Today we arrived at Martins Cove. We spent the day touring Martin’s Cove, and Devils Gate.
I never realized what a superhighway this area was in its day. The Mormon Trail, Oregon Trail, California Trail, and the Pony Express all came through the Martin Cove area.
One of the things that hit Mr. S and I today as we got here, was the reality of the distances. It’s just not something I ever thought about when I read the stories. When I have read the stories of Brigham Young sending rescuers, I never really thought about how far they had to come to save the handcart companies. Their help didn’t get here immediately. It took us about 10 hours of driving to get here. Imagine pulling rescue wagons in winter conditions. This was no simple rescue!
And the distance the handcarts still had to go, once they were stuck here even after help came…it just felt insurmountable to think about. When I thought of the distance we drove. I can’t imagine being miserable and knowing how much further there was to go.
The other reality that hit us was thinking of the time the rescue took. The snow came October 19 and Martins Handcart Company didn’t get to Utah until November 30.
Everybody kept talking about how long our RV trip is (it’s about 45 days). People have joked if we could last in the motor home together for that many days…But these people walked in snow pulling handcarts for 42 days while starving! It’s just so unimaginable!
We visited Fort Seminoe at Martins Cove. The picture I took is a building stuffed full of supplies. One of the wagon companies that was following the handcarts realized they needed to unload their stuff to carry people. When they got to the froze
n, starved pioneers they realized the people needed to be in the wagons and to be carried more than they needed all of the items they had thought were so important, so they dumped the luggage and items in the building, leaving it stuffed full so they could carry people. The photo of that just hit me.
How often we forget, but how significant that is, that the people were more important than the items. I wonder how often we concentrate on the “supplies” of life, and forget the people. I think I will have that photo hanging in my family room. Every where around the camp the phrase is written, “Go and Bring them In”. The idea of it just stuck with me…The building shows all they thought was important to bring, and a reminder of what turned out to be most important.
The other thing I learned at Martins Cove that I never heard before is the history of the land. It was all owned by the family of Tom Sun. It was called Sun Ranch, and it had been in the family for generations. The church was able to purchase it in 1990s. One of the cool things is that although Tom Sun was not a member of our church, he recognized that the land was hallowed ground, so he never let a plow come through and tear up the land, and ruin what was here, or damage the memory of it.
So I haven’t even discussed the unanimous favorite for the kids. When we drove up Jawbreaker said, “Wow, check that out, whoever carved that out was amazing!” Well that statement couldn’t be more true. God carved it out of the mountains, and it’s called Devils Gate. Funny…all of us had heard of Devils Gate, but none of us realized what that meant. It’s a startling thing to see, it looks unnatural (as Jawbreaker thought it was manmade). Photos don’t do it justice, because what you don’t realize is there are mountains all over, but then this one spot, just looks like someone sliced the mountains with a knife. The camera captures the opening but doesn’t show you how odd it looks with everything else. We hiked to it (about ½ a mile). It was a very peaceful place. I heard the kids mention they could live there. We stayed and 
hiked around for quite a while.
Summary of Day 2
Drove: 350 miles
Walked: 5 miles today
Places we visited: Rock Springs Wal-Mart (better than any Boise Wal-Mart! Better traveling supplies than could get in home town), Martins Cove, and Devils Gate
Favorite Place we went today: Devils Gate
godncountry 