<P> Anna Maria King, like many other women, also advised family and friends back home of the realities of the trip and offered advice on how to prepare for the trip . Women also reacted and responded, often enthusiastically, to the landscape of the West . Betsey Bayley in a letter to her sister, Lucy P. Griffith described how travelers responded to the new environment they encountered: </P> <P> "The mountains looked like volcanoes and the appearance that one day there had been an awful thundering of volcanoes and a burning world . The valleys were all covered with a white crust and looked like salaratus . Some of the company used it to raise their bread ." </P> <P> Following persecution and mob action in Missouri, Illinois, and other states, and the assassination of their prophet Joseph Smith in 1844, Mormon leader Brigham Young was chosen by the leaders of the Latter Day Saints (LDS) church to lead the LDS settlers west . He chose to lead his people to the Salt Lake Valley in present - day Utah . In 1847 Young led a small, especially picked fast - moving group of men and women from their Winter Quarters encampments near Omaha, Nebraska, and their approximately 50 temporary settlements on the Missouri River in Iowa including Council Bluffs . About 2,200 LDS pioneers went that first year as they filtered in from Mississippi, Colorado, California, and several other states . The initial pioneers were charged with establishing farms, growing crops, building fences and herds, and establishing preliminary settlements to feed and support the many thousands of emigrants expected in the coming years . After ferrying across the Missouri River and establishing wagon trains near what became Omaha, the Mormons followed the northern bank of the Platte River in Nebraska to Fort Laramie in present - day Wyoming . They initially started out in 1848 with trains of several thousand emigrants, which were rapidly split into smaller groups to be more easily accommodated at the limited springs and acceptable camping places on the trail . Organized as a complete evacuation from their previous homes, farms, and cities in Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa, this group consisted of entire families with no one left behind . The much larger presence of women and children meant these wagon trains did not try to cover as much ground in a single day as Oregon and California bound emigrants . Typically taking about 100 days to cover the 1,000 miles (1,600 km) trip to Salt Lake City . (The Oregon and California emigrants typically averaged about 15 miles (24 km) per day .) In Wyoming, the Mormon emigrants followed the main Oregon / California / Mormon Trail through Wyoming to Fort Bridger, where they split from the main trail and followed (and improved) the rough path known as Hastings Cutoff, used by the ill - fated Donner Party in 1846 . </P> <P> Between 1847 and 1860, over 43,000 Mormon settlers and tens of thousands of travelers on the California Trail and Oregon Trail followed Young to Utah . After 1848, the travelers headed to California or Oregon resupplied at the Salt Lake Valley, and then went back over the Salt Lake Cutoff, rejoining the trail near the future Idaho--Utah border at the City of Rocks in Idaho . </P>

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