High Adventure Plans
Backpacking 2012
We're offering two different high adventure backpacking trips during the summer of 2012. Each trip is targeted at a different backpacking skill level, but both are guaranteed to challenge and develop your high adventure outdoor skillset.
White Mountain Hut to Hut “Hike Packing” Trip
Spend 4 nights in the famous Appalachian Mountain Club huts along the AT in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Help the AMC hut “croos” with a service project or trail maintenance and speak with an AMC naturalist/geologist. While on the trail, visit the summit of Mount Washington (the “Home of the World’s Worst Weather”), get a tour of the Mountain Washington Observatory (where the highest wind ever observed by man (231 mph) was recorded). Learn the meaning of an “alpine start” when hiking, then spend a day rockclimbing on natural crags in North Conway New Hampshire with the AMGA Certified Guides of Eastern Mountain Sports’ Climbing School. Finish up with a day’s canoe paddle on the Saco River in Maine. Depending on timing, we may have a day to sightsee in the Mount Washington Valley.
While we will not need to carry food, stoves or tents while on the trails, we will need to pack for every type of weather contingency, and participants should expect to carry a backpack. It is not unusual for the weather to change suddenly including rain, fog, cold or even snow (yes, even in July). Most of the hiking along the trail will be above tree line.
Rockclimbing will be at Cathedral and/or White Horse Ledges in North Conway New Hampshire. Canoeing will be on the Saco River, which has its headwaters on the slopes of Mount Washington, and flows through New Hampshire and Maine on its way to the Atlantic Coast.
New Hampshire Important Information for Participants
Sign our scout/adult interest form at Troop Meetings.
Rocky Mountain High Adventure
From lush valleys to craggy peaks - Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado is a living showcase of the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains, with elevations ranging from 8,000 feet in the wet, grassy valleys to 14,259 feet at the weather-ravaged top of Longs Peak, provides visitors with opportunities for countless breathtaking experiences and adventures.
We are planning to offer a week of high adventure activities, including mountain hiking, rock climbing, touring, mountain biking, all culminating with an attempt on Long's Peak which stands 14,256' above sea level.
Longs Peak is Colorado's northernmost Fourteener. It's the highest peak in Rocky Mountain National Park and Boulder County and the 15th highest peak in Colorado. Longs Peak was named for Major Stephen H. Long who led an exploratory expedition of 22 men in 1820 from "Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains." The expedition reached the base of the Front Range on June 30, then journeyed south where they made the first ascent of Pikes Peak. James wrote in his diary that the mountain presented a "grand outline, imprinted in bold indentations upon the luminous margin of the sky."
Colorado Important Information for Participants
Sign our scout/adult interest form at Troop Meetings.
Philmont 2013
Hitch 'em up and hike 'em out!
Trekking . . .in the Rockies. . . across the back country . . . in high mountain meadows bustling with wildflowers . . . by sparkling silver streams wandering through cool green glens . . . on red stone ridges cutting cobalt blue skies!Philmont . . .Scouting's paradise . . . 215 square miles of rugged wilderness in New Mexico's Sangre de Cristo range of the Rocky Mountains.
Each year, tens of thousands of Scouts from all over the nation discover the experience is an opportunity of a lifetime. Many will say years later . . . Philmont changed my life!
There is much to Philmont. But when most people hear the name, one thing comes to mind: backpacking. The backpacking treks are a part of Philmont's High Adventure Programs, and Philmont offers a wide variety of them. Each program brings with it a different set of challenges and requirements.
No two days are alike; no two treks are ever the same; yet the memories of those who have gone are always the same . . .
"I want to go back!"
Philmont Important Information for Participants
Look for paperwork in Fall 2012
"These properties are donated and dedicated to the Boy Scouts of America for the purpose of perpetuating faith -- self reliance -- integrity -- freedom. Principles used to build this great country by the American pioneer so that these future citizens may through thoughtful adult guidance and by the inspiration of nature visualize and form a code of living to diligently maintain these high ideals and our proper destiny."
Waite Phillips, on donating the Philmont land to the BSA, December 31, 1941
-- Sir Robert Baden-Powell
Philmont Blessing
For food, for raiment
For life, for opportunity
For friendship and fellowship
We thank thee, O Lord.
Amen
Sea Base Blessing
Bless the creatures of the Sea
Bless this person I call me
Bless the Keys you made so grand
Bless the sun that warms the land
Bless the fellowship we feel
as we gather for this meal
Amen
