Mt Whitney Zone Forums Trip Reports Scouts in the Canyon... (or.. How to overcome a Stereotype).

Short version: The Grand Canyon National Park is a beautiful, varied place to take a vacation. The Bright Angel Trail is in excellent condition with all water sources running full bore. All snow and ice has melted off the trail, even on the shaded north facing slopes. Daytime temperatures are running (on the rim) in the 60-70... night time in the 30's. In the inner canyon the temperatures are slightly higher, on the day we down hiked the Bright Angel it was in the mid-80's in the inner canyon. Reports from a group camped across from us at Mather Campground who hiked the South Kaibab trail also show favorable hiking conditions, but there is no water available on this trail. The Tonto trail, which follows the contour line above the river and connects many of the up/down trails, is in good condition, but again, no water available for most of its length. Plenty of animals to look at, California Condors are active... as are the snakes and reptiles.

((The long version is still in the works... lets just say it's not the TR I thought I'd be writing this weekend))...

how are the knees?

Harvey... absolutely fabulous. As much pain as I expected to be in after that up-walk... I experienced next to no muscle fatigue. A little tenderness in the calves the next day.... but other then that... nothing! It was incredible!

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.

Great TR Chris! Glad you had a blast with your boys and, even better, put a dent in the lingering stereotype of Boy Scouts that appears to exist in many places. I'd be willing to bet that a lot of folks that sterotype the Scouts in such a negative way would become apoplexic over such "profiling" with most other groups. Alas, we live in a world filled with hypocrisy.

Like anything else involving kids, when an organized group gets a bad rep it's almost always the failure of the adults-in-charge. I see this week in and week out in my business as youth groups grace my hotel over the weekends for any and all types of organized activities. Responsible chaperones = good group of kids; I'm-on-vacation chaperone mindset = kids run wild. Kids are kids, and need a firm, guiding hand when in groups. You clearly take your responsibilities seriously, so you have a model group of scouts when you take them into the wilderness. Kudos to you! After having spent time hiking and camping with you, I'm not the least bit surprised.

Chris
Loved the LP version just as I used to prefer the long vesion of Light my Fire when played on the radio.
You showed such tremendous wisdom and strenghth of character to explain to the scouts that they had to excell because others representing scouts had tarnished their image.Great job. I am proud you are leading our scouts and teaching them about respect for their uniform and setting the bar high.Great job.

This pretty much sums up my feelings too.

It's a very fine line to balance between letting boys be boys... and losing complete control and having them run amok....

The core Leadership team I work with has consists of 5 or 6 wonderful men (and me) who have grown into their leadership together. The leaders who have joined us along the way are, thankfully, of a very similar mindset to the rest of us. We are able to share the responsibility of leadership, along with being able to enjoy our vacations.

A lot of us (myself for one) use up almost all of our available vacation time each year to spend with the Scouts and take them on trips like this. So we have learned to take "adult time outs" while we're on trips in order to be able to enjoy our vacation... as well as letting the boys enjoy theirs too. This also gives us a little better perspective towards the end of a week long trip when most leaders are in the "whatever, lets just go home" frame of mind. By rotating "time outs" and allowing decompression time for those in charge of the trip, we always have a "fresh" set of leadership on point to deal with the boys... I think this helps a tremendous amount in keeping the boys reigned in and helping keep them focused on who they are and who they're representing...

Great read, Chris. So glad you did what you could to break that stereotype.

Your rotating in-charge status with the other leaders is a super tool that obviously works!

Adult time outs lead to moments like this:

Boy Child and I took a time out to go watch the sunset


... and this one. This is actually our very last day on the way out of the park. 6 nights of tenting together, sharing meals and chores and Leaders... and they're still smiling and having fun...

Great TR Chris! It looks like you all were well prepared and had a great time.

Without restarting the negativity that caused me to leave last year, let me comment on the Boy Scout's bad reputation.

When it was noted last year that the scouts had a bad reputation in Kings Canyon and other areas I was shocked and pretty pissed. I knew there were a few bad apples, but I hadn't seen any first hand.

