to take pictures and I was excited to have our apartment to myself for the weekend but nope, she forced me to go because she had to go. We got lost on the first day and ended up walking like 12 miles. That whole experience was awful.
We even used portable potty’s now I have a fear of them ever since
I'm from Australia, Pioneer Trek was rly hard and emotional. I was an older sister, 2nd time.......
Women's Pull was hard mentally and physical
When our ward went, I flat out refused. They tried so hard to get me to go even offering to let me ride in the RV they were bringing for the leaders so they could be comfortable (which seriously was BS... torture the kids while the adults have an RV). I remember telling my mutual leaders that I couldn’t suppose our ancestors who went through that hell would wish it on us, and also if ‘everyone’ wanted the full scope of ‘the burden’ the guys should do the whole thing in dresses because honestly? That shit just makes it worse. No regrets I didn’t attend. Also never went to girls camp either on the explanation that I was ( and still am) an unapologetic townie... and if God wanted the ‘chosen generation’ to suffer he wouldn’t have given us electricity and indoor plumbing. Again, zero regrets.
They had this is Brazil, but is for the RS. They had this around the 80’s and 90’s. Today they don’t do it anymore.
I'm from Kentucky and I'm remember going through the pioneer trek experience. It was hot, miserably long, and I remember washing alot of dirt out of my hair when I got home. Luckily, we only had to camp out for one night, and we slept in tents. Thankfully, they didn't have the young men wash the young women's hair. I had to carry a baby doll while we were hiking to represent a real baby, so I had to walk through the water, instead of being carried across it. I had to go by a different name and they went through our stuff too.
So listening to you describe this was weird for me. At first I was like "Huh. I must have left soon enough as a teen to not do this." Because I never had to pull a cart or dress up or anything like that. Basically.... I never larped with my church. Then you started describing the activities and the eating and all that and I'm like..... "Wait..... I think I did a waaaaaaaaaaaay simpler version of this at Young Women's Camp one year!" We didn't leave the designated area for the camp, but we did trek all over the place and made it to different activities. Each one had some sort of message about God. We did bracelet making. Candle making. Archery. We got a little booklet filled with pictures of flowers and plants and each had some story next to it that was religious and we needed to find each plant. A bunch of different stuff. It wasn't "pioneer" food but at one point we learned how to cook different things on a fire. I distinctly remember one being how to make a cake in an orange peel. Shit you not. You made cake batter. Cut the top off an orange. Scooped though the orange. Filled the orange peel. Put the top back on. Wrapped it in foil. Then threw it on a fire for like.... 10 minutes. Open foil, orange, and then inside is orange flavored cake.
Then we didn't have a square dance, but we ended the day with "Singing Trees". Each ward picked a tree and stood under it and we sang a hymn (I can't remember which one). Every girl had a flashlight and what happened was the first ward sang a section of the hymn with everyone in that ward shining their flashlights up into the tree they were under. Then they shut off their lights and moved on to the next ward. It was to make it look like the trees furthest from you were "glowing and singing". This continues till every ward is done and then we all sang the song together with all our flashlights on. MY WARD WAS LAST! It was like midnight and I was exhausted. I was so tired that I fell asleep standing up. We hadn't eaten for hours at that point either. My leader saw I had fallen asleep and when we got back to our tents she made me go to bed without eating because "If you were too tired sing you are too tired to stay up to make smores with the other girls." So I had to go to bed with an empty stomach smelling the other girls roasting smores.
I'm going to be that weird person to say of course you did square dancing. The Mormon church is racist and Square Dancing has a SUPER racist history--they essentially started Square dancing, because they didn't want people doing lindy hop and other swing dancing because swing dancing was created by Black people.
I am from the UK and also lived in salt lake I did the awful trek but they do no do the trek in the UK. I am an ex Mormon but I will say the church in Utah is far different than the church where I am from, I hated it when I lived in Utah and loved it when I was back home I moved back to Utah when I moved out and did not want to be apart of the Utah Mormonism finally left the church and did my own research on it and I am more than glad I am no longer in the religion! Great videos I enjoy hearing yours and others personal experiences on the church that are similar to mine!
We did it in Wyoming too. It wasn’t terrible but it was horribly hot. Food wasn’t terrible. The “ma and pa” got a tent and all the kids had to sleep outside. I wanna say we ended up walking 22 miles round trip.
I’m from Washington, I snuck toothpaste and I got in huge trouble. TOOTHPASTE
It should be illegal. On my trek we were starving and exhausted. My first night I went to sleep on the ground in a sleeping bag feeling light headed and hungry because we didn't eat much and had hiked ten miles. I remember hallucinating that night, thinking bugs were crawling on my skin but every time I went to slap them off of me they weren't there. I was sixteen. I saw a teen boy get sick from hiking without food and he threw up on the trail. One of the leaders got sick too. many years later I contacted one of those leaders to talk about it and they laughed it off, saying it's safer now that they have doctors come along. I would never send my kids on something like this and am angry that my parents sent me.
