[at-l] RE: Group Hiking Query

[charles at uswnet.com (Charles Copeland)]

> 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. 

My Troop picks up trash and cleans shelters when we come across them.  We don't camp in them either.  You can recognize my boys in two ways - we usually are wearing our hunter orange Troop 87 t-shirts (they're hidden by coats in the winter) and our packs have trash bags tied to them so that the boys can easily pick up trash as they go.


>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.     

I hate to hear stories like this.  Thankfully I hear them less and less often.

My boys try their best - but they don't know everything they're supposed to know about LNT and cooking, camping, hiking, knots, and orienteering.  The senior boys in the Troop do their best, along with the adults' help, to teach ALL of the boys how to "be in the woods" properly.  I will tell you that my boys are very, very noisy - just like all other boys - until Saturday night after a long day of hiking/canoeing/caving/rock climbing/biking.  Then they sleep very, very well.  :-)

> 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.

Yes, Boy Scouts and adult leaders are people too.  The uniform doesn't transform them into perfect beings.  They make mistakes and have the same good days and bad days as everyone else.  But at least they are part of a organization that is trying to improve the outdoor experience for everyone.  Yes, contact the Council or District a troop is in and complain if you run across a troop that is having issues like described above.  You will find a lot of those troops have leaders that have "been around a while" and haven't bothered to get trained - at least not since the switch over to LNT.  You will get answers like "We've always done it that way"  -or-  "That's the way I learned it" .

Personally, I really don't like those answers.  I help train Assistant Scoutmasters for my District and I hear those comments every now and then from my students.  Things change folks!  Get trained!! 


Charles  (who is ready for some whitewater rafting at the NOC this weekend followed by a short AT hike with my 11-12 yr olds)




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