The trek master for Sandy's Canyon View Stake is the man behind the mission to expose his LDS Church community's young Latter-day Saints to a piece of their history. Earlier this summer, he led about 200 teens up to central Wyoming so they could re-enact, across the high desert, the Mormon pioneer journey - one that proved dangerous and deadly for hundreds in 1856.

It's a faith-building, handcart-hauling trip the stake takes every four years. But Peck worries that increasing costs and restrictions along the Historic Mormon Trail, which is on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property, will make future outings inviable.

"It's BLM land. That land belongs to me, it belongs to us" as taxpayers, he said. The trek "gives kids appreciation for their families and roots, arms them with a real understanding of helping their neighbors, working hard and getting through life's difficulties, and yet we are restricting activity there?"

The issues that concern him are the daily per-person BLM permit fee - this year $5 - and the rules of the road, including limited numbers that can be on the trail, the calendar window in which groups are allowed to go and the monitoring, which he views as excessive.

He also doesn't like what he sees as a disparity in rule applications and can't help but wonder if there's discrimination at play.

"I find it so ironic that the BLM can administer lands in Moab, where four-wheelers, bikes and Jeeps can tear the living daylights out of the landscape, and it doesn't cost visitors a dime," he said. What's happening on the desert high plains, "on a dirt track in the middle of nowhere . . . is good for youth and should be encouraged."

But Jared Oakleaf, BLM's outdoor recreation planner for the Lander, Wyo., field office, which oversees the trail Peck's group travels, said the federal agency's mandate is simply to protect what is there for future generations. While the Historic Mormon Trail in other states has largely been impeded by development or private land owners, Wyoming's trail goes largely undisturbed.

This means BLM must protect the trail as a historical resource but also guard the landscape and wildlife, which includes respecting the sage-grouse nesting and antelope breeding seasons.

When it comes to large organized groups, which on this trail means 26 people or more, a recreation permit or fee is deemed appropriate to help fund monitoring of trail impact, Oakleaf said. If Peck wanted to head off with a handcart and 24 others, there'd be no fee and no BLM assessor following his group with a tape measure to study rut depths and the trail width. And he said if an organized group of 100 wanted to tread on Moab's BLM land, you can bet they, too, would pay a permit fee. Five dollars, he added, is little compared with the $15 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints charges those who want to do a trek experience at Martin's Cove, historic property the church leases from BLM.

What gets to Peck perhaps more than the fee, however, is what he views as an excessive bending-over-backward to please BLM by missionaries serving the Mormon Handcart Historic Sites. Before Peck's group was able to hit the trail this year, adults were called together by missionaries for yet another - stake members had already attended two - training to go over BLM rules. Once on the trail, missionaries kept stopping traffic to control spacing between families, which led to a fair bit of road rage, including screams by kids of "Keep moving!"

Lee Longson, the director of the handcart sites, doesn't buy into these criticisms and said that while he understands how stakes and wards, which might be restricted in their participation numbers, might be frustrated, "I think the BLM has been very fair . . . They've allowed us to use the trail, and I'm grateful for that."

Peck is grateful, too, for the history and the land - which, as a taxpayer, he says he has every right to use. He just hopes future assessments don't hike up restrictions and costs that will take away from or kill the experience.

"I love the trek, deep in my blood," he said, his voice catching at the final devotional this year. "I love everything about the trek."

jravitz@sltrib.com