Converting a Car Camping Scout Troop to a Backpacking Scout Troop
When Jim was 11 we joined BSA Troop 100, run out of the Methodist church in Boise, After a few meetings we met with the scoutmaster and the committee chairman, who told us their program was for new scouts to go on their first backpack when they were 13, and after a couple of summer camps. I was disappointed in this, because Jim had been backpacking since he was 6, and I had hoped that scouts would provide him with backpacking adventures and friends to camp with. Our troop established the years schedule of events at a meeting in the fall, and every trip for the year had already been determined, and they were all car camping trips. I asked them if they would mind if scouts went on additional trips, such as day hikes and backpacks. They said that would be fine, and I think they were thinking “knock yourself out. Who cares?” Our first backpack was to a 2 mile hike to a hot springs. We had many parents, and an Eagle Scout who had never been on a backpack.
It turned out that the older scouts were not interested in backpacking, and at least half the parents of the younger scouts were interested in backpacking. In Jim’s first year in scouting we did 6 backpacks, including a 3 day hike of the Alice Toxaway loop. The next year the calendar was set by the usual parties, but a bunch of parents lobbied to include backpacks on the schedule.
The next year the troop did 7 backpacks, including a 3 day trip, and a back country winter trip to hot springs.
The third year the older kids and their parents were mostly gone from the troop, and the younger kids were in leadership positions. We did 5 backpacks, including a three day trip with all the scouts and parents who attended summer camp, and a 7 day backpack, Jim’s first.
We developed some habits which helped the transition from car camping into being a backpacking troop.
we went on an easy backpack early in the season, for new scouts (age 11). This was a 2-3 mile hike, and once the 11 year olds did a 2 mile backpack, they realized that a 4 mile hike was very doable.
the boys cooked and camped as a group, and the adults camped nearby but separately.
toward the end of the season we did a 3 or 4 day trip that the 11 year olds could handle.
we had a week long backpack later in the season and advertised its date as early as possible, so people could plan on it. We also made the mileage on that trip reasonable enough that younger scouts could do it.
we never cut a trip short in order to get home early, which would have resulted in long mileage days that younger scouts could not handle.
The following 10 years the program continued, and we did many backpacks and a week long one every year for the next 10 years. The week long trips took us to the Wind Rivers, the White Clouds, the Sawtooths, the Sierra Nevada, the John Muir Trail, the Uintas, Grand Gulch, and Capital Reef. The troop still invites me to go on the backpacks, but I’m having a harder time keeping up these days.
Below: My hiking buddies Kevin Anderson, Gary Fujino, and me, in 2009 in the Titcomb Basin of the Wind Rivers.
