Petey091

On 5/30/2019 at 2:30 AM, fred8033 said:

Backpacking ... GTSS Section 3 Camping starts with an age chart that says for "Wilderness and Backcountry" ... "(“Older Scouts BSA” are age 13 and have completed eighth grade or 14 years old and up.)" ... So I'd argue, what is wilderness and backcountry?  Some of our local state parks have hiking trails and hike-in camp spots.  I'm not sure I'd treat those as wilderness or backcountry as most of the spots have cell phone reception and people can hike out within an hour or so.  I'd be tempted to interpret wilderness and backcountry as how far away is help and relief.  

I agree the definition of what is Wilderness and Backcountry  depends on where you are.  Most of our Troop backpacking trips are on the Appalachian Trail in Maryland, or Pa.  A road crossing is never very far way and most of the time we have cell service.  That is very much different than  being in the Bob Marshall Wilderness where we checked in with MOHAB basecamp  each night with a Garmin In Reach and carried a sat. phone and knew we would have to get some elevation to make it work. 

We usually run one backpacking trip a year.  But,  in the past four year my troop has sent crews to Philmont and MOHAB. As a result of that we have a group of older boys who enjoy backpacking and have logged a lot of trail time doing shakedown hikes for both trips.  It is understood that any backpacking trip that the boys schedule for  the troop would be designed to allow the younger scouts to attend.  The older scouts who are backpacker seem to enjoy teaching the younger scouts how to backpack.   If I was in your shoes i would tell the older scouts that if they want to do backpacking without the younger scouts then they need to find the adult leadership to make it happen. 

Ok, seriously, in the interests of international knowledge exchange, what are you doing to your flags? On what basis are flags retired? If they touch the ground? The slightest speck of dirt? Are they use once only? 300 at a time? I'm taken aback.

Ian

The VFW is a collection point for the flags in our country  where people can drop off  unusable  flags  they also have a box at the county landfill in the recycling center.  The VFW collects them and   then schedules Quarterly for a ceremonial retirements.     

        Flag etiquette and flag retirement is so wrapped up with Patriotism that it is easy to offend someone.  Most people have never read the flag code and understand what it actually says. Most people base what they believe the " proper, correct " way to display or retire a flag on what they learned in the military or past experiences.  My troop frequently hosts retirement ceremonies with the local VFW. I make sure to have a copy of the code with me when we do this.  For ease of retirement we usually cut the edge of flag with the grommets on it off and thread that onto a heavy wire loop. We burn this loop with all the ends on it at once and it makes recovering the grommets from the ash easier after the ceremony. We then cut the blue field out of the flag    and cut the strips into two following the bottom edge of the blue field.   We usually retire 300-400 flags at a time. Cutting them down his way make it easy to make sure the fire consumes the flag.  We will take one flag and cut the stripes into individual stripes and use that flag for the formal part of the ceremony with the VFW members and troop. After the formal ceremony we then get down to the retirement of the rest of the flags and that can take several hours of feeding the flags into the fire.  At the next troop meeting we will then clean out the fire pit and bury the ashes of the flags.    

I took a crew to MOHAB in 2018. It was a great trip.  I have also done Philmont and of the two trips MOHAB is better.  The picture below is of our last campsite on the trail. My email is petey9145@gmail.com .  I highly recommend this trip and  if you have any questions just ask.    

When me and my son joined  our troop they did not do a real PLC meeting for over a year. We now have them monthly. They are always held the first troop meeting after an outing. The PLC meets while the quartermaster and patrol quartermasters have the rest of the boys clean gear and restock. 

Nothing wrong with an alcohol  stove for individual backpacking. I use a homemade fancy feast stove when I hike or backpack without the troop. When with the troop where we are using the Philmont Patrol method to cook then I use the MSR Whisperlite. When boiling large amounts of water you can not beat the Whisperlite. 

When I was a Den Leader I eventually ended up with a Den of 15 boys at one point. I thought about splitting the den but realized that there was no way to do it without making someone upset. I told the parents that if we didn't split the den then I would need them to step up and help out at den meetings.

Try to find a used machine that is over twenty years old. The newer machines have more plastic and cheap metal parts and have issues with heavier material. I can do most stuff with a modern machine. When I am sewing gear bags or canvas material i pull out my old treadal powered sewing machine.

Philmont wants you to use their tabs to purify water. We used the tabs but also brought two Sawyer squeeze filters set up as granite filters. We had a lot of rain so most of the water sources we had was cloudy because of it. We used the filters to clear up the water and then used the tabs. At Philmont it is far easier to do as asked than buck the system.

