Troop Life - High Adventure: Before the Trek
| Category: | Troop Life |
|---|---|
| Props: | A loaded backpack (optional) |
| Notes: | For a crew preparing for a high-adventure trip: Philmont, Sea Base, Northern Tier, Summit, or a long trek the troop plans itself. Good at a shakedown or a training hike. Part of a Troop Life series - see the other minutes in this category. |
In a few months, this crew is going to be somewhere most people never see. Miles from the nearest road. Carrying everything you need on your back. No car to go back to, no store down the street, and no grown-up who's going to fix it if you forgot something.
That's what makes high adventure different. On a regular campout, if things go wrong, we can pack up and go home. On the trail, you keep going, because there's nowhere else to go.
So the trek doesn't really start when you get there. It starts now. Every training hike, every gear shakedown, every evening you spend breaking in your boots is part of it. The crews that have the best trips aren't the strongest or the fastest. They're the ones that prepared.
Prepare your body. Get your boots broken in now, not on day one. Carry a loaded pack on hills, more than once. Your shoulders and feet will thank you on the trail.
Prepare your gear. Know every item in your pack and why it's there. Ounces add up to pounds.
And prepare your crew. You're going to be tired, hungry, and wet together, maybe all on the same day. The crew that already knows how to work together, encourage each other, and laugh when the trail gets hard is the crew that has the time of its life.
A lot of Scouts come home from a trek like this changed in ways they can't quite explain. That starts here, on training hikes like this one.