Day of Reckoning Arrives--We Face Hole in the Rock

4th Ward Trekkers

Steve and I were a part of the Blanding West Youth Hole in the Rock Trek June 2-4.  We drove to Escalante the first day.  The group stayed at Jerry Roundy's camp ground, which was shady and he was so accommodating, and so interested in the Hole-in-the-Rock Pioneers. We stayed in a motel, for which we were mighty glad.   About 120 of us went.

 Steve helped with the cooking, and I helped plan the presentations, and gave one myself at the top of Hole in the Rock.  I told the story of Arabella and Stanford Smith.  I used the her as a metaphor of "holding on and never letting go" related to the Iron Rod.

R. Vaughan Johnson from the Ensign accompanied our group on the trek;  He actually hiked clear to the bottom.  Then he went to Bluff and met up with the Blanding Stake, and the following week went with the Kanab Stake.  Later he met with youth from our group to get followup quotes and ideas for his story.  It will come out July 2011.

We hiked a little over half way down, but it was very steep, and we decided we better make sure we could get back out--which we did successfully.  It was an experience I'd always hoped I'd have, especially after working 3 months straight on the pioneer history blog sites.  I was called as a history specialists just before Christmas, and worked every day on finding and posting pioneer stories on 3 different blogs I created.  We also set up a Stake blog for posting photos, etc. but it was so complicated to use, it wasn't as beneficial as I had hoped.

I got sick by the 3rd day, and didn't have any Vit. C. for fighting off a cold.  We stopped at the Anasazi Museum in Boulder and had hoped to talk to Mike Nelson but he was gone, so just left a note. He is Pres. McKay's grandson and worked at the edge of the Cedar's Museum..

The sage was in full bloom across the 60 miles to the Hole, and also got some great shots of cactus, cows, and hoodoos at Devils Garden.


The kids had lots of fun exploring these sandstone formations, climbing, and hiding.  We had our first meal here.  It was about 16 miles off the mail highway close to Escalante.

Dance Hall Rock and the dance social that wasn't--but the fiddling was good. 

This is the kind of hiking you can expect at Hole in the Rock. Steep, rocky and challenging.

This is the sight I'll always remember. I have a core deep appreciation for those first 250 pioneers who blazed a trail, not only down this impasse, but the rest of the 200 miles to San Juan.

A New Kind of Blog

So what do you do, when you can't leave your snow cave.  Well, you do what any intelligent bear would do, hunker down for the duration, snack on any loose berries and bugs you unearth, and then sleep.  Did I say sleep?!   Actually, everything was true, except for sleeping and the bugs--though I did scarf up a lot of popcorn and cookies!
 Ever since January 4, I've been working non stop on a blog site featuring the Hole-in-the-Rock pioneers.

I was called to be the history specialist for our Stake Youth Trek in June 2-4.  It is interesting how the Lord taps you on the shoulder giving you something to do, that you are prepared to reject, and then once you say, "Yes, I'll do it."  Everything just falls into place. 

When we went to meet with the Stake President, I told Steve, whatever they asked us to do, he would have to do it, because I already felt too busy with my other callings.  We are Young Single Adult Reps for our ward and the college, and doing a monthly bulletin, getting it delivered, and then fellowshipping the dorm kids, is pretty much a weekly job.  Add to that visiting teaching, and doing other fellowshipping in the ward and helping with Addiction Recovery Classes, we both keep busy.  

   But when Pres. Redd explained the need, I couldn't refuse.  I love San Juan County History and feel passionately that our youth needs to learn from the past, and honor the legacy of these early pioneers, so of course I said "Yes".  Rather than just prepare a sheet of paper with pioneer information on it, I wanted to create a site where future trekers could also glean information.  There is also a great need to find additional information about these people, and I am praying that the leaders and youth will help discover these untold stories. 

  I've had a lot of fun being detective the past 3 weeks and have been able to find significant information on several families, primarily because family genealogists are putting their ancestral stories on the Web.  I've found some amazing stories and photos.  We even have family connections with the Hole-in-the-Rock. Lynn's wife, Roseanne Reeves Keeler is related to the Lymans.  Her dad is a direct descendant of Platte DeAlton Lyman.  Then Rob married Kathryn Redd who is a descendant of Lemuel Haridson Redd, one of the scouts for the trek.

One of my best detective episodes concerned Samuel Cox, his wife and little daughter.  Basically all we knew was that he was a fiddle player for the pioneers.  First, I was able to find birth and death dates and full names for them on Family Search. Then believe it or not, I put the daughter's name into a google search, and it found this wonderful family genealogy site, that had the Cox family story, plus a photo of the Sarah as an adult!  I am so thankful for all the family historians out there who are using technology to share their records, histories, and photos.  The Kumen Jones family from Blanding is another one who has taken their records to the Web, and have much useful information for others to use.  The great thing about Kumen is that he wrote so many wonderful things about other people!  Maybe some of your ancestors will be listed there!

Over 100 of the 250 pioneers who came through Hole-in-the-Rock were children.  So I am also creating a companion site just for them called Children of the Rock. I'm even thinking of doing one with poetry about the Hole in the Rock, called Hard Rock Poetry...is that pushing it too far!?  Well, it's too late now, it's already done.