First Prep Trip - August 2014 Day Hike

I'm a committee member of Boy Scout Troop 400 in GA.  I am co-leading what we hope are two crews that will head to Philmont for the summer of 2016 on a high adventure backpacking experience.

Our backpacking experience is low and our Scouts are young but we are  smart and are willing to work.

One of the first problems we had is not really knowing who is committed and who was just wanting to go.  So we planned a backpacking day hike and set an initial down payment.  We had 16 boys and 6 adults initially sign up.  Early on one of our adults said he was dropping out but would still help with the training phase.

We had our first day hike on Aug 9th at an old bike trail I had put tons of miles on years back.  It is a great 5 mile spaghetti trail that has lots of exit points should you need to exit early.  It also has some shortcuts that avoid the tougher sections of trail.  These weren't as tough hiking as it is riding.  Those dang roots kill all the momentum of a bike on the climbs.

We met at the trail and all but two boys showed up.  Those had a conflict with a band camp and will join us for the next event.  Another adult came along as well. 

Our packs were about 60% loaded as we didn't pack tents, poles, flies, stakes, dinning flies, and extra cooking and cleaning gear.  We also went lite on water carrying only 2 liters.  One of our exuberant dads thought he would help load his two boys add weight to their packs by adding a bowling ball to each pack.  We had those removed to make the experience a little more enjoyable.  However, really not a bad idea.  Next time we won't have the luxury of that lite of a pack.

I think half of the boys are 12 years old.  That's pretty young to carry a large pack so I was worried how that would work out.  I wasn't sure they could finish 5 miles.

We started the hike and the boys looked great.  They looked strong and had high spirits.  Although slower than my pace, they had a descent and more importantly, a consistent pace.   During the trek we would take what I called "15 minute water breaks".  Although confusing at first, the idea was to force everyone to drink a little water every 15 minutes.  The confusing part of course was that the break wasn't 15 minutes long but only a minute or so.  This quickly caught on and it was a joke the rest of the trek.  We averaged about 2.25 miles an hour and not until the very end did we start to see fatigue in some of the boys.

Other than our "15 minute water breaks", we didn't take an extended break.  We are going to have to consider that more for the next hike.

Our adults did well too.  However, one said "Boys, don't bring Mt Dew to drink on backpacking trips....".  He struggled but probably also had the heaviest pack.

Back at the trail head an adult generously offered to share a couple of his Mountain House dehydrated meals with the boys so that they could sample what camp food might taste like.  For the most part I think they liked them.

Our next adventure will be at a local campground park that also has a nice bike trail.  This time we will be camping and will hike the trail on both days.