SALT LAKE CITY — On a long ride to another isolated encampment, Greg Phillips has a lot of time to wonder: What would the pioneers think if they could see him cruising down the highway at 60 mph, hauling a load of wooden handcarts behind his diesel pickup?
"They'd probably assume I was pretty strange," admits Phillips, who runs Phillips Handcart Co. with his wife, Susan, in Washington, Utah. "When it comes down to it, I don't think they'd trade their lives for mine for a minute. But I appreciate getting a small taste of what their lives were like, every chance I get."
A Web programmer with a lifelong fascination for stories of sorrow and survival along the Pioneer Trail, Phillips, 46, decided last year to pick up a hammer and open a handcart company for anyone eager to experience the hard life and wear down their boots.
In honor of the upcoming Pioneer Day weekend, he wanted to share his story in Free Lunch after a recent trip north to deliver dozens more rental handcarts for parades, church parties and wilderness treks.
"People want to know how the pioneers lived, to walk in their shoes, to know the hardship they went through," says Phillips, whose ancestors were among the first Mormon pioneers to cross the plains. "The treks I've made with a handcart are 13 miles long. Compare that to going 1,300 miles from Iowa City to Salt Lake. You have to admire that kind of will and faith."
The last handcart travelers entered the Salt Lake Valley 150 years ago, making it "more important than ever to pass along what the settlers' lives were like," says Phillips.
"With our high-tech lifestyles, it's easy to forget just how good we have it," he says. "Imagine getting off a ship from England, then dragging a handcart through the sagebrush in untamed territory. No re-enactment we do today can come close to experiencing that."
Although he makes a living on the Internet, Phillips developed an appreciation for a simpler, unplugged lifestyle as a boy growing up along the shores of Strawberry Reservoir in the Uinta National Forest.
"My father bought the old Frank Madsen boat camp," he says. "Because we were so isolated, if there was something we wanted, we built it ourselves. We built the store, the lodge and a bunch of wooden boats. My great-great-great-grandfather was a boatbuilder in Nova Scotia, and here we were, building boats. I suppose that's how I became handy with a hammer."
Last year, after he designed a website with tips on preparing for pioneer wilderness treks, Phillips began getting requests for handcarts.
"I didn't realize there was such a demand," he says, "so my wife and I ordered some wormy maple wood and built a few. So many people wanted to rent them that we built 50, and now, we can barely keep up."
Unlike the handcarts of yesteryear, Phillips carts are made with metal bearings and long draw bars, making them easier to pull on rough and steep surfaces.
When he hauls the carts — 10 or more at a time — behind his truck on trips as far as Austin, Texas, "you wouldn't believe the looks we get," he says. "You pull into a gas station, and some people want to know, 'Are those lawn ornaments?' "
Then, there are those who decide they'd like to add a pioneer handcart to their emergency supply kit. Just in case.
"I guess they figure when all else fails, they'll be able to get out of town with a handcart," he says. It worked for the pioneers, surmises Phillips. "Why not us?"
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