[at-l] RE: Group Hiking Query

[Adkhiker2003 at wmconnect.com (Adkhiker2003@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)]

  I can speak of experience of good and bad..  The good was a troop out of 
Virginia Beach that did a 50 mile hike on the AT every summer.  The trip was 
only open to two adults and 6 scouts per trip.  If more adults and scouts were 
interested they simply planned more trips.  They were well organized and planned 
out support to pick up scouts who wanted to drop out and provided the ones 
who stayed with "trail magic" as they went.  One of the nice things about that 
was they knew how to act in the outdoors and if they did not the scout master 
assigned them to the support crew and took them off the trail.    They also 
made it a point to clean up each shelter area of all trash... theirs and 
others... they also asked other hikers for thier trash ( the good deed of the day )... 
as long as it was not gooey seeping trash they took it and gave it to their 
support crew.   A GREAT example of a scout troop... Hikers sung their praises 
while I was out there.

  The bad, well it was at James Fry Shelter with three scout leaders and 8 
boy scouts.  They took over the entire shelter.. the ENTIRE shelter to include 
the picnic tables, fire pit and all the kindling wood left for the hikers.   
Numbers hikers came in and asked if there was any room in the shelter and the 
scout leaders said " there are plenty of tent space down the hill".      The 
scouts were totally the opposite of LNT.  One scout was hanging off a tree trying 
to break a limb for fire wood while another was trying to chop down an oak.   
Justice was served when they began to itch from the poison ivy around the 
trees.   At night they were loud and were running all over the area all the while 
screaming and shouting.  It was like staying at a KOA... not my idea of a AT 
experience.   When I talked with the scout leader about some of the things the 
scouts were doing he said that this was their first time out.  I stated that 
I thought they should be taught how to treat the area instead of destroy it... 
his reply... boys will be boys...    On my last trip, the trail news that was 
passed from hiker to hiker  was how terrible a scout troop was ( 20+ scouts ) 
at the ed garvey shelter and how much they disrupted the trail.    

  So in short... there are good and there are bad...   Next time you see some 
scouts out there acting like yahoos simply get their troop number and council 
and write BSA and they will address it... at least that is what I am told..



  Sparky!
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