Martin’s Cove and Rock Creek Hollow in Wyoming mean a lot to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
That’s where hundreds of people traveling with handcarts to Utah’s Salt Lake Valley in the fall of 1856 got stranded by a blizzard. Many died from cold and starvation before help could come.
Todd Valentine was with a group of Lynnwood-area Latter-day Saints who visited Wyoming last week as part of the church’s Pioneer Day trek. It’s a kind of pilgrimage many LDS congregations make every four years to walk in the shoes of Mormon pioneers.
The Latter-day Saints’ Pioneer Day is July 24, marking the day first Mormons arrived in Salt Lake Valley, Valentine said.
More than 100 teenagers, between the ages of 14 and 18, and 52 adults set out on the trip July 11. They walked the same trails as their church forefathers and learned about the history of the church.
The people stranded at Martin’s Cove and Rock Creek Hollow were members of the Willie and Martin handcart companies, many of them European immigrants. They were answering the call of church President Brigham Young to come to Salt Lake City.
The groups decided to go on to Utah instead of spending the winter in Nebraska, where work was scarce and the weather harsh. They had more than 1,000 people between them, according to church accounts. A fall storm surprised the groups in Wyoming, causing the deaths of more than 200.
Valentine said he felt a kind of peace in Martin’s Cove and Rock Creek Hollow.
“Because of the great sacrifice of the people there, our youth really felt there was almost a reverence there.”
The modern-day pioneers wore period clothing, tried pulling handcarts, waded through a river and spent several nights in tents on the windy plains of Wyoming. They also played tug-of-war and other games.
The young people left their iPhones and iPods behind and spent a few days together as a community, said Kirk Call, the first councilor of the Lynnwood Stake presidency.
Individual Latter-day Saints churches are called wards. Several wards in a geographical area form a stake.
The church was formally organized in 1830 in New York. It now numbers more than 14 million people worldwide, according to church records.
Revisiting the tragic events of 1856 helps young Mormons strengthen their faith and better understand their history, Call said.
“There is no way to reenact the real experience of those people,” he said. “But there’s an opportunity to walk in sacred places, where people had given their all and had the ultimate struggle for what they believed in.”
Katya Yefimova: 425-339-3452; kyefimova@heraldnet.com.
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