summertop wrote:I took our scouts backpacking. It was just an overnighter, but the boys had a LOT of fun. We hiked 2.75 miles but gained 2700 feet in elevation. A tough hike. It took 5 hours to get there. But only 1 hour and 45 minute to come back down...
Summertop - Where did you take them. The hike sounds tough, but fun.
I too have been known to take the scouts backpacking. One of our spring traditions (in years when the snow melts soon enough) is to backpack/hike to the summit of Mount Timpanogus. It is an 18 mile round trip, and the summit is at 11,750 feet. We backpack 5 miles to Hidden Lake on Friday afternoon, then leave the pack there while we do the summit on Saturday morning. After a slide down the glacier (ice field, not a true glacier) and lunch we backpack back out. This is the third year in a row that the snow didn't allow us to do the hike in the spring. We are doing it in the Fall this year.
Most of the scouts have never been to that altitude before, except maybe in an airplane. It is a trip they talk about for years, and always want to do it again the next spring.
Every time we go, I prove that they are 1/3 my age. Being the leader is not the only reason is stick with the slow kids in the back. After an 18 mile trip, they all get sore. They don't laugh at me because they are all walking and doing stairs slower when I see them at church on Sunday. By our next troop meeting, I may be the only one who is still sore, but I have usually recovered enough that it is not obvious.
One year, I pulled a tendon or something in my foot during the hike. My foot hurt for about 2 months.
Another year, my knee gave out, and I fell on the hike down. I got scraped up in the brush, and twisted my ankle. I had no choice but to walk out on a sprained ankle. That night I had been asked to speak at an Eagle Court of Honor. I could hardly walk, and my ankle was obviosly swollen, but nobody laughed.
On the subject of the things we do for scouts -
I have never been camping in sub-zero temperatures, except for scouts.
I have never done a 50-mile backpacking trip, except for scouts.
I have never left my family for a week in the summer, and a weekend every month, and a night every week, except for scouts.
I have never spent more money to do things I may not have ever wanted to do, except for scouts.
I've never worked a vehicle so long and so hard that it was unrepairable, except for scouts.