Until you see something in writing don't get worked up about it.

I have become the Trail Boss for our local WOR. Each year we give out a new patch for the event. The patch design is the result of a contest with designs submitted by the Web Dens. The problem is I have now inherited a box of old patches from past years. I would hate to throw them away. Is there any value th these as trading stock. Any suggestions on how to get rid of them.

You just ran head first into one of scouting's problems. I can't tell you how many times I have been told that something was against national BSA policy when it's not. In my troop it's  the belief that BSA prohibits open toed shoes and that aerosol cans and sheath knives  are prohibited.   My standard response is please show me in the Guide to Safe Scouting where it says that. Now a lot of this comes from summer camps that have camp rules that prohibit these items.  More scouters need to read the Guide to Safe Scouting.

Did you actually rent two 15 passenger vans? How much did this cost?  Right now we are favoring a commercial shuttle service,

We found it was cheaper for us to rent vans in Denver and drive down to Philmont than using a commercial shuttle services. In the past our troop has driven to Philmont from Maryland but that was a no go for most of us advisors who where burning leave to go.

Yes, just one day. We arrived sometime in the late afternoon. After checking in and moving into our tents it was time for dinner. After dinner a trip tp the Tooth of Time Traders. Since our crew met at BWI at 0530 eastern time it was an early night for us.

To any crews attending Philmont in 2018 I highly recommend taking advantage of Philmont's early arrival program. We learned at PASS training that for a fee Philmont will let you arrive a day early at basecamp. We flew from BWI to Denver and then drove to Philmont in rental vans. We then checked in and where assigned tents. This allowed us to be assigned our Ranger early on day 1 and quickly move through the outbound process. We even had time to tour the Phillips Sumer Home. Other crews who arrived on day 1 seemed rushed especially those arriving after lunch.  

You would be surprised how people deal with their night receipts. I know of a food co-op that didn't have a drop safe. Each night the group closing the shop down, would vote on where to hide the money. This co-open welcomed homeless people to come and trade work for food and they would be included in the vote on where to hide the money. They were then surprised when the money was getting stolen pretty often.

The camp our troop attends has an email system and will deliver emails to the scouts. We discourage our first year parents from doing this. We found that the homesick bug usually hits in the evening after dinner and before the evening activities start. We encourage our patrol leaders to take an active roll in keeping the first year scouts active during this time.

Looks like fun but I don't know if I would want to spend much time in Oxford. From the BBC/Public TV shows we see here in the U.S people are getting murdered there on a daily basis.

yes to all posts.... helpful, interesting, and cool!

like to read about older guys doing it....

currently watching a vlog series on youtube by a girl that through hiked last year.  She seems to be going through at least mostly sober....and she's being a purist about hiking every inch.... but over all It really strikes me that the AT scene really is more of a "beatnik" social fest.  Fun and making friends and all...

I love the idea of that a little bit, but mostly I'm craving the nature and mountains.  Kinda want to get away from crowds.

The AT does have a social aspect to it. Since October when I first posted in this thread my Troop has covered from Snickers Gap in Va to Pine Grove in Pa.  If you want to be around less people just leave early in the season. I have been following on YouTube a guy called Earlyriser,  He should be finishing the AT very soon. He left early and really only bumped into weekend day hikers until the weather became warm. He also put up some high mileage days so he does hike in the loose groups that usually form.

Our boys vote each year for where they want to go. For the last four or more years they have voted to return to the same camp. It's a great camp and the boys have fun and do well. It is a 4 hour drive to the camp. We usually have two shifts of parents that either stay the first part of the week or the last part of the week. We also have a former scoutmaster whose son has aged out years ago but still serves stay for the week each year. The boys have voted next year to go to a camp that is much closer to home next summer.

Treat clothing with permethrin before you go.  Directions are below.

http://sectionhiker.com/permethrin-soak-method-guide/

Our crew has decided that each crew member will carry an extra 2lt soft platypus bottle to deal with dry camps. We found that it is a manageable  weight to carry.  On our shakedown hike we also found that they were useful for hauling water when the shelters water source was a distance from the campsite.

On our shakedown trips we get up at 6am and try to be on the trail by 7am at the latest. We usually stop after a while to eat a cold breakfast. We plan on traveling at a two mile an hour pace and add another hour for every thousand feet of elevation change.

Move Forward and ignore the past. By getting worked up about her behavior your letting her control you. Not worth it.