I did mine in the tri cities desert. The men didnt wash our hair or drag us across the river. They tried but it was 103°F outside and I wasnt about to miss the chance to cool myself off. We had tents. I wish we hadn't because there was a storm the second night and since we were on a plateau our tents attracted lightning. I slept through everyone evacuating down into the vineyard below. The only reason I made it out of there was cause my sister of my party came back for me. Lightning had hit 50' from my tent. I am really greatful for her. It was brave. they told her not to go up I honestly think they might have just left me up there if it wasnt for her. I cant believe they only gave you broth. We were able to cook cast iron food. Though Ma and Pa weren't aloud to help most of time. The one thing that made me super upset was when the bishop brink in charge over chlorinated the water. This was the second day. We had just walked 6 miles. Got to the water and it burned my insides when I drank it. They made the joke it was better then having dysentery. They gave us mio to "mask to taste" of the chlorine. It successfully made mio flavored pool water. One girl ended up passing out and having a seizure because she refused to drink the water. All in all I gained a few freckles and had an intense experience. There was so much more I wish I could share with someone, but I would end up writing a book.
we did it in Riverside Cali too
Why did I get an LDS movie advertisement😂
While others' trek experiences could be called "Cult Evidence Exhibit A", mine was actually very fun, because I was "siblings" with one of my favorite people in the world. She was a funny, beautiful redhead with whom I already had great rapport and common interests. When we were near each other we talked and joked up a storm. Literally one of the best experiences of my life. But a couple things: during the "women's pull", would there also be fewer items in the handcarts? The men would have taken at least SOME of the supplies with them as they traveled wherever they needed to go to take over Mexico. (And while they may have never shot at anyone (as far as I know), their presence would have had an unethical influence. For example, they terrified the people of Tucson, who thought they would attack, if I remember correctly.)
Also, the pioneers would have been smart enough to have pulleys for some of those uphill stretches. We had a hard stretch that would have been a lot easier with pulleys. As an engineering major, this dawned on me. A basic pully offers no mechanical advantage (i.e. trading force for distance-you choose to move something farther but using less strength), but at least you could use your bodyweight to your benefit to move the handcarts. More advanced pulley systems would make it a cinch. When you hear about people moving wagons up or down incredibly steep areas, I'm guessing they had pulleys.
I had a similar experience, but then again it was a military training :)
Indiana staints started trekking around 2008
I hated my Trek experience so much, I was really close to committing suicide even after it was over. What a horrific form of indoctrination.
Sounds like pre marital mormon pioneer cosplay. I'm glad it didn't exist when I was a youth.
I got to go on Trek twice! The first time was in Utah and I got SUPER bad heat stroke & exhaustion on like the second day.
Second time was in Texas and we legit walked around a ranch all day In one huge circle, it the Texas heat, in August 🙃
I'm from S California and don't recall ever hearing about such a thing.
We went to Martin's Cove in Wyoming and followed one of the actual trails the pioneers went on.
One girl sprained her ankle the first day and so she rode in the handcart and her family pulled her for the rest of trek.
We were given pioneer names, but none of us really used them unless it was in a snarky or sarcastic way.
We had to fit all our stuff in a 5 gallon bucket and my Ma and Pa did go through them. No electronics, makeup, etc. allowed.
Our women's pull was done in the middle of the day up the steepest hill of the whole trek. The boys (who had gone to the Mormon Battallion) lined either side of the hill and watched us pull. My family had 6 boys and 3 girls so it was ROUGH.
We had no activities at all.
We also had the river crossing where the boys carried the girls, but no hair washing.
We ate similar food - oatmeal for breakfast, apple and Nature Valley bar for lunch, and broth for dinner.
We slept on a tarp in sleeping bags, used our spare clothes as pillows, and woke up with ice in our hair.
Most people left with moderate to severe sunburns. I myself had second degree sunburns on the very few parts of my body that weren't fully covered by pioneer garb in 100 degree or more heat.
Even though I’m definitely not mormon anymore my trek experience was a lot different and I actually had a ton of fun. We never washed the girls hair and we had big extravagant meals made for us. We also kept our real names and they didn’t go through our stuff. I actually had my phone with me. Our ma and pa were not active members actually and were super chill about everything. We didn’t even really do scriptures or pray a lot. We would also stay up till like 1 am hanging out and playing games. We did pull a lot that was probably the only similarity though.
