HISTORIAN PLANNING MARCH ACROSS SANDS OF TIME.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Daily News Staff Writer

A month shy of 149 years ago, 30 or so emaciated men, a woman and two young boys staggered into the shade of the cottonwood trees around Barrel Springs, within sight of what is now Pearblossom Highway.

Horrendously lost on their 1849 trip to the California gold fields, the ragged band - who called themselves ``the Jayhawkers'' - had blundered into Death Valley, then spent 32 days trekking out.

Starting Saturday, five people led by a Pearblossom archeologist and substitute school teacher will attempt to duplicate the lost gold miners' escape - 200 miles from Death Valley to Palmdale, across desolate, rugged terrain that in large part remains little changed from 1850.

``No one has ever followed the Jayhawkers. No one has done it on foot,'' said Jerry Freeman, 56. ``I think we'll determine where they went.''

Freeman, his daughters Holly and Jennifer Freeman, photographer Clay Campbell and documentary film producer Allan Smith will backpack from Furnace Creek in Death Valley across the Panamint Mountains, down Panamint Valley, across the Slate Range, past Searles Lake, past Redrock Canyon, then make a beeline across the Antelope Valley to Barrel Springs, the first springs out of the desert.

They will be attempting to ascertain and follow the route of the lost Jayhawkers - a collection of Illinois men who were one of several bands of settlers who got lost seeking a shortcut to California's gold fields and ended up stumbling down into Death Valley, the first whites to see the lowest, hottest, driest place in North America.

In their epic retracing of the settlers who gave Death Valley its name, the Freeman party will have advantages the 49ers didn't: sleeping bags, lightweight tents, modern backpacks, plus one supreme difference: regular resupplies of water and food by friends who will meet them along the way, every three or four days when possible.

They hope to make the trek in 21 days, far quicker than the 49ers, who took from Dec. 28, 1849, to Jan. 28, 1850, to reach Barrel Springs. The emigrants were exhausted already when they entered Death Valley. Leaving it, they had little food other than a bit of flour and the dried flesh of the oxen they killed when they abandoned and burned their wagons.

``We know where we are going. They were lost. They followed water sources. They followed Indian trails,'' Freeman said. ``They had a tough time.''

The Death Valley-Palmdale expedition is actually the second half of Freeman and his companions' adventure.

In 1996, tracing how the lost 49ers ended up in Death Valley, the same five walked 300 miles from Utah to Death Valley, surviving snowstorms and windstorms, lack of water and treacherous terrain.

From the first trek Freeman wrote two papers that will be published in a historical journal, the ``Death Valley Historical Proceedings for 1999.''

One paper describes finding an inscription scratched into a rock by one of the travelers in Utah on Nov. 10, 1849. The other theorizes that a mirage led the lost miners onward into the desert that is now the Air Force's Area 51 in Nevada.

Historians are at odds as to the Jayhawkers' exact route out of Death Valley, Freeman said.

In research for their expedition, Freeman has poured over books, letters, memoirs and the survivors' recollections in old newspaper articles. At his home in Pearblossom, he estimates he has close to 100 books, magazines and memoirs about the lost 49ers, and has visited libraries in Berkeley and San Marino to read the Jayhawkers' letters.

``I am probably the resident expert on the Death Valley 49ers,'' Freeman said.

While the Jayhawkers' generally accepted route is through Towne Pass, now used by Highway 190 entering Death Valley National Park, Freeman said, he believes they climbed higher in the Panamint Mountains to reach patches of snow - east of the highway up Jayhawker Canyon to 7,510-foot Pinto Peak.

``I feel they needed the water,'' Freeman said. ``They talked about a snow camp: `We were astride the highest rafter on the roof of hell' - That had to have been a high point.''

At Pinto Peak, the Freeman party will divide, like the Jayhawkers did. Freeman, Campbell and Smith will strike west down Pinto Peak's steep western slopes into the Panamint Valley, like the main Jayhawkers party.

Holly Freeman, a sheet metal worker for an air conditioning company, and Jennifer Freeman, a Palmdale High School dance instructor, will travel down a canyon to the southeast, following the route taken by Juliet Brier, the first white woman to see Death Valley; her Methodist preacher husband, and their two young sons.

The party will meet where the real 49ers did, at a spring beside Panamint Valley, and resume travel together southward.

To cross China Lake Naval Weapons Center, the group will ride in military vehicles, escorted by a base archeologist.

After entering the Antelope Valley through the El Paso Mountains at Koehn Dry Lake, east of Red Rock Canyon State Park, the Freemans will strike south past California City and across Edwards Air Force Base between Rosamond and Buckhorn dry lakes.

The last miles will be beside two-lane roads through east Lancaster and Palmdale to Barrel Springs, which still exists beside the California Aqueduct.

``It's not going to be a fun part of the hike,'' Freeman said.

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Map

PHOTO Following ``the Jayhawkers'' route in Death Valley will be, from left, Clay Campbell, Holly Freeman, Jennifer Freeman, Jerry Freeman and Allan Smith.

MAP: Route planned by the '49er Expedition Team