Archive for the ‘Scouting’ Category.
March 16, 2009, 9:38 pm
Just west of the Red Rock loop road, between Icebox Canyon and Pine Canyon, is possibly the most spectacular places in Southern Nevada; Bridge Mountain. Few diehards have been there, as the trek is very difficult, even with the best of directions. First, the drive to the trailhead is a serious Jeep thing. It is called Rocky Gap road on some maps, or Route 459. The road (barely) connects Willow Springs picnic area to Lovell Canyon. I’ve driven in to the trailhead from Willow Springs, at great detriment to my truck. This weekend our troop came up from Lovell Canyon and were able to camp about 1.5 miles from the trailhead.
From the trailhead, it’s only about 3.3 miles to the bridge, but the hike gains, then loses 1,200 feet of altitude, twice. The end of the trail is not for novices, as it is a lot more rock-climbing than hiking. The scouts that made it to the top will never forget it. In addition to the bridge, there are a couple of natural water holes, and a few pine trees in places where one can’t imagine how they got there. The peak is one of those where the BLM maintains a box with a signature book. That always helps memorialize the day. We took 8 young men up there who won’t soon forget it.
January 11, 2009, 11:32 pm
After getting comfortable at out 8,500 foot base camp and spending a day rafting the Colorado, we set out on a hike over some of the saddles in the La Sal mountains. We generally stayed below 11,000 feet, but the altitude was still a force to be reckoned with. It was interesting that amongst all the activities, most of the scouts voted that the most memorable was catching, cooking and eating trout for dinner from Warner Lake. Most had never held a fishing pole. I guess that can be expected from growing up in Vegas, but still a little bit of a surprise. This photo is obviously early in the hike, before the smiles were replaced with groans.
January 11, 2009, 9:32 pm
Troop 75 above Moab on the Colorado
We can’t make new stories without great activities. The key thing to note in this photo is not the scouts in the raft. It is that against all advice, the leaders are in a canoe. We had to try it because we were told we couldn’t. It was a good canoe. It worked fine on the calm parts, but was not made for the rapids. It made it to Moab, but got smashed up pretty bad on the way. We made a lot of memories on that trip. Look for more entries on this one.
January 7, 2009, 9:18 am
In the 1980’s I was working for my father’s firm. It was a successful company and as such, he received more than a few job seekers. One day he poked his head in my office to ask me what I thought of one of the applicants. “This guy is persistent,” he said. The man had come by or called him every day for over a week. He noted that he had no experience whatsoever in our industry. Actually, his entire career had been in some aspect of a grocery store, about as unrelated to what we did as one could get. I looked up to my dad and asked, “So why are you even considering him?” The answer was, “Well, he is an Eagle Scout.” My dad had not been active in scouting, but knew enough about it to have a lot of respect for the award. He ended up giving the man a job, and that man has remained successful in the industry to this day.
Many years later, I was involved in a community service project revitalizing a park with softball fields. We had a lot of aspects to the project, and I was just one of the volunteers. Amongst the projects was sanding and repainting the bleachers. I had been busy with the sanding, and when it came time to paint we realized that the paint wasn’t there. One of the head volunteers turned to me and said, “No insult intended, but I’d bet $100 that whoever was in charge of bringing the paint isn’t an Eagle Scout.”
With the honor comes great responsibility. That we had more Eagle Scouts out there and the community could expect such leadership. I believe it a worthly pursuit…