Near Death Experiences With A Great Bunch of Young Men
Just got back from taking a small troop of 12 and 13 year old young men on a scouting hiking and camping trip in the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho with two other leaders.
Here’s the checklist.
Watch a boy think it’s a good idea to stand with his back three feet from the edge of an 80-foot drop and begin pulling on a two-hundred pound hunk of granite while three other boys on the other side push on it with their feet in an attempt to send said large object over the edge.
Check.
(Eventually their frontal cortexes will develop; until then it’s up to leaders to say, “Hey, um, make sure you pull really hard.”)
Sleep under stars in sleeping bag I don’t quite fit in with my serial killer ski mask on backwards because my eyeballs are freezing and wake up at 5 am to 27 degrees.
Check.
See spectacular views, including one stark place (Baron Lakes) that looks like a habitation for dragons or trolls.
Check.
Watch in rear view mirror in the middle of nowhere Idaho as the other scout leader in the pickup with the four boys tries to pass two rabbit farmer pickups at a T intersection (yeah, passing at an intersection is against the law even if the trucks have hazards on and are waving people around), each with a single ton round bale in the bed; see the first rabbit farmer truck start to turn, and then the scout transportation vehicle swerve, miss a traffic sign by 14 inches, go flying off the road at 60 mph, bounce a number of times in the field and come to a halt. Upon flying off the road, spiritual and hippy scout leader shouts, “Oh, s**t!” When the truck comes to rest, the one scout whose father lent us the truck exclaims, “THAT WAS AWESOME!”
Check.
(Yes, they had their seat belts on.)
So, all in all, a great trip.
5.5 miles and 2,000+ feet in elevation on the way in and again on the way out, wearing a $6 pair of camo jeans purchased at the Deseret Industries (the local thrift shop) and a $17 pair of WalMart special shoes with soles that were mostly made out of foam, which meant that while they were comfy much of the time, I did get to make friends with a number of pointy granite rocks, proving that “be prepared” for some of us is more of a guideline than an actual rule.
