The morning was cold, with a thick white mist sitting on the valley below. But the pioneers who made up a modern-day wagon train were cheerful as they prepared for another day's journey around the farmlands and forests near the Joseph Smith Memorial.
"Pray for energy so we can make it up the hill," suggested Jenny Keefe, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who helped organize this week's pioneer re-enactment, as the group met for prayer before the day's walk.And Geniel Fife, who led the prayer, did pray for energy - and for a better understanding of the historical spots that the group would pass on its journey.
The modern-day pioneers dressed in period costume and pushed two handcarts for their re-enactment. The three-day journey, which starts and ends at the South Royalton memorial each day, is designed to honor members of their church who made the trek to Utah 150 years ago and to get an idea of what they experienced.
Some 70,000 Mormons traveled out West between 1847 and 1869, establishing their church and settling dozens of cities and towns in the West. A national re-enactment celebrating the 150th anniversary of the original trek arrived in Salt Lake City Tuesday. That group traveled 1,000 miles.
The Vermont pioneers' trip was more modest, covering 13 to 18 miles a day on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but no less authentic.
"I can't imagine walking to Utah in these skirts," said 15-year-old Kirstin Johnston of South Burlington after helping to push and pull the handcarts up a long, steep hill.
The oldest participant on Wednesday's hike was 65 years old; the youngest was 19 months. The hikers were followed or met along the way each day by a recreational vehicle that drove behind them on roads with its flashers on, and carried food and water. By the end of the hike Tuesday, it was also carrying some of the smaller children, said Fife.
The women dressed in long skirts and aprons and wore bonnets; some of the toddlers and all the teenage boys wore modern-day clothes. Everyone wore hiking boots or sneakers.
"We're not pioneers like they were," Keefe said.
As they walked along the trail, talking and laughing, the adults and children spoke often of the reasons they were there.
"It's a remembrance of what the pioneers did - they made the way for us to practice our free religion without persecution," said Carol Carpenter, 16, who hiked in a skirt, apron and bonnet that she made herself. "And they helped make the West what it is, I think."
The Mormons were persecuted because they were different, Johnson said. She said most of her relatives are in Utah and Idaho.
"I had ancestors who were pioneers - we have pictures and stuff," she said.
According to officials at the Joseph Smith Memorial, Joseph Smith was born in Sharon in 1805, and moved to Palmyra, N.Y., in 1816. He organized the church in New York in 1830 with six people, and quickly gathered followers.
"It was a theology that resonated with a lot of people; it made sense," Fife said. "Nearly all the converts were from the Protestant and Catholic faiths."
But its success scared some people, said her husband, Lynn Fife.
"Missionaries would come in and be invited to preach at a local church, and by the time the night was over the whole congregation had converted - including the minister," he said.
The LDS Church now counts 9.7 million members, with more than half of those living outside the United States. There are about 2,100 Mormons in Vermont, said Elder Bill Rader of South Royalton.