Tell me about and adventure you’ve been on

Tell me about and adventure
you’ve been on

Butch

A Trip to Philmont Scout Ranch

I have had many adventures in my life. I tend to think of adventures as outdoor experiences. We have been on vacations that were quite adventurous, but they somehow don’t qualify as time spent with nature. I have been canoeing in the north woods five times. Those would count as adventures but the one I choose to tell about is my trip to Philmont Scout Ranch in 1963 when I wasn’t quite 15 years old.

When I found out that the Hawkeye Area Council of Boy Scouts was putting together an expedition I told my folks I would really like to do that and they signed me up. Planning started months earlier. The powers that be decided the dates of the trip, the route we would go, and any side activities we would see on our way there and back. They also assigned us to patrols of about 10 scouts and an adult leader. I think there were 4 patrols altogether. Ours was the Falcon patrol, another was the Playboy patrol and I don’t remember what the other two were. I made a flag for our patrol and when we got back, we all signed it then had a drawing to see who would get to keep it. As it happens, I won it. I still have it somewhere.

We were encouraged to get a pair of good hiking boots. In the Spring our patrol started getting ready. The leadership said it was important to break-in our boots so we wouldn’t get blisters. Figuring how many hikes we could get in between when we started and the trip itself, it is pretty obvious that none of us would have our boots ready to go. the hikes did help us build up some stamina, but most boys in their mid-teens were in pretty good shape anyway. I was.

Here is a picture of our patrol:

Richard Mathes was our patrol leader with Dave Tackenburg as the assistant. Dave is holding our patrol flag in the picture above. Dick Eyman was our adult leader and was as unpleasant as anyone could be. He seemed to think his whole purpose was to impose some sort of military discipline and make our lives miserable. He was particularly conscientious in my case. I dislike him to this day.

My tent mate was Mark Arnold. When I first learned I was getting to go on this trip, I was going to have Mickey Freymiller as my buddy. He was from my own troop, Troop 2, that met at Hayes Elementary School. But Mark, who was in a lot of my classes, asked if we could be partners and I eventually chose to go with him.

The big day arrived and we set off. Earlier, our patrol had decided that we were going to wear campaign hats. I have mine on in the picture below. I think it cost $5.00. In 1963 that was a bit of money. However after I bought it, the leaders decided that we were all going to wear pith helmets, dorky mass produced hideous things. This was going to come back and bite me on the backside later in the trip.

We boarded the bus and took off for Cimmaron, NM. When we arrived they checked us in and took a commemorative expedition photo. Our expedition was No. 811A1. We were surprised to learn that Expedition 811A2 had just arrived too. They were another Troop from our council and nobody had even mentioned them before. They were from Iowa City and one of their leaders was one of our favorite teachers, Spencer Pink from Wilson Junior High. They were in base camp with us and when those scouts were around Mr Pink, they called him Spencer. I was jealous. I asked him if I could call him Spencer too, but he said I could just go on calling him Mr Pink.

The general plan of the trip was to hike from camp to camp every day or two. It was about a ten mile hike each day we were on the move. The leaders were pretty careful that we had the proper equipment in our packs; clothes, mess kits, maybe a first aid kit too. We were issued a big tarp to be used as a tent. You could put it up any number of ways and we tried several over the time we were out.

One of the first things we learned was that the hiking boots were a mistake. Most of us had a second pair of shoes, tennies or slippers, for wearing around camp after the hiking was over for the day. I had some handmade moccasins that were way cool, but worthless for footwear. One of the older scouts just wore his tennies all the time. He never suffered a bit from that. The leaders gave him some crap but he would not put the boots back on. They were heavy and hot and didn’t seem all that worthwhile, even in the uneven, mountainous terrain. There were such extremes in temperature between day and night. If you wore trousers, you were hot. If you wore shorts, you were more comfortable, but you got grass cuts if you went through high weeds and insects were a bother on your bare legs. I thought wearing leggings or tights or long underwear might be a good solution, but of course no one had anything like that.

