On the path of Gold Rush pioneers

A pair of horses move over for a closer look as the wagon train pulls onto Highway 49 near Jackson on Tuesday. On board are, from left, wagon master John Diedrich and fifth-graders Gabriel Hernandez and Larry Escobar. Bee photograph: Anne Chadwick Williams

JACKSON -- They've been riding the wagon train for two weeks now, walking when the going gets tough, toughing out storms, driving the mules and sometimes cleaning up after the animals.

But they're kids, so they don't feel grubby.

After all, said sixth-grader Guadalupe Duque, "we shower like every three or four days."

They aren't strictly roughing it, but 14 kids from Sierra Vista Elementary in Madera are getting a taste of pioneer life this month as they ride day after day in covered wagons, all the way from the Mother Lode's southern end to the Gold Rush's Coloma birthplace.

Tuesday morning saw them depart from the Kit Carson Mountain Men's lodge here. At noon they circled their wagons for a quick 1990s lunch -- pizza -- in Sutter Creek. Then it was back on the back roads, fording several creeks, to Drytown.

Their 20-day trip is scheduled to bring them into Coloma on Saturday to help kick off the Sesquicentennial Celebration marking the 150th anniversary of James Marshall's gold discovery.

Rafael Salas, 11, holds a mule team after the Madera school's wagon train arrived in Sutter Creek for lunch on Tuesday. Bee photograph: Anne Chadwick Williams

And it's also organized to take them back in time.

"We want them to get a feel for what it's like to travel for so long in a covered wagon," said teacher Bill Coate.

Coate takes students on five-day wagon camping trips each year, but this is his first extended tour, trying to promote the Gold Rush anniversary.

Their train of wagons, several outriders on horseback and some support vehicles took off out of Madera on Jan. 5. For four days, they traveled cross-country across private lands until they arrived in Mariposa and began their Gold Country tour.

When the terrain is steep, the mules won't pull, so kids get out and walk. They can make up to 10 miles a day traveling off the main highway and they bed down in schools, cabins or museums. At each stop -- Chinese Camp, Columbia, Murphys -- they have learned a bit more of the state's history, mining technique, geology, even literature, such as when they met a Mark Twain impersonator.

"We do exactly what we do at school," sighed Karen Hodges, another sixth-grader.

Outriders Brenda and Donnie Maxwell lead the wagon train into Sutter Creek on Tuesday. The students are due to arrive in Coloma on Saturday. Bee photograph: Anne Chadwick Williams

Not that they drive mules at school, but that their education is continuing on the road, even on weekends and the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. But they are loving it.

"It's an experience I'll never forget," said Mara Hernandez, a sixth-grader.

"We've had hail, thunder, lightning . . . but that's part of it too," said Coate.

"I like the rain, 'cause it's more an experience like the pioneers," Duque said.

The kids have not had to cook, but they still managed to complain about lunches. Sixth-grader George Medrano said the sandwiches in their daily sack lunches are like their parents, "because we see them day after day."

The original pioneer experience did not include the GameBoys or Giga Pets that some of the kids brought along for entertainment, however. Even with little luxuries along, the kids still missed home.

"The first thing I'll do when I get home is kiss my parents," Duque said, "and spend a week on the couch." Watching TV, she said.

"They'll never, ever read about the pioneers in quite the same way again," said Coate.