On Day 2 we drove to Martin's Cove, loaded our handcarts and began walking.
This bridge is named Veil Crossing and represents leaving the world behind and entering sacred ground. On this very piece of land, the pioneers sacrificed any and all things (and in many cases, even their lives) for a gospel and a God they loved and knew to be true.
When we reached Martin's Cove, we left our handcarts behind in order to preserve the reverence that exists in this cove.
When we stopped along the trail to rest, Fred Lutze, Jeff Allen, Cameron and Branton Richter sang "Come, Come Ye Saints." It was powerful to listen to the words of that song in this holy place.
Later in the day, we reached this river crossing. The boys and men took the handcarts and crossed leaving the women behind.
They then turned around and returned to carry the women and girls across.
The story is told that upon reaching this river crossing in their destitute and freezing condition, even grown men in the party sat down on the banks and wept. They could go no farther.
“After they [Martin Company] had given up in despair, after all hopes had vanished, after every apparent avenue of escape seemed closed, three eighteen-year-old boys belonging to the relief party came to the rescue, and to the astonishment of all who saw, carried nearly every member of the illfated handcart company across the snowbound stream. The strain was so terrible, and the exposure so great, that in later years all the boys died from the effects of it. When President Brigham Young heard of this heroic act, he wept like a child, and later declared publicly, 'that act alone will ensure C. Allen Huntington, George W. Grant and David P. Kimball an everlasting salvation in the Celestial Kingdom of God, worlds without end'” (Solomon F. Kimball, “Belated Emigrants of 1856,” Improvement Era 17, no. 4 (February 1914): 288).
An incredible act of service and love.
We finished trekking that day and ended the evening with some good old-fashioned square dancing.
Yee-haw!
