And now..... the Long Version:
Have you ever gone someplace where the stereotype is against you? It's like fighting a ghost... some unseen presence you can't physically battle. It's a shadow that haunts you with every step you take... sitting on your shoulder and whispering in your ear no matter what you do. Every time we turned around it seemed like someone else was telling us how not wanted the Boy Scouts are at the Grand Canyon. I, literally, had three different National Park Rangers tell me what a bad reputation the Scouts have in the Park and how much we're not wanted there. As soon as I identified myself as a Scout Leader or as being affiliated with a Scout troop... it was like a wall went up to whomever I was speaking to.
As those of you who know me know... my Scouts are one of my shining prides in life (besides my children). Most of my spare time is devoted to Scouting and this spring break wasn't any different. After 7 months of pre-hikes, shakedown campouts, paperwork, training, and workups... we were ready to leave for the Grand Canyon National Park. The wonderful Federal Government threat of a shutdown had me scrambling last minute to draw up alternate plans... but thankfully we didn't need to use them. So... on Saturday April 16th, less then 30 minutes behind schedule, we left San Diego for the long drive to Grand Canyon National Park. We arrived in a fairly timely manner (with breaks for lunch and dinner we were about 10.5 hours traveling) we set up camp and settled in.
Having failed to secure back country permits through the lottery system one of my co-leaders and I set out early Sunday (the 17th) morning to get an early spot in line at the Back Country office in an attempt to secure walk-in permits. (The Canyon reserves 10% of their permit numbers for walk ins. They have an interesting system... but it seems to work). En route to the office a glance over my shoulder revealed the rising sun over the eastern edge of the canyon. The other person with me had never seen the canyon so I told him to pull into the next turn out. We jumped out of the car and watched the tail end of sunrise... what an introduction to the Grand Canyon. Absolutely stunning colors painted the cliffs and canyons...
After a few minutes we got back in the car and headed over to the permit office to secure our spot in line. Unsure of exactly how the process worked we asked the few other people who were there and got a fairly abstract explanation. Apparently they issue numbers in order of arrival and if you're number isn't called you get a higher number for the next day... but even having a number doesn't guarantee a spot, especially for a "large" group (ours was 7). So we were handed number 16 to start with... the last permits for the day were handed to number 5 or 6... we somehow ended up with 6 for the next day.... So we spent the rest of the day acclimating and orienting ourselves to this beautiful place. More then half of those with us had never been before. This day was also my sons 14th birthday. We celebrated in style with blowers, hats and dutch oven cake.
The next day the other leader and I went back to the permit office. This is when the reality of our situation really was brought to light for me.... when we finally got to the counter as number 6 in line we began discussing our plans with the Ranger at the counter. I think the first mistake was telling him we had 7 in our group... the second mistake was identifying ourselves as Boy Scouts.
Have you ever seen that episode of "I Shouldn't Be Alive" where the Scout Leaders take their boys down into the Grand Canyon, get lost, and end up loosing over half of their group to dehydration and heat? Or maybe you heard the story about the Scout troop last year that decided to drop off the North Rim in the middle of July, against Park Rangers advice and had to all be air lifted out? Needless to say the Boy Scouts have a not nice reputation in Grand Canyon National Park. The Ranger we were speaking to basically told us that the Scouts are not wanted at the Park. He didn't refuse to help us, and he actually gave us a lot of useful information... but it was very clear what his opinion (and the opinion of the Rangers in general) was of Scouts in the canyon.
I spoke to my fellow Leaders about it when we returned to camp (there were 5 of us altogether on this trip) and then I gathered our boys...10 Boy Scouts in a National Park where they weren't wanted. I presented the facts to them. Those before us had created a bad taste in the mouth of the National Park where Scouts were concerned. We weren't wanted there... and we had the entire staff watching us like hawks. My challenge to them... prove every one wrong. Shine where others have tarnished.... thrive where others have failed. And our Boys outshone the stars...
We spent the week hiking and touring the area. When we failed to secure overnight permits to camp inside the Canyon we settled for a day hike, with a firmly set turn around time. 5 of our boys and 2 of the leaders (I being one of them) made it down the Bright Angel Trail, although not all the way to the river. Total mileage for the trek was just shy of 11 miles with 6000' total gain/loss..... we stopped about 3 miles short of the river when we decided that we didn't have enough time to get all the way down and then back up to the canyon rim before the "call for help" time that our Scoutmaster asked us to set before leaving camp. (Meaning if we weren't back at camp or had not contacted him by that "call for help" time, he was going to contact the Park Rangers to start looking for us....Let me add that we were well prepared for -almost- anything that might happen. We had spare food, water, headlamps, blahblahblah... the "call for help" time was merely a technicality for just in case what we weren't prepared for happened)
We learned about the human history and the geology of the Canyon, and attended evening lectures on astronomy and about the little known natural cavern system within the Canyon. Sunrises and sunsets; birthday parties and family style meals; My boys were everywhere in and around that Canyon for 6 days without a single complaint being made against them.
My Scouts are a group of young men to be proud of. Despite the negative stereotype in Grand Canyon National Park regarding Boy Scouts, our Scouts shone. They left a positive impression on people everywhere we went, they absolutely rocked the Flag Ceremony on Thursday morning when our flag team (lead by my very own son) raised the American Flag in front of the Grand Canyon Visitor Center.... and they were complimented by complete strangers as being "the best group of young men I've ever seen" in a restaurant on the way home.
I know this isn't the normal TR after a trek that we'd post... but ... this is what I brought away from the week in the canyon.
