Blanding High Adventure - Experiences Carrying a Scout

So, our main difference this year was that we have a scout with Spina Bifida in our troop now, that walks with a cane.  We really wanted to make sure he was included, especially in our High Adventure activities, so one of our scouts decided to make a stretcher type carrier, with a seat in the middle, for his Eagle Project.  He then donated it to the Spina Bifida Foundation of Utah for families of kids with Spina Bifida to check out and use.  We checked it out first to make sure it worked on our trip.

Hiking around Hovenweep National Monument

It worked great!  I was a little worried about some of the boys complaining about having to carry their troop member, but I had no need to worry.  The boys were practically fighting over who got to carry him, and going out of their way to carry the packs of the porters.  I had to force myself into the line to get a chance to try out the carrier, and carry our scout for awhile!

When it was too rough or narrow for the carrier, we carried him on our backs

There were times when the trail too rough, or too narrow, where we couldn't use the carrier.  In these circumstances we carried him on our backs, and kept on going.  He is the neatest scout you'll ever find, he was grateful for the help - maybe a little bit embarrassed, but grateful to have so much help from his peers.  And to have them fighting over who got to help him!  It was awesome!

I got the chance to carry him a couple of times (only because I cut in line and said it was my turn), and it was a really neat experience.  I carried him on a flat trail that was overgrown with weeds to the point that we had to keep lifting him high to get the weeds unstuck from the legs of the seat.  I also carried him going up a hill (San Juan Hill for those that know their Utah Pioneer History).  On that hill we had planned on switching off part way up, but the other leader and I just kept going.  As we got past 1/2 way up, the other boys gathered around us and each grabbed onto the carrier and lifted.  They helped us make it the rest of the way to the top!  It was awesome!  Nobody asked them to help, they just saw the need so they jumped into position to help!  I wish we had gotten photos of that part, but unfortunately we didn't.  Even so, it will be a memory that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

Hiking up San Juan Hill

We had such a good experience that we have planned a trip soon to backpack up to the top of Timpanogos Peak with him.  We will be backpacking about 5 miles and then camping the night, bagging the peak the next morning, and then backpacking back down. It's 7 miles each way, with an elevation gain of 4,500 feet!  I wouldn't even try this if we didn't have a bunch of older scouts that are pretty tough, and up to the challenge of either carrying their pack with someone else's stuff, or carrying their fellow scout while someone else carry's their stuff.  It's going to be a challenge, but it will sure have rewards when we all get to the top of the peak!

It was such a great experience that I encourage any troop with similar challenges to definitely try what we did.  It has helped create so much unity in our troop!

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Blanding High Adventure - Why go on High Adventure?

Why do we do High Adventure?  Why do I take a week out of my limited vacation time from work to go camping with the scouts?  Why do we encourage scouts to go on a challenging high adventure?  Because it IS challenging!  Because it stretches them and allows them to get out of their comfort zone and see what they are capable of (not what their character in their video game is capable of).  Once they see that they can do hard things, they will be more willing to take on even harder things.  Our scouts love to be challenged!  They have named one of the high adventures they went on before I was involved, "medium adventure" because they didn't do anything to challenge or stretch them.  They just went camping near a lake.  None of them wants to do another "medium adventure", they want a High Adventure that will challenge them and be hard to complete.

Yes, that requires some training, some classes, and some specialized equipment.  And unfortunately BSA is making it harder and harder to do your own High Adventure by forcing you to take tons of extra trainings and certifications to be able to do High Adventure activities. (Click HERE to see more about the trainings and stuff required for canyoneering and rappelling).  Unfortunately, that's the hurdle you have to get over right now with BSA.  I think they are trying to get you to just go to Council operated High Adventure Bases - so they make more money.  But there's something about going out and doing it on your own that is so much more adventurous for the boys (and leaders), and you can do it for 1/2 of the cost of a council camp.  We can't afford to go to council camps for high adventure, even if we wanted to!