I’m jealous:) we had beef jerky and apples most of the day and dinner we had small meals:p I was hungry most of the time:p don’t think I got enough water either:p
My trek experience was so great thay I actually went twice. I live in Utah and we did trek out in the middle of Wyoming, at the church historic sites (Martin's Cove, Rocky Ridge, Willie's Meadow, Rock Creek Hollow, etc.) And I had a great time. No weird shit like burying baby dolls, washing hair, or being called by pioneer names. We did carry the name tags with us to represent the pioneers but we just got called by our regular names. Delicious meals, great company, wonderful experience. My two biggest things during my first time were that I got a really bad sunburn on my arms because I rolled my sleeves up and took off my bonnet, and I didn't do my hair at all so it was so windy that I was unable to brush it at all the whole time and when I got home, I brushed out a ball of hair the size of a golf ball. Didn't make those mistakes the second time 😅
I was in Colorado Springs for most of my youth, and they bussed us all out to Martin's Cove in Wyoming for ours so it lasted 4 days (I think, it's been a long time). No body had to wash my hair, but on the second day we only got "hard tack" biscuits for breakfast and then spent hours pulling with no snacks or lunch. We had to cross the "river" (a decent sized stream, really) where I slipped and got soaked almost to my waist, but it was like 100 degrees that day and still early afternoon so I actually kind of liked it. Except the being starving part. About an hour later we were taking a water break when they finally rolled up with a cart of bagged lunches. Best apples and jerky I've ever eaten. They said it was to help us feel how grateful the Willie and Martin companies must have felt when the rescue teams finally arrived, but even as a 14 year old I was pretty sure since I wasn't frostbitten and hadn't buried anyone that day that I probably didn't have any idea what those pioneers felt like. The next day we did our Mormon Battalion experience and the brothers just stood to the side and watched us pull our carts up the sandiest hill they could find in Wyoming. Which was awesome, since my family had more sisters than any other family on the trek. Except 2 of them and our Ma were sick (probably heat sick, but no one would admit to that) so that was not fun for them.
Honestly, the worst part for me was when I peed myself a little (I forget which day) because we were drinking a ton and for some reason on the last leg of the day's hike they kept stopping the whole company every few minutes so it took an eternity to get back to camp and the "toilets." Most of the other families just let folks go run off and pee in the brush, but not my Ma. The boys could do what they want but it wasn't lady-like for the sisters to do such a thing. When we finally made it to camp my sisters and I took off running to the different toilets but someone beat me to mine. Thank goodness my (real) Mom was paranoid and make me pack extra underwear.
I used to think my Trek was awful, but after hearing other people's horror stories I realize I got off easy.
I had the "joy" of experiencing one of these in Ohio. It was a joint venture with a ward in Michigan. The hottest 3 days of that summer. Only one kid had to go to hospital afterwards. I didn't want to do it, but was made to go. One of the kids in my "family", would pull the cart with me and we'd sing "Heresy" by NIN quietly together. Luckily a few years later when I was out on my own doing the adult thing I quietly left the church.
I’m not Mormon but I read the book Devil's Gate: Brigham Young and the Great Mormon Handcart Tragedy. It was a very interesting read. Not related, but I’m an avid backpacker so I have walked somewhat long distances carrying all of my needs on my back thru the mountains, sometimes for 200-450 miles. Not quite the same thing but sort of. I enjoyed hearing about your experience. I heard if people doing that & wondered what that would be like. Funny they kept you in the dark about how long it would be. And super weird about the hair washing. I can’t imagine that it was a thing back in the day, Lol.
I know they allow sunglasses now too.
I don't remember why, but my brother and I didn't go to trek. Everyone who did go said it was great, but I thought it sounded awful. Your story makes me glad I skipped it.
I did do the BoM camp twice, though. Much more enjoyable.
That sounds like a living hell!😧
We had it in Florida :') The heat was AWFUL and there were a couple kids who passed out and had heatstroke because of it.
for all those that had this experience, you will know how to handle the hardships that are to come,so be prepared it is coming
Not my Trek story. We were in a heavily Mormon area. I was too young at the time, and I was so upset I didn't get to go because all my siblings (none of us Mormon) went on the Trek. (I am now grateful I didn't go.) They had a rattlesnake show up at their campsite. The pa killed the rattlesnake (never got details on how), and their family all ate it at dinner. They said it tasted like rubbery chicken.
A kid sprained her ankle and my family (which was basically the SCRAWNIEST KIDS for some reason) had to PUSH HER. IN OUR CART. THE WHOLE WAY. She wasn't even in our family!!! Ugh. I forgot how mad I still am about that!
Im glad I didn't go. I instead went out with my first to the beach. Plus I just happened to graduated from high school and wasn't gonna missed out my summer for trek
We did it in Wyoming. Did 36 miles total in 3 days, in mid July, with no trees in sight the entire time. We did 17 miles the first day alone. That specific trail we were on, 3 other stakes that summer had done AND all of them had multiple people FLOWN to hospitals due to dehydration and exposure as well as having IVs. And our stake STILL chose to do it. I myself got heat streak day 2 and had to spend the night in the “medical” tent. (Oh and they still made me do the woman’s pull that day as well) and when I got home I had to go to the doctor to have my feet checked due to the amount of blisters and stress fracture in my foot from the cart rolling over it. They asked me 4 years later if I wanted to do it again, it was a QUICK HARD no for me.