Scoutmaster Podcast 132

And now the old Scoutmaster. It's well known that Scoutmasters draw on a number of sources for inspiration. Here's three phrases that you might find useful from a number of different sources. Number one: What we've got here is failure to communicate. Number two: That, sir, is illogical. And of course, number three: Butchers.

We ain't got no butchers. We don't need no butchers. I don't have to show you any stinking butchers. Use these at your own risk. This is podcast number 132..

Hey, welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green.

Well, as you are listening, I am paddling my way through some wonderful wilderness up in Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. We've got two crews going up there this summer. It's going to be a great time. I pre-recorded this podcast and it will post automatically while I'm away.

How about that? The marvels of modern science. There you go For this podcast. We're rebroadcasting information about planning your own high-adventure trip, Just like I'm on right now.

Yeah, We did this way back on podcast 23,, 24 and 25.. I went back. I got all the audio from those.

I cut them together so that they're all in the same podcast. Now I'm going to tell you the same thing I tell anybody who will sit and listen. Long enough. You've got to have some high-adventure stuff going on. It's just great. This is something that you can do in your troop and you can do it really easily.

High-adventure doesn't have to be a two-week trip with an airplane ticket involved and all kinds of things like that. Those are great trips. You can find places to go that are within an easy day's drive of where you are right now. Think on that scale and put something together. Inspire your scouts, Start talking about it. Pretty soon you'll be off on a high-adventure trip too.

We'll be back next week with the mailbag and getting back to a regular schedule of things. For the meantime, let's get started, shall we?

I should start out by saying there's really no set definition of what a high-adventure trip is. I mean, there's no minimum number of days or minimum number of crew members or minimum number of miles that you have to cover or anything like that. What this is, it's a trip that is aimed at more senior scouts.

Most of the high-adventure bases now require scouts to be at least 13.. And it is a multi-day experience, maybe backpacking or canoeing or on a sailboat or something like that.

So don't get tied up in. There's a specific definition of a high-adventure trip, but I'm just going to use that term to identify what we're talking about. I might talk about crews and I might talk about troops here, And yes, there are some official definitions of what a Boy Scout troop and a venture crew is and what venturers are. I know that within our way of managing high-adventure trips, when we get the people who are interested in the trip signed on, we form crews.

So I'm going to be using the word crew here within the context of what we do as a scout troop, But don't confuse it with the fact that you have to have a venture crew to be able to participate in high-adventure or to have a high-adventure crew. That's not necessarily so. It's something that you can create within a troop.

Now, that doesn't mean that you're going to be able to get the insignia and the uniforming of a venture crew, but I think you're understanding what I'm saying And I don't want to confuse you with these terms. As we talk about the subject, Thousands of scouts participate and enjoy the big three high-adventure bases each year. I'm talking about Fillmont in New Mexico, where there's backpacking, our sea base in Florida, where you're on a sailboat, and Northern Tier in Eli, Minnesota, where it's canoeing.

These are the three most familiar high-adventure bases and there are literally dozens of other council-based programs. They might be backpacking or canoeing or something like that, but there's a good many of them out there.

I have colleagues in scouting who recommend these things highly, and I want to talk about more of the other end of the spectrum in this series and that are troop and crew-based programs that explore a little bit less known territory. I will tell you this: I have led high-adventure type experiences inside and outside of scouting. I've led and participated in a good many of them. They might be backpacking, they might be climbing, they might be canoeing or something like that, but they all have one thing in common, and this is it: The people who go, and their level of preparation is always more important than the place that you go.

So if you'll just lay aside the idea that you have to spend thousands of dollars to travel and thousands of dollars on equipment and things like that, and just think about the fact that you're going to take a group and you're going to have a certain set of goals and challenges and you're going to go on this multi-day high-adventure thing, that is what I really want you to center on, because preparing your group to go, your crew to go, is the most important part of the entire thing. Here's an example: You're going to go to Fillmont, the crown jewel of scout camps, and the skies are going to stay blue the whole time you're there. It's not going to rain and the temperatures are going to be just right. It's going to be nice and warm during the day. It's going to be nice and cool at night. There's not going to be any bugs, You're going to have five-star meals and it's just.

You know, it looks like it's going to be a wonderful trip. Well, if you're not prepared properly and you go there with a dysfunctional crew, it's going to be like the Batan Death March, I guarantee you.

Likewise, if you spend a few days hiking in a state park, somewhere you know maybe less inspiring, in an environment, and it rains every single day, and you're eating oatmeal and ramen, If you have a sharp crew who knows their stuff and who's able to get along together, it's a lifelong golden memory. Yeah, it is that important.

High Adventure should take a crew to a new level of experience in the outdoors and in developing those things that are the aim of scouting, the skills and the competencies that we want to develop as scouting, Growing confidence in their abilities and their ability to lead and their opportunity to follow and their appreciation for the abilities of others are all part of a successful High Adventure trip. These trips don't have to be ambitious, They don't have to be expensive, They don't have to be far-flung- I mean they can be on the other side of the world or the other side of the state or an hour from your house. What really matters is the crew and the way it prepared for the trip.

