ATLANTIC CITY, Wyo. — The column of young Mormon pilgrims stretched for nearly a mile as the sun set over the glacial peaks of Wyoming's Wind River mountain range.
Teenagers clad in 19th-century pioneer outfits strained mightily to pull unwieldy wooden handcarts over rocky terrain while keeping an eye out for rattlesnakes. Nervous broods of sage grouse scattered as the first trekkers approached. Poised on nearby ridgelines, pronghorn antelope kept a wary vigil.
Near this same place in 1856, more than 200 half-starved Mormon converts from Europe -- pushing and pulling handcarts because the cash-strapped church could not afford covered wagons and oxen -- died in a fierce autumn blizzard as they attempted to reach Salt Lake City, the Mormon Zion.
Once viewed as a dark chapter in Mormon history, handcart treks have become a booming spiritual enterprise, reenacted not only here on the original route but also in Mormon communities as distant as Cambodia and Sierra Leone.
What the exodus from Egypt is to Jews and the hegira from Mecca is to Muslims, the handcart trek is rapidly becoming for 12 million Mormons.
The heart of the trail reenactment is Rocky Ridge, a steep pass several hundred feet above the Sweetwater River here, where more than a dozen of the 1856 party died of exhaustion and exposure to freezing temperatures.
Guiding more than 300 weary teenagers and 22 handcarts over the trail on a late summer afternoon was Utah investment banker Erik Ekberg, 34, a church counselor.
"We've had a lot of blisters. Climbing Rocky Ridge was really tough," Ekberg said. "This is the place where I think these kids get a good idea of what their ancestors endured."
Taking a break by the side of the trail, some trekkers sipped water in silence while others stretched out, eyes closed, on the shady ground under the handcarts.
"It's ironic that the most costly and fatal disaster in Mormon history is now reenacted this way," said Salt Lake historian Will Bagley. "But the church sees it as a celebration of suffering, endurance and eventual triumph. It really is a story of incredible sacrifice."
This summer, about 12,000 people have made the 26-mile overland trek along the Sweetwater River on the northern edge of Wyoming's Red Desert to South Pass, where 19th-century travelers crossed the Continental Divide.