Last night I got an email from the Scout Master of a brand new troop. I mean NEW. Not only have they just formed up, they are made up of just bridged WEBIIs. No senior leadership at all. The adult leaders have never scouted other than cub scouts. So they want to do an outing and that's a great idea. Get the boys out of the house and in the outdoors. They have decided to hike to Eagle Rock on the PCT out of Warner Springs. The advice they were looking for was where to park and is there water to filter.

Ok, so they're new. Any of that info can be googled in 2 seconds, but I'm helpful. I explained the parking (side of the road, no big deal), how to get from the road to the PCT, trail conditions, mileage, how to find the Eagle, everything I could think of. I've done it a few times, including pre running it once with Chris years ago before I ever took my troop on it. I also mentioned that this is active cattle grazing area and to avoid the water at all costs. I suggested that since the total mileage on the hike is under 8 miles and mostly flat that they could easily carry all the water they needed. The leaders need to carry a little extra though, just in case.

I got a reply thanking me for my advice and mentioning off handedly that this was going to be a 10 mile training hike for a June San Jacinto camp out. WTF? She is going to have those young boys carry "full gear" (whatever that means), hike in 5 miles (so past the Eagle) and set up a practice camp. The boys will then COOK lunch and return to the trail head. Planned time for this is five hours.

It's becoming clear to me why some units get bad reputations. This is the FIRST F ing hike ever for this unit and they don't come from a strong hiking/backpacking Cub Scout Pack. Five hours for ten miles with gear of some sort? Oh and setting up a camp, cooking, taking the camp down and hiking out? Yeah, right. They are 11 years old. Well the older ones are 11.

Oh and San J in early June? I couldn't get past 9000 feet last Memorial Day. Damn snow. I think it was the 2nd or 3rd week in June before the boy and I summited - I'll have to check my pics. We dayhiked it, we know WTF were doing - sort of anyway. We aren't 11ish with a lot of gear.

So yeah, ok, I get it. I understand where some of it's coming from. It's not coming from my units (started a Venture Crew) and it's not coming from Chris' units. But there are some dumbchits out there.

Please don't turn this into a BSA bash thread - I was just venting a little and I know Chris understands where I'm coming from. Besides I'm retiring in a few days and my PTSD is really acting up.....................................DUG

Very interesting.... I can see where the bad reputations come from.

Here's your opportunity, DUG. Try to gently coach these newbies with some advice about reality. Don't hit them with any "that's stupid" type of comments. Just explain... these boys are just kids, slow down, pre-hike what you plan to do, etc, etc.

Get them started on the right track before they derail.

Steve - I gave good solid advice and followed up her second email with a few gentle suggestions. I wanted to send my own son with them, but our troop is doing 20 miles on the PCT south of them the same day.

My prediction is they will head out, get their butts handed to them and get frustrated.

It's sad for the boys. My hikes are challenging but we have a lot of fun. I almost never take my troop out anywhere I haven't pre hiked myself. When I don't pre hike I get pretty obsessive over gathering info. I asked Da Moose to pre run Meysan for us last year and she brought back detailed info that was key in making the trip successful.

I just don't understand some people's attitudes towards being prepared.

I wish there was more I could do, but luckily there isn't much danger on this hike. San J might be different, but I have a feeling than this hike might convince them to postpone a bigger hike for awhile...........................DUG

The saddest part about what you're telling us DUG is this.... that leader is going to get those boys out there they're going to be miserable (I remember "full gear" for Mom and I the first time we tried backpacking.. which was our first trip on Whit... we had 40+lbs each)... anyways, the boys are going to be miserable and unable to carry all their weight the entire hike... the adults are going to have to carry the extra gear and get pissy... long and short of it.. no one is going to have fun and some of those boys are never going to want to have anything to do with hiking/backpacking again...

Either that... or someone is going to have to be airlifted out because they get hurt, or snakebit, or heat injured... and then we'll (The BSA) will be another headline and statistic...