The scouts go for badges

Trails:

Friday - West Borden (unofficial 200)

Saturday - West Borden, FT209, FT202, FT201

Sunday - FT201, FT202

This past weekend was a backpacking goal for many of the scouts - 3days, 2nights, min 15miles, and three of the biggest requirements for 3 merit badges signed off.

Friday
We arrived at the trailhead close to 9pm. The water levels had been high all week, and the temperature was dropping. We took this as an opportunity to explore a lesser known trail, but would prevent a late night water crossing. Several of the smaller crossings still required "pass the pack" games.

After close to two hours of hiking, we found a campsite and called it a night.

Saturday
The scouts woke fairly early and prepared for the day. Packed bags, cooked and ate breakfast, pumped water and planned our attack plan for the day. We mentioned the threat of a late water crossing so they pushed the pace to beat nightfall so we could cross in daylight.

The scouts managed to get lucky on the water crossing. We took the option of crossing the down tree, bushwacking a few miles along the river to the "real" intersection, and then continuing on as normal. Worked out quite well. The downfall was located along FT209, just south of the actual FT202 crossing. There is a pretty noticable unofficial trail up to the actual FT202/FT209 intersection.

We pressed on along FT202 coming to Johnson Cemetary. The East cemetary was very soft due to the recent rains. The kids looked at the graves and found the interested ones in the process. The west cemetary was heavily blocked with down trees. We didn't try to get to it, but from the trail, it looked very tough to access.

We pressed on FT202 to FT201. We were sitting close to 10mi, so we headed north to the first campsite we saw and made camp before nightfall. The kids dropped some of their gear and continued on to the FT201/FT205 junction to get a few more miles in. They returned after about an hour.

In that meantime, I stayed back, set up a few tents for the kids, pushed a log near the fire as a bench, and started the fire. Lots of firewood was available and mostly dry, so it wasn't an issue. During our fire, a light rain started, but never materialized, so we were sitting pretty.

Sunday

We had to get out fairly quick because some of the boys had prior arrangements they neede to meet. We broke camp around 7, and started our hike out. It wasn't very long before we were sitting in the parking lot of Randolph loading the vans. We did have to play the shuttle game of going to Borden and back, but that wasn't too bad at all.

They've already started planning their next trip!