To see more of my thoughts on challenging boys, click on the link below:
Challenging Boys helps them become Men

Also, check this one out about getting outdoors with the scouts:
Put the Outing in Scouting

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Blanding High Adventure - Hammock Camping

So I had the option to borrow another leader's hammock for the week, and I'm glad I did!  As it turns out, the rains had a good chance of flooding the tents, but my Hennessey Hammock with a rain fly stayed as dry as can be!  The rain fly kept the hammock dry, and it was up off the ground so the monsoonal rainstorms that came didn't fill it up from the bottom like the tents did.  I put a tarp on the ground below the hammock so that I could have something to stand on to get inside the hammock, and after a big rainstorm I did have to dump some of the water off the tarp - but it dried off pretty quickly.


One of the issues with hammock camping is the fact that your body compresses the insulation beneath you it it looses it's insulating properties.  What does that mean?  It means that you get cold from the bottom up.  While sleeping on the ground you have the same problem, but you are usually sleeping on a pad that insulates you from the ground.  So typically you would use a pad of some type in the hammock as well to insulate your backside from the cold.  I didn't have one with me on this trip, but I was using my -15F mummy bag, so I figured I would be ok.  It was interesting as I was laying there to feel my cold back, and warm everywhere else.  But it didn't get cold enough to freeze me, so it was good.

Below are a few pictures of my hammock after a really good rain storm.  You'll notice the wet rain fly, and wet tarp underneath, but everything in my hammock was as dry as could be.

Those that were sleeping in tents also learned a few things.  You know those extra strings and stakes that come with the tent that are supposed to hook onto the rain fly to pull it away from the tent?  They are pretty useful in a big rainstorm!  They make the rain run off the fly further from your tent, giving you a better chance at keeping your stuff inside the tent dry!

I slept about the same in the hammock as I usually do on campouts - tossing and turning all night.  I find that I roll around a lot at night, and when I'm in a sleeping bag, I end up waking up at night as I roll.  But, by the end of the week I slept the entire night without waking up!  (part of that was because I was so tired from all the activities during the day in the 100 degree weather I'm sure).

For more info on Hammock Camping, see my Hammock Camping Post.

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Blanding High Adventure

This year for High Adventure we went to Blanding, Utah and did some canyoneering, and explored some Indian Cliff Dwellings/Ruins.  We experienced torrential downpours while at camp, and while driving, but didn't have much problem with the rains while we did our activities!  Our new challenge this year was that we have a boy with Spina Bifida, who walks with a cane.  High Adventure is supposed to be difficult, and hard, and really stretch the boys so that they can see what they're made up of, and what they can accomplish if they set their mind to it.  So, how do we have a difficult high adventure with a boy with physical challenges?  We include him in everything.  We still did the same things we would have done without him, but we helped him through it as well.  We were somewhat inspired by another troop that had a boy with Spina Bifida whom they carried everywhere they went - on all their campouts and everything.  So, one of the boys in our troop decided it would be better if we had some sort of carrier - like a stretcher with a chair in the middle.  That way we could carry the boy wherever we went.  So it was made as an Eagle Project, and donated to the Spina Bifida foundation of Utah for families to borrow for trips and stuff.  It turned out great, and was quite the asset on our trip!

Every year for High Adventure we try to have a theme for our trip, and this year's theme was "I will be my brother's keeper".  We chose this theme partly because we would be helping our brother, and carrying him along the way, but also because we wanted to become our brother's keeper.  Someone who is a brother's keeper is someone who watches out for other people, who helps with things and makes sure those around him are comfortable and taken care of.  We have far too few brother's keeper's in this world, and if we can help 16 scouts to become one, we're doing a world of good.

This trip was awesome!  We had no arguments, no complaining, no whining.  Most of the boys were fighting over who got to carry their brother!  It was one of the best High Adventures I have ever been on (and I've been on 10 of them!)

So, below are some of the logistics for our High Adventure.  What it took to get it planned, some neat experiences we had, some of my thoughts, and some things we learned along the way.

• Why go on High Adventure?
• Experiences Carrying a Scout
• Canyoneering
• Hammock Camping (yep, I slept in a hammock)
• Lessons Learned