-by Krishiv
Planning & running a scout's outdoor camping trip is tedious at the same time, it is a lifelong learning experience with lots of fun with fellow scouts. I recently led the Bass State forest camping trip in November 2024. There was a lot to coordinate: Sending out consent forms for scouts and adults interested in joining the trip, booking the campsite, planning, budgeting, and assigning responsibilities e.g. Scouts & adults cooks, tent buddies, guides/ mentors for key learning goals for requirements, ensuring required supplies are available for camping working quartermaster to be prepared, and deciding and communicating the itinerary in advance. Planning your first trip is often even more stressful and overwhelming, especially when you lack the prior experience to guide you. You might have some seasoned scouts help with the planning, but you still end up on the trip feeling as though you've done nothing, despite all your efforts. There’s always an underlying stress until the trip is over.
That was my experience when I led the Bass State Pond trip in November. While it was stressful, the outcome proved to be very rewarding. Like most trips, it began with the planning stage, where I gathered the names of attendees and confirmed who would be the cooks. After that, we arrived at the firehouse to load our gear into the adult's cars. Once we arrived at the campsite, we got our tents out and grouped with our tent buddies to set up our tents. There were a lot of acorns on the ground, so we used a rake (borrowed from the Neigbhour's campsite) to clear them before setting up our tents and having our cracker barrel.
The next day, we woke up early 6:30 AM for our hike. After breakfast and packing our lunch, we headed towards our hiking Trail to complete a minimum of 5 miles with orienteering. We had selected 3 experienced scouts (two of them first class who could sign the requirements) to mentor and help other scouts learn about orienteering the map correctly to complete the requirements. We stopped along the way to determine our bearings. Our hike was scenic, a learning experience, and fun, but relatively uneventful; we then attempted a second hike, but when we couldn't find the exact path to that trail. With that said, we ended up walking the extra miles (~7 miles vs 5 miles planned), trying to find the trail, needed to meet the requirement anyway. After our unsuccessful search for the trail, we returned to the campsite and spent some time working on the requirements. Later in the day, one of our adult leaders found a nearby beach while searching for better restrooms and called us to join them. Some of us went there and had a great time playing with sand and football and conversing with the owner of a service dog. Interestingly, the dog could detect a seizure before it happens so her owner can take medication to prevent it.
On Sunday, we packed up our gear. It was a cold day, and the rainfly & tents felt unreasonably cold while packing. We ate our breakfast and patrolled the area (aka leave no trace) before driving home and organizing our gear back to the firehouse. We did the roses and thorns to celebrate good things and note the areas of improvement for future trips.
Overall, it was a challenging but learning experience that provided a rewarding opportunity to improve my leadership skills and practice planning.
