Tag: Troop 234

Porta-Casa

If I can’t be on a train, I want to be in a tent.

Camping out with a well-run Troop, by about 10 in the evening the Scoutmaster can relax. The youth leaders are in charge: the Patrol Leaders have their patrols in their tents, and the Senior Patrol Leader has held a quick meeting to plan the next day before everyone else turns in. It’s now 10:30pm and totally quiet in the camp.

I change my socks, put my shoes by the tent door, tuck into my sleeping bag, zip up, set my alarm for 6:30, prop my head up on my extra sleeping bag, and turn on my Kindle.

After a long day and a superb dinner, the quiet forest and a warm sleeping bag conspire to shorten my time catching up with Fyodor Dostoevsky, and I am snoring within minutes.

0

Home on the Range

My favorite tent ever. Retro look, seven feet long, easy up, easy down, weighs two pounds, fits into a bag the size of a 32-ounce Nalgene bottle, and set me back a whopping $52 delivered.

I should buy two.

0

On the Trail Again

It’s fire season, so I am avoiding all back-country camping for a few months. That said, we have Scouts and Scouters who need to break in backpack gear and get used to our packs.

So we took some of our Scouts out on a shakedown hike to Sycamore Falls in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. It was warm, a couple of our number did not bring enough water, and it was more strenuous wearing masks, but it was a lot of fun and a real confidence-builder for a Troop that has made car camping a habit over the last few years.

I can’t wait to head into the back country in a few months…

0

Urban Hiking

People say to me “urban hiking isn’t real hiking. After all, what is there to see aside from cars, lawns, office buildings, panhandlers, and pavement?”

The answer: everything great about a city is revealed when you approach it with the eyes of a hiker, a seeker, an explorer. 

The landscape is layered, and the eyes see the layers they seek. Look one way, and  you see a city of art. Look another, and you see a city of food. Peer at a city through the spectacles of the fourth dimension, and you see a city of history. Focus on the faces, and you see the souls that form the living contours of the city’s geography.

Walk a city, and you have the time to see all of those layers, individually and together. Hike a city, and you become a part of it all, and it invites you in to become a part of the story. 

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