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The Long Walk LbNA #19949 (ARCHIVED)

Owner:Adoptable
Plant date:Jan 10, 2006
Location:
City:Iowa City
County:Johnson
State:Iowa
Boxes:1
Found by: Fox-fyr
Last found:Feb 27, 2006
Status:Faaaa
Last edited:Jan 10, 2006
Note 1: Be sure to bring your compass.

Note 2: Dress appropriately for a little bushwhacking through the woods. Keep an eye out for deer. I saw fifteen (no kidding) when I planted this letterbox.

Turn off Mormon Trek Boulevard onto Hawkeye Park Road. Take the first right turn (onto an unmarked street), and you'll find the park at the end of this street.

You are now at a small native prairie and the parking lot for the Mormon Handcart Park. This location was the staging area for one of the most remarkable treks in the history of the American West. Some nineteen hundred British and Scandinavian converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints wished to emigrate to Utah, but they were too poor to buy animals and wagons for the journey. Brigham Young, the Mormon leader, proposed that they cross the plains on foot with their few belongings in handcarts. The Church Presidency wrote: "Let them come on foot, with handcarts or wheel-barrows: let them gird up their loins and walk through." Some of those pioneers are buried here.

Start down the trail. After an eighth of a mile or so, you'll see an interpretive marker, as well as a stone marker laid in the ground inside an asphalt circle. Go to the interpretive marker and gather some knowledge.

It's time to enter the woods and see what this area was like when the trekkers camped here. From the interpretive marker, take a bearing of 340 degrees. Head into the woods in that direction until you reach a yellow pipeline post. Then walk a short distance to a second yellow pipeline post which lies at 310 degrees. From here, walk about seventy paces at 35 degrees to what appears to be a shelter dug into the ground. (I don't think this is a historic artifact.)

From the shelter, walk along a line of 50 degrees for about sixty paces. You should arrive at a large tree with several arms. The tree overlooks Clear Creek. The letterbox is in the lowest armpit of the tree.

Cover the box back up when you're done. Have fun. Be safe.