You know good weather and good food and good surroundings are part of the picture, but the biggest part of the challenge and the satisfaction of accomplishing the goals is setting some good goals and knowing their importance to the trip and building on them by thoroughly preparing the crew to accomplish them. Now here's a couple of things that figure into your rationale of building a High Adventure program that's based in your troop or your crew. It's based on a few logistic and philosophic criteria. One of the most important considerations is time and money. Yeah, I know it's not that romantic, but it is going to come down to time and money.

A lot of High Adventure trips involve- for us where we live in the mid-Atlantic involve air travel and ground fees when we get there, and the cost for participating in one of those is going to be well over $1,000 for us. It also requires 12 or 14 days, including travel time.

Now, in comparison, the trips that we've put together as a troop cost about half as much, usually about $500 to $600. And they run from early Friday to the following Saturday night, and they only consume six vacation days.

Now, this is a really important consideration, because you're going to need adult leadership to participate in these trips and a lot of people aren't going to be able to take the two-week vacation that is demanded of some of these more ambitious trips. The other thing is, here's an interesting way of thinking about your High Adventure plans.

You want to ride a roller coaster or you want to pedal a bike? What do I mean by that?

Well, a lot of the national programs are pre-planned, pre-set programs and they involve a minimal amount of flexibility. The dates and the activities, the equipment and the routes are pretty well predetermined. There's also a good deal of competition for the best routes and times, and that I liken to lining up for a roller coaster ride. I mean you buy your ticket and you get in line. Troop-based or crew-based High Adventure trips are a lot more flexible and they're more like getting on your bike and heading out for a ride. Not that the roller coaster isn't fun and challenging.

It's just a different approach. I'm not saying that one is better than the other, but this is the rationale that we went through when we were putting our High Adventure troop program together.

What does it take to put a troop High Adventure program together? Well, it's not as difficult as you might think.

Where do you go and what do you do? Well, the simple answer to that question is: just about anywhere and just about anything.

What are your scouts interested in doing? Are they interested in a week of backpacking?

Maybe canoeing? Maybe just touring? There's nothing to say that you don't rent a van and you go visit several historic sites or something like that, during the time that you set aside for a High Adventure trip. Maybe they're interested in cycling, or maybe they're interested in boating.

Now you choose. Making a trip happen requires four things. The first is vision and leadership. That's easy to say, but it's more important than you might think.

Somebody has to say let's go, And then they have to show the other folks in the troop that it's actually possible. This can be a little more challenging than you think, especially with your first troop-based trip, But I'll tell you something From experience: it's possible. It's not only possible, It's not as hard as you might think. It's not only not as hard as you might think. It gets to be easy the more trips that you do.

The second thing out of four that it takes is details. Troop-based trips are full of details and preparation time is going to take at least as many hours as the trip itself and probably a little bit more.

But once you can sign yourself to the fact that you're going to be doing a lot of detail work, then it's not quite so onerous. Third is a commitment to training and skill development.

Now, whoever's going to lead or advise participants has to commit time to training and learning the applicable skills to safely carry out the plan. And fourth is going to be finances.

Now, calculating the cost of the trip and collecting money and paying it out and accounting for all of that is an important aspect. There might be fundraising with it. It's all very important stuff. And those are the four things that we're going to talk about. The first: vision and leadership. It's the most important step, because without any vision you're not going anywhere.

It's important to establish and protect the vision and to build anticipation and excitement with it, because the details and the questions are going to try and kill the vision. If we want to motivate people, we need to get a picture of exactly what we're going to do. And one of our first canoe trips to Canada we sat around our campfire on the first night after getting to a very hard one campsite And it was dark and it was difficult to get ourselves there. A day of paddling and portaging and a frustrating search for the campsite- and the crew got separated- had me pretty rung out and I was lamenting over a couple of mistakes that I made to one of my fellow adult leaders who was sitting there at the fire making our dinner and he looked at me kind of incredulously and he said: hey, look, here we are, we're camped out on a lake in Canada and we're going to have a steak dinner.

What more do you want? So he had maintained the vision while I was bogged down in details. Getting that first troop high adventure trip off the ground required helping my scouts envision it as a real possibility. I was surprised at how skeptical they were. I guess it all seemed a little too good to be true or too logistically challenging to launch. The adults in the troop also required a bit of convincing.

You know, some questioned if we were allowed to do such things. Some were concerned about the cost, some were concerned about safety and some were concerned about all three or four things like that.

But they did finally get a hold of the idea and we were able to bring it into reality. So establishing the vision and then fanning the flames and motivating scouts to maintain their resolve through this forest of details is as important as the details themselves.

Niels van der Rohe once said, famously, God is in the details, So let's talk about the detail part of it. So the place that you're going to go, there might be a state or a provincial or a national park, and these are very likely destinations and each is going to have its own particular rules and procedures. And, of course, getting online and getting an idea of exactly what you're in for is a good start. A lot of times, popular places will have a lot of online trip reports and reviews, and those can be very informative. I'd suggest that once you think you have all the information that you can glean off the web. You pick up the phone and call someone who's interested in talking to you- Sometimes it'll be a park ranger or somebody who runs a concession in one of the parks- and confirm the information that you have is correct.

