Transcribed and Edited By: Joline Edwards
Black Diamond Mines.
It was a hot day, and Troop 220’s first backpacking trip. There were only a few scouts on the trip, the most being around seventh grade. I was worried that morale would falter due to the challenging conditions, as I had seen in my experiences with other troops, but I was surprised to see that the scouts kept an extremely positive attitude the whole time, even as they hiked uphill in the burning heat. They sang songs, made jokes, and kept the atmosphere so positive that any doubts I had quickly disappeared. I remember feeling a sense of pride; I was impressed by their sheer optimism and drive. That’s my first story, and that was my first encounter with the troop.
My second story is Pinnacles.
I should preface this by saying that Pinnacles, is the place where the Venturing crew took a wrong turn and got Very Lost the summer before. That is where the “Stop at Every Trail Sign and Call Out If We Miss One” rule came from. The trail was around 10 miles and the weather was in the 90’s.
I think the best way to describe this hike is as a successful failure. (It was a little bit of nightmare.) It was very hot and we had a ton of new hikers. Before we even started, we had to wait for Sofia and her brothers to show up because their car got a flat tire on the way. While we waited, the scouts got together to complete a rank requirement involving measuring the height of an object. They had one scout, who was apparently exactly 5 feet tall, stand at the base of the park’s flag pole, while the rest of them backed up to use their thumbs to multiply her height and find the total height of the flagpole. I think it was around 50 feet.
Then, we starting the trail, and I was doing my rounds to check up on everyone, and that’s when I learned that we had a bunch of brand new, under prepared hikers.
“Oh, it’s your first camping trip and you’re hiking 13 miles? Ohhhhh. Oh. This might be a problem.” Foreshadowing.
I remember that partway along the trip a scout ran out of water. Foreshadowing.
Also, some of the caves were closed to protect the bats, which was unfortunate, but we took an alternate route and it was okay. And then a search and rescue passed us. Apparently, a climber broke their ankle or something. It was very dramatic. This one was not foreshadowing.
Joline talks about squirrels:
(This is Colin’s story, but I have important information about the squirrels.)
We stopped at the reservoir for lunch, where we encountered the squirrels. They were super used to being around humans, as in almost domestic. They would walk up in front us and stand on their back legs, and literally beg for food. Like, they would do a pleading motion with their hands and everything. And then when we didn’t give them food, because you should not feed the wildlife, they would try to sneak up behind us and steal the food. There was a family nearby feeding them Hot Cheeto Puffs, so it was clear that the squirrels had been conditioned to find food by charming environmentally lack-luster humans. (Colin deserves credit for the phrase “environmentally lack-luster,” which he came up with.) The squirrels were Persistent. We tried to toss a rock in their general direction to scare them off (so leave us alone) and they chased after it like it was food. As soon as they realized that the rock was not, in fact, food, they were immediately back to pestering people. It was ridiculous. Do Not Feed The Wildlife. Or they become scheming nuisances. Back to Colin’s story.
After we stopped for lunch, the trail began to get really hard. There were extreme switchbacks, and I was happy to see that a lot of the girls were helping each other keep going. When we reached the top we paused, and took a moment to appreciate the view. It was beautiful; we even saw a condor.
After that is when we ran into some problems. During the ascent, a lot of the scouts had gone through most of their water. We still had seven miles to go, and I started giving my extra water to scouts who needed it. I was really happy about how the scouts looked after each other, despite the circumstance. The last few miles were arguably terrible, as we were all exhausted after an incredibly long hike, and dehydration and blisters started to affect morale. But we trudged on, making very good time in getting to our campsite, where the patrols split up to cook dinner and we had a gorgeous campfire. (We made s’mores.)
I am so thankful to be able to consider myself a part of Troop 220’s family. You guys have had a really positive impact on my life, and I'm really proud to see you progress so far so fast. I look forward to participating in future events with the troop, and I’m proud to have witnessed (and helped write) this new chapter in scouting history.
Editor’s note: During this interview, Colin did a bit where he talked about itself in the third person as a joke, and he accidentally said Kyle instead of Colin. His brain autocorrected himself. I found this hilarious, and immediately sent it to a group chat. The reply I got was “He has found his true name. I too was a Kyle once, fantastic experience, would recommend,” from Wilhelm, former Kyle. (He played a character named Kyle in our school play. This character was very popular with the audience. Some say people still call him Kyle to this day.) This isn’t relevant to anything but I thought it was very funny and worth sharing.
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