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By Charlie Thorpe
Moving from "heavy" car camping to "light" backpacking style equipment for their outdoor programming.
A number of things came together for our Troop that set us on the quest of examining every aspect of our unit operations. We wanted to see if we could find better ways to establish the right environment for what we were calling "full program Scouting" (using ALL the Methods to accomplish ALL the Aims for All the Scouts). We had spent a LOT of good late hours poking the campfire after the Scouts had gone to bed and we had developed a number of directions that we wanted to take both the short term (week-to-week, month-to-month) and the long term (entire time a Scout is with us) Troop program.
Our overall goal was twofold: play the grand game of Scouting (almost everything done at meetings and outings was centered around preparing and doing outdoor fun) and try hard to have so much activity on the schedule that no one person could possibly do it all.
The time came when we needed to do what we could to put the support systems in place to help us all better focus our scarce resources (time, $, garage shelf space, spouse's good will, etc.) entirely on what we really wanted to do: grow kids. We tinkered with a lot of things, but the gear iterations that we went through to support our outdoor program is the part which fits this discussion thread.
We looked for gear which would:
encourage effective use of small (Patrol) and large (Troop) teams;
be camping technology which Scout-age boys could easily become expert
in over time;
be technology which the older Scouts could train the younger Scouts to
use;
support as many of our different program elements as possible;
tie us back to some of the important Scouting traditions which would
help us in our program;
be safe for youth in our Scout's age range to use;
be robust enough to withstand youthful use/abuse over time;
be field-maintainable when it didn't;
and
not cost an arm and a leg.
We decided that we wanted a mix of Troop-owned group gear and individually owned very personal gear because:
the group gear gave the Patrol and Troop Quartermasters an honest-to-goodness real job in taking care of their team's gear; the kids were able to learn and then teach group gear that stayed consistent over all the years they were in the Troop; gear items could each be carefully selected to fully support the Troop program (by individuals fully familiar with both gear and program); standardized group gear would allow some economies of scale for purchase and maintenance; individually owned personal gear would allow these items to be selected (and updated) to best exactly fit the specific needs of each Scout; and owning their own personal gear would give each family a strong incentive to help their Scout learn to take care of it (their youth leaders were happy to help them learn how to take care of their team gear < g > ).
We had a long history of being a "backpacking Troop" (a few of us had over a thousand mile's worth of Troop 50-60 milers on the AT and prep hikes on trails all over the south) and we looked closely at using a backpacking theme for part of our outdoor program cycle. We decided not to, mainly because it was the inadequacies of backpacking as a major component to a Troops outdoor program that was driving us to make major changes in the way we did our outdoor business in the first place. We decided instead to use "hiking" as a major planned activity for the Troop as a whole. The Venture Patrol did backpacking for their hi-adventure program that year (Philmont, self-outfitted hike, etc.).
We agreed with the kind of thinking in many of the postings that Dan gathered together that we didn't want to get trapped by the huge elaborate Troop trailers that some units enjoyed as part of their programs. We did want to use some of the traditional Scouting camping technologies for team and other program reasons (the knots needed for advancement up to 1st class make a LOT more sense when we actually used those knots for our routine camping < g > ). We liked Dutch ovens, hillbilly clambakes and other traditional Scouting team cooking gear. We liked Patrol shelters (housed entire Patrol) where possible and found the 4-man Timberline worked best for other shelter needs.
We decided not to use backpacking gear for our general outdoor program (too fragile, not safe enough, too expensive, really designed well for individual and not team activity, etc.). We went with "pickle buckets" instead (5 gal pails w/snap lids and bail handle). Actually, we didn't use the pickle buckets that we could get for free from the fast food places (sleeping bags ended up smelling like dill pickles...), we preferred the same type buckets used for bakery icing (could choose vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, etc. for our sleeping bag < g > ). We experimented with sheetrock mud buckets because they were shorter and fit below the gunwales of the canoes for sweeper protection. We would now probably just go down to Wally World or Home Depot and buy the ones they have readily available for a few bucks.
Each person brought two personal pickle buckets to most outings (only thing you were allowed to bring outside of your buckets was a day pack and a fishing rod when appropriate). The buckets were extremely cheap, very robust, set a nice limit on the amount of personal stuff brought, were easy to organize inside, packed easily on an open utility trailer and in car trunks, could be carried easily by even the youngest Scouts, were weatherproof, and made nice seats around the camp. They fit nicely in a canoe (each canoe carried two buckets for each paddler and another 4 buckets of group gear/food - tied bails to thwarts) and we could stack them within the canoes on the canoe trailer. We even started stacking them to make privacy screens for changing room and potty on paddling trips. The Scouts got VERY inventive at how they marked their buckets with their name and Patrol. We would mark the group buckets with strips of duct tape so that we could change them during a trip (i.e., change a food to a garbage bucket) and easily skin the markings off for the next trip.
We didn't want to abandon backpacking as a good activity for our outdoor program, we just didn't think it particularly appropriate for the younger Scouts. We had plenty of past opportunities to notice that boys would go through a sometimes startling metamorphosis when they hit about thirteen (some as early as twelve, some as late as fourteen). Over an amazingly short time, a boy's bones/muscles/attitude would start to really work together the way that they were supposed to. Before that, the boy would be hard pressed just to carry his personal gear, much less his honest share of his team gear...after that, the young man could move mountains. It didn't take too many crying 12-year-olds for us to decide that backpacking for those who were still young boys was either VERY expensive (special ultralite gear which they quickly outgrew), led to a feeling of letting down your team (others had to carry your share); or on the long trips it (too-often) bordered on child abuse.
We bought a dozen small very-adjustable Coleman Peak1 packs and the Patrols would check them out when they wanted to do a backpacking trip.
We encouraged very short mileages at first and would carry Patrol gear in vehicles if needed to allow all to be able to carry their full share (especially on cold weather outings). The PLC would plan a Troop hi-adventure on the hiking year that allowed the Patrols to easily pick what kind of activities they wanted to do throughout the week (day hiking, short overnight backpacking trips, fishing, two-day backpacking trips, etc.). The older guys who weren't involved in leading the Troop hi-adventure trip would work out a backpacking trip where they could stop over to resupply at the Troop's static camp...or, once, they just breezed through because they were doing a week with no resupply (talk about wowing the young Scouts!).
Our theory was that the Troop would provide the gear needed for simple Patrol backpacking trips for the younger boys...and the parents would later have gained enough experience with what we were all about to know what to buy for their young man who wanted to participate in the MUCH more elaborate older-boy backpacking program. Some kids did, some didn't (we actually had slightly more get serious about whitewater paddling and sailing than backpacking)...it all seemed to work quite well on the average.
Thanks for an excuse to remember some good Scouting while waiting for the kids (and grandkids!) to drive in for turkey < g > .
Happy Thanksgiving!
Trace No Leaves,
- Charlie
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