Outfitters or other local businesses are usually more than happy to talk to you about putting a trip together. I would just get out and do and let the miles take care of themselves. But when you do start thinking about mileage, you need to have the context of terrain. A mile that gains 2,000 feet in elevation is a lot different from a flat mile. The trail conditions, water, weather and camping regulations- they'll affect the time and effort that are required to cover a distance.

So if you're planning a hike as a part of your high adventure, you need to become very expert in these things. And you need to become expert in planning trail distances and route selection, and it's probably one of the more crucial choices in making or breaking your trip. You need to gauge this route selection with the cruise ability and your familiarity with the terrain. The next detail is people. If you want- this isn't a rule, it's kind of a rule of thumb- cruise should probably be more than 5, less than 12.

Now some destinations will regulate the maximum group size. Ratios of adults to youth are important.

When we go canoeing we usually have crews of 7 or 9, with the maximum and minimum of 3 adults over the age of 21, because if we have an equal number of adults and scouts or we have more adults than scouts, then the trip becomes diminished. As far as the scout experience goes, the scout should always outnumber the adults, in my opinion.

I'm careful to explain that the adventure is 4: scouts and adults are along for the ride and we make sure that our adults understand that, and sometimes we have to turn them away because we already have the maximum number that we want to have. So deciding who goes and how many, that's another important detail. Getting there and back- the transportation part of the trip- is another set of details: rentals and fares and timetables and drivers and group rates and insurance and accommodations are all going to demand your attention.

The gear that's going to be required- can it be rented or does it have to be purchased by your troop or does it get purchased by individuals? There's probably going to be a mix of all 3. The quality and utility of your gear is important and it will require a little bit of research.

What looks inexpensive and indulgent at home may prove to be cheap and indispensable when you're 8 hours away from the nearest store, so learning about the gear that's required and making sure that you get the best stuff that you can afford is very important. Food is another one of the details that you're going to come up with.

The appropriate weight, quantity and nutritional value of a backcountry diet is a pretty big task, especially when you expand it into 5 or 10 people, and then buying it and packing it after it's planned is also a pretty big task. In my experience, it's best to have at least 2 or 3 crew members assigned to doing different parts of that task and making sure that it happens. Training and skill development is important, and one of the skills that you're going to have is planning a menu and purchasing it for this kind of a trip. Fortunately, the BSA offers a number of excellent online courses that will prepare you to conduct a safe high adventure trip. Weather hazards training track, safely climb on, safely safe swim, defense and safety afloat are all excellent online courses that I recommend highly to you, and I would take all of the ones that are available online, because they all have common elements and it will help build a consciousness of safety and of risk management that will assist you in making sure that your scouts come back from their high adventure trip a little worn out and maybe a little tired, but ready to go back and challenge things again, and that you have a good, safe experience when you're out in the wilderness. High adventure means, to a certain extent, higher risk than we are undertaking when we are in.

You know our general troop campouts, because we're going to put ourselves in a wilderness situation, there's a likelihood that we're going to be several hours away from any kind of emergency response system. Within the past several years, the BSA has begun requiring that people who go to Filmont and people who go to the other national high adventure bases have someone in the crew who is certified in wilderness first responder- the wilderness first responder training. When I took it a year ago it was a 16 hour course done over the course of two days. It emphasized how we could assess injuries and illnesses and how we could keep people stable until the professional responders were able to get to us. It is absolutely invaluable and it should be a required component of your training if you're going to conduct a high adventure trip. There are a lot of unfortunate stories out there of people who go into the wilderness woefully unprepared, unfamiliar with their surroundings, unfamiliar with the situation that they're going to encounter, and they end up in injury or being lost for several days or some kind of just terrible, awful story that you do not want to repeat.

As the leader of a group of scouts on a high adventure trip, this shouldn't scare you away from it, but it should give you an appreciation of how important it is to have a good risk management mindset and to have the skills to manage problems when they arise. If you're old enough to participate in a high adventure trip, most scouts should have some pretty solid general camping skills. They should be familiar with how to put up their tents and how to cook and things like that. But I would make sure that any preparation for a high adventure trip emphasizes those particular skills that will be needed once they are out there in the wilderness and they're on their high adventure track. By experience I've learned at night in the woods in the wilderness- you'll want to train them to do that at your troop meeting place without a whole lot of stress and difficulty.

So making sure that everybody in the crew has a good grasp of the skills that are going to be particular to the trip, whether it's hanging bear bags or purifying water or cooking is going to be an important aspect of preparation for the trip. So a high adventure program need not be expensive, it need not be elaborate, it need not be difficult. It is something that any troop can participate in.

Whether you are headed off to one of the national high adventure bases, whether you're doing a council based trip or, as we have been discussing, building your own kind of high adventure trip, it is definitely worth the effort. It need not be expensive, it need not be elaborate, but it will be something that your will remember for years to come.