After traveling along Black’s Fork River, the trail goes overland across the Wyoming wilderness occasionally crossing small creeks like Muddy Creek seen here. Despite its name, the water often flowed crystal clear. The Mormon vanguard company camped just west of the creek on 9 July 1847. Erasus Snow called the campground “very pretty”.

“As I have retraced the footsteps of pioneers along the Mormon Pioneer Trail, I have wondered if, at the end of their day, some of those emigrants looked up to the night sky full of uncountable stars and wonder if the God of Heaven was mindful of them? The answer seems to be found in one of the teachings of the first prophet of the Church, Joseph Smith, who taught ‘And the Lord God spake unto Moses, saying: The heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man; but they are numbered unto me, for they are mine . . . For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.’ It is as if to say that of all of God’s creations, men and women, and their eternal welfare, are the most important things to Him.”

As I photographed this image, I recorded the creek and sky at dusk, then two hours later, I planned to capture a second exposure of the completely dark sky with the stars illuminating the heavens. I planned to bracket two exposures, one for 30 seconds, and one for 60 seconds. Nothing unusual had happened all evening in the sky. But while I exposed one of those two exposures, there was a meteorite streak across the sky, it was a thousand times brighter than any shooting star I had ever seen. It was as bright as a car headlight a hundred yards away from me! Upon reviewing the image captured by my camera, I realized the meteorite streak was positioned perfectly for my photograph! I knew that Heavenly Father told me, in a very person way, that God was indeed mindful of those pioneers, as well as me.
– thoughts by the photographer, Mark Romesser