Survival Journal - Week 2

This week was called Group Expedition Week. It should have been rather straightforward but getting lost in the desert complicated everything. To this day, I still don’t know where we were.

Sunday, July 29

We held priesthood meeting at 8am Sunday morning and Sacrament Meeting right after that. For the Sacrament we used ash cakes and canteens. Both meetings were very special. We spent the afternoon carving spoons and recuperating from Impact. That evening we had a fireside with singing and guitars. It was all very pleasant and made us forget about our previous troubles and suffering.

Monday-Tuesday, July 30-31

This week is called group expedition week. Each day a leader is chosen by the group to lead them. We divided into one boys group and two girls groups. The student leader for the day is given a map and told where to go. The staff leaders will hike along with us, but they will offer no help after we start.

As leader for Monday, we chose Mark. After breaking camp at about 8 am, our first big obstacle was to find a way out of Big Springs Canyon. We were very anxious to get a good head-start on the girls groups so we could beat them to Beaver Wash on Wednesday. This is where the three groups were to come together again. The boys group claimed they would be there a whole day ahead of the girls.

After an hour of searching, we finally decided to try ascending a very steep cliff. It scared me to death to climb that thing. Several times my handholds gave away and sent rocks showering down the canyon. It was a miracle no one was hurt on the way up. We gave thanks to the Lord when we arrived at the top.

We spent until about 1:30 pm walking on dirt roads. Our progress was extremely fast and our confidence of beating the girls rose pretty high.

At 1:30 we needed water pretty badly, so we decided to look for Outlaw Springs. Lynn and I were sent out to scout while the rest of the group stayed back. Ted later joined us with the map. We were quite sure we had found the way to the springs, but we were very thirsty, so we stopped a few minutes at a little seep we had stumbled onto. Then Lynn went back to bring the rest of the group.

Ted and I had waited for an awfully long time when Lynn came back to tell us that the rest of the group was gone. We decided that they must have become impatient and went the long way around rather than wait for us to find the shorter way down a steep drop-off.

We thought we could meet them at the springs so we forged ahead. We didn’t see them where we thought the spring was, so we pushed on to Mule Seep. Our intended campsite was on Han’s Flat Road just above the seep. We felt sure we would meet them at the seep, so we waited there for 2 hours. It was getting dark, so we headed for the road. We came out at a ranger station to find that we were 5 miles off course. When we finally got to the campsite it was quite dark and no one was there. I was about to die of thirst when a guy from the ranger station rode up on his motorcycle and showed us where some rain pots were. I was down in the valley where the water was when I decided to go to the edge of the overhang and give a big shout. 200 feet below was what we thought was Mule Seep and I thought maybe the others of our group mighty be there by now. I yelled once and got no answer. I heard echoes all through the valley and felt that if the others were near, they would have heard it. I didn’t yell again and was walking back when I heard an answer. Our leaders, Butch and Sundance, were over on a far ridge. We yelled and made sparks from our flint and steel until we located each other. When we got together it was a joyful reunion indeed.

We walked back to the road and set up camp for the five of us. Then we sat down to discuss what had happened. Apparently, the rest of the group had thought they were supposed to take the long way to the springs when we scouts failed to return promptly. When we didn’t show up at the Springs, they just stayed there the rest of the day while the leaders looked for us. Sundance told me that he and Butch had given up and were kneeling in prayer when they heard my call. He said he just started to cry and finished the prayer before calling back.

The whole incident caused the boys group to lose about 24 hours of time. We started hiking again after the main group rejoined us on Han’s Flat Road at about 2 pm Tuesday afternoon. Since we were late, we hiked until 1 am in the morning to reach Granary Springs. The hiking was all on roads, so the way was easy to find, but it was a real test of endurance. I had blisters on both feet and a frayed Achilles tendon on my right heel. We often called upon the Lord for strength.

Wednesday, August 1

Wednesday I was chosen group leader. This was the day we were to hike through Robber’s Roost Canyon. We started to work better as a group and had no major problems finding the route. The canyon was really a challenge. It was my job to go first and decide whether or not to use ropes. On one occasion I ended up sliding down a 20-foot drop headfirst. I decided we had better use ropes for the rest of the group. We camped in the canyon at dark that night and I tasted some porcupine that GI Joe (Bruce) had killed.

Thursday-Friday, August 2-3

Thursday we were very anxious to get to Beaver Wash ahead of the girls groups, so we could go swimming. We came out of Robber’s Roost to the Dirty Devil River. We crossed the river and followed it toward Angel Cove Springs. Just as we were rounding the last bend toward the springs, we looked back to see Judy’s girls group only a quarter mile behind. It was a real blow to our ego, and we felt sure that the girls would give us a little ribbing because we hadn’t beat them to the wash by a whole day as we said we would.

As we left Angel Cove our staff leaders stayed back to persuade the girls group to stay at Angel Cove long enough to allow the boys to swim a while at Beaver Wash. We still had several hours of hiking to do on our own before we arrived at the pool. Contentions soon arose and the spirit of cooperation and brotherhood soon left us. Finally, we just stopped in Beaver Canyon to talk it out. We decided that it

was our lack of cooperation and unwillingness to fully respect and follow our group leaders that had gotten us so far behind. It was a real lesson in humility to realize that by working together the girls group had performed better than we had. When we started hiking again, we made much better progress and enjoyed a much-needed cool swim at the wash.

The girls group led by Judy came in that evening and the last girls group came in Friday morning. The girls took their turn swimming, and we broke camp and left about noon Friday. It took us the entire afternoon to hike to our water drop at the edge of the Burr Desert. After our evening meal we decided to cross the nine-mile desert at night. It was already dark, and many were nearly exhausted. I knew it would be another test of endurance and will. We had a particularly weak girl in my family, Janet, for whom we had already had to carry her pack that afternoon. We had only gone a few miles when we had to help her along by putting her arms around the neck of a person on each side of her. I don’t know why the bigger ones are usually the weaker ones, but Janet was a big girl. The night seemed to drag on forever and for many it seemed like a nightmare. We sang songs to keep our spirits up and pass the time faster. Finally, we arrived at an irrigation ditch on a ranch at about 2:30 am. We all dropped in our tracks after a prayer of thanks. We had prayed for strength on the trail many times too.

Saturday, August 4

Saturday, we arose and hiked the remaining 4 miles to base camp without breakfast. After eating and setting up camp we rested through the middle of the day. That afternoon we had a meeting to organize new families and stress the importance of life, before we slaughtered our sheep. I was again privileged to be a father and our family’s assignment was to skin the ewe. It was a messy job, but we got it done. The meat was a real treat after our bland diets of oatmeal and ash cakes that week. We jerkied 1/3 of it and divided the rest among the 4 family groups.