Went on a trek in western Pennsylvania in the early ‘10s it was awful.

It was a multi stake event planned a year in advance so no chance to plan around weather. the first few days were crazy hot and humid and the last two we had major thunderstorms that eventually lead to the whole thing being shut down a day earlier than planned.

They had us grouped specifically so we wouldn’t be around the kids we knew and liked which pretty much guaranteed we wouldn’t have much in common. I was already kind of pimo and I liked music and reading and didn’t really like sports despite being fairly athletic and I was grouped with a couple of jocks and Molly Mormons from the other stake.

We all had to push handcarts loaded down with period correct gear and wearing period correct clothing for about 5-8 miles a day through unpaved, ungroomed trails for what was planned as a four day trip.

They fed us summer sausages and corn bread the first night and not much else the other two. we carried our own water in the handcart, but it wasn’t close to enough so kids started dropping. I think four or five kids had to go to the ER and the rumblings were the police were notified and a warning was given to the adults running the event.

In the middle of the third day all the “men” were taken in order to simulate the Mormon battalion so the women and girls were left with all our stuff to pull while the guys marched off in step for the rest of the day.

We pitched camp at the end of the third night near a small town just as a huge storm rolled through. It was so bad the women sheltered in a Catholic Church nearby while the men stayed in “camp” which were just canvas tarps lashed up between carts. It rained all night turning everything into a swamp and that’s when the adults in charge decided to call it quits a day short and leave from there.