Gunnison Valley residents re-enact pioneer trek

GUNNISON — It was a different month of the year and took a slightly different route. Nonetheless, about 90 people who participated in a recent covered-wagon trek got a glimpse of what their pioneer ancestors went through — wind, rain-slick trails, thick brush at their feet and finally a panoramic view of the Gunnison Valley.

Residents of Gunnison Valley have scheduled events throughout 2009 marking the sesquicentennial of the arrival of settlers in 1859.

One of the main events occurred in early May when eight wagons, one handcart, about 50 horseback riders and a few walkers made a 10-mile trek to the summit of Mellor's Canyon northeast of Gunnison and then descended through a gently sloping pass known as Big Valley into town.

It wasn't a completely authentic re-enactment. The first pioneers went from Manti into the Gunnison Valley in March, not May. They traveled through Antelope Valley, the next pass to the east of Big Valley. But Matt Reber of Axtell, Sanpete County, and organizer of the modern trek, said he picked Big Valley because it was much more scenic than the original route.

"I was feeling it after four miles," said Darlene Agren, president of the Sanpete Company of the?Daughters of Utah Pioneers, who rode a horse through the intermittent rain that fell throughout the morning.

Still, she described the trek as a grand experience.

"It was such a site to see us all strung out along the trail," she said. "Everyone was dressed in pioneer and cowboy garb." And as the wagons pulled into town and headed to the city park for dinner, "people were out on their doorsteps waving."

The Gunnison Valley has changed a lot since the first 50 families collected on the west side of the valley in an area that Brigham Young declared to be "too muddy for hogs to wallow." (One of the names pinned on the early settlement was Hogswallow.)

It now consists of five closely related towns. The largest is Gunnison, the commercial hub, with a population of 2,400. To the south of Gunnison is Centerfield with about 1,000 residents. Mayfield, Axtell and Fayette all have populations of less than 450.

The campfire, and wagon trek the next morning through Big Valley, which is lush with wildflowers this time of year, was undoubtedly a lot more fun than 19th-century pioneer travels to Chalk Hill and Kearns Camp.

But the trek left an impression.

"It was awesome," said Wyatt Prisbrey, 13, who rode in one of the covered wagons. "It helped me understand what my great-great-grandparents went through."

E-mail: suzanne@sanpetemessenger.com