ADVENTURERS BEGIN WALKING FORTY-NINER ROUTE TO DEATH VALLEY.

Byline: Associated Press 

Five Antelope Valley residents have begun retracing the tragic route taken by gold-rush emigrants in 1849 that began in southwestern Utah and became stalled in Death Valley.

In fact, Death Valley was named by the handful of fortune-seekers who survived four months of starvation, dehydration and exhaustion while traveling the 376-mile route.

``We've been planning this for more than a year,'' said Allan Smith of Palmdale, one of the five members of the Footsteps of the Lost Forty-niners Expedition, which will wind up at Death Valley National Monument on Christmas Day.

``My whole life I've been wanting to do something like this. It's amazing how it swallows you up,'' Smith told The Salt Lake Tribune.

Using forty-niner journals, photographs and research by historians, the group hopes to locate artifacts and pioneer grave sites along the little-used trail. Most of the Lost Forty-niner route lies on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property, but due to the remote, rugged locale, few, if any, adventurers have retraced the original trail.

In early November 1849, more than 100 wagons journeyed off the Old Spanish Trail near Enterprise, Utah to pursue a shortcut over the mountain ranges bordering Utah and Nevada. After reaching a daunting canyon, most turned back to the original trail, but some wagons continued on.

As the trail grew more treacherous and rations dwindled, the emigrants began tossing off all worldly possessions. Several adults and children who perished were buried where they fell, and some wanderers scratched their names on canyon walls.

Only a handful of such remnants of the past have been located along the trail.

``I don't know of anyone who has conducted an (archeological) inventory of this route,'' said Dawna Ferris, a BLM archeologist from Caliente, Nev., who has helped the Californians plan their trip. ``Anything that this expedition finds is going to be very useful to us.''

Sponsored by outdoor equipment manufacturers, the expedition will photograph and document any signs of the original forty-niners' passage, noting the coordinates of the site with a global positioning satellite navigator the BLM has loaned the group.

The five hikers - Smith, backcountry guide Clay Campbell of Palmdale, archeologist Jerry Freeman of Pearblossom and Freeman's adult daughters Holly and Jennifer - will walk the entire route with supply drops arranged approximately every five days.

``We're going to have to cover an average of 12 to 15 miles a day, no matter what kind of weather we come up against,'' said Smith, an ex-Marine and former Los Angeles paramedic. ``We really believe we can make the trip in the 30 days we've scheduled if we can keep that pace.''

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Photo: Allan Smith, left, Dawn Ferris of the Bureau of Land Management and Lavoid Leavitt discuss how a satellite will track Smith's party as it follows a pioneer trail from Utah to Death Valley.

Associated Press