Most of the camps we went to had a little supply hut. They had candy and other treats, but they knew they had you and the prices were higher than they should have been. One time there was a big rain storm and the supply hut in the next camp was completely washed away. We heard about it before we left the next morning and my friend Mick, who seemed to have quite a bit of cash at hand, bought up all the candy in the camp we were in before we left the next day. He made out like a bandit.

On some nights it got quite cold. Most of the time it wasn’t a problem but one time we set up our tarp/tent as an open front lean-to type design. We practically froze to death. Next night, we cobbled up a tight little package but it took forever to set up and take down and only worked marginally better for the cold. Mick didn’t like the cold any better than the rest of us and decided to put some warm, rounded stream pebbles in his sleeping bag. You can guess what happened. They were too hot from being in the fire and burned holes in his sleeping bag. Another story with Mick and rocks was he would sneak one into my pack every now and then when I wasn’t looking. I don’t remember ever finding them and taking them out so he must have felt bad about it at some point and taken them out himself.

I think our route was a big loop. We hiked up mountains quite a bit and the dorky pith helmets were a real pain in the ass. Their brim bent down so the bottom of the hat was about even with your eyes. Good for shielding the eyes from the sun, but worthless for seeing where you were going as you walked up hill. You could only see about 3 or 4 feet in front of you. It was maddening. We also had to walk along in single file so chatting with your buddies was almost impossible. I took my hat and bent the front up, ala Gabby Hayes. This particularly insensed Mr Eyman. I told him I couldn’t see where I was going and that I wanted to leave the flap up. He stomped back, ripped my hat off, bent down the flap, and slammed it back on my head. He threatened me not to put it up again. I told him when we got to the “Tooth of Time”, a Philmont landmark, I was going to throw it over the edge frisbe style.

Well, I didn’t throw it away. It was too valuable to me as a souvenir.

I was always on the lookout for something interesting and along the trail, I think it was by the Tooth of Time, I found an old dried up cow pelvis. I discovered it made a perfect seat. You just nestled right into it and it supported you all around. Again, Eyman tried to make me throw it away. I refused. I suppose he thought if I carried it everywhere it would be a burden I took on myself and that I was my own worst enemy. I kept it all the way to the end of the trip and then took it home too. I kept it as a trophy for many years.

This picture shows us on the trail over the Tooth of Time. A ragged bunch of hikers, huh? Most of the guys in the picture were in my patrol. That’s me in the middle. The guy just to the left of my walking stick is the one who refused to wear boots. You can see he has his tennies on.

After we left the scout ranch we stopped at a couple of places on the way home. Taos was one of them and also Dodge City. A good adventure.

Karen

An Adventure In the Canadian Quetico

In 1996 Butch and I had an adventure in the Canadian Quetico with our son Lance and his future wife, Cherise. The Quetico is an area in Canada that is like the Boundary Waters on the American side of the border. Butch and Lance had both been to the Boundary Waters a couple of times, once with Lance’s scout troop, and other times with our friend, John Hawn. I had been to the Boundary Waters once before with Butch and John and Sue Hawn.

This trip was different for many reasons. Lance had been inspired with the beauty of stripper canoes and wanted to build one for himself. We had long had a big aluminum canoe that had provided us with much family joy while our kids were growing up. It was big, wide, and heavy but practically indestructible for river canoeing and very safe. While those were great qualities, there was no real beauty or grace involved! So the beginning of the adventure was building a beautiful canoe. Butch and Lance poured over designs and building techniques and chose the way to proceed. We turned over our garage to the project and spent over a year in the building process. The canoe was made of redwood strips, wood that is now, and then, rare and precious. The design they chose was called the Red Bird. While most of the work was completed by Butch and Lance, I also contributed helper type labor and the inconvenience of no garage for what felt like forever. My main actual building contribution was caning the beautiful canoe seats installed near the end of the project. Caning is a very meticulous process