Well I made it back from the wilds. My son’s Troop had a leadership campout. Just a one night and a day hike. It was a great weekend all the boys (5) got along great; we didn’t have a single testosterone moment.
We arrived late in the afternoon and once we figured out, with the help of the ranger, where we need to set up camp the boys managed to find a make shift seesaw. It was basically a stump and a log. They worked at it for a while; I finally had to make a suggestion that they notch the stump, giving the log a more secure place to rest. Fortunately one of the boys was “prepared” and brought a hatchet. They worked it out and managed to get the notch in the stump. For longer than I kept track these young men of 12 & 13 had a blast with a simple lever. After a while one of the other scoutmasters came up to me and said, “This is way better than a video game.”. Being in the outdoors is by far the greatest thing my son and I enjoy about Boy Scouts and the time that we have spent together has been a real investment in our father son experience.
The next morning we proceeded to get things pack up so we could do our day hike. Now I have to say that we have never hiked this trail before, so there was a little element of the unknown. I have maps, of the park and what I thought was the position of the trail head and the end of the trail. The night before we had figured out that it would take us 30 minutes each way to place a vehicle at the end of the trail. We headed out, and the GPS took us down this one lane gravel road that I thought I may have heard banjo music on, but after we place the vehicle we headed back to the park to start our hike.
Well it turned out that we walked by the trail head, with all the boys talking and caring on, along with us dad’s we pass it. Of course I would like to point out that in Boy Scouts it is supposed to be boy led. But, eventually we figured out the trail and headed out.
The trail was really well marked (once we found it) and one of boys had a steady pace. We managed to find a number of signs of wildlife, even a bear track. Thankfully, the bear was not around.
We took a side trail to a water fall, it was beautiful. Once we reached the end of the trail we had another surprise, the truck was not there. It was about ½ mile away. The boys, had a laugh, so did we, but to tell you the truth we really can figure out what went wrong. All I know is that maybe now I can get one of those trail GPS’s. Nah, that would take the fun out of it.
We arrived late in the afternoon and once we figured out, with the help of the ranger, where we need to set up camp the boys managed to find a make shift seesaw. It was basically a stump and a log. They worked at it for a while; I finally had to make a suggestion that they notch the stump, giving the log a more secure place to rest. Fortunately one of the boys was “prepared” and brought a hatchet. They worked it out and managed to get the notch in the stump. For longer than I kept track these young men of 12 & 13 had a blast with a simple lever. After a while one of the other scoutmasters came up to me and said, “This is way better than a video game.”. Being in the outdoors is by far the greatest thing my son and I enjoy about Boy Scouts and the time that we have spent together has been a real investment in our father son experience.
The next morning we proceeded to get things pack up so we could do our day hike. Now I have to say that we have never hiked this trail before, so there was a little element of the unknown. I have maps, of the park and what I thought was the position of the trail head and the end of the trail. The night before we had figured out that it would take us 30 minutes each way to place a vehicle at the end of the trail. We headed out, and the GPS took us down this one lane gravel road that I thought I may have heard banjo music on, but after we place the vehicle we headed back to the park to start our hike.
Well it turned out that we walked by the trail head, with all the boys talking and caring on, along with us dad’s we pass it. Of course I would like to point out that in Boy Scouts it is supposed to be boy led. But, eventually we figured out the trail and headed out.
The trail was really well marked (once we found it) and one of boys had a steady pace. We managed to find a number of signs of wildlife, even a bear track. Thankfully, the bear was not around.
We took a side trail to a water fall, it was beautiful. Once we reached the end of the trail we had another surprise, the truck was not there. It was about ½ mile away. The boys, had a laugh, so did we, but to tell you the truth we really can figure out what went wrong. All I know is that maybe now I can get one of those trail GPS’s. Nah, that would take the fun out of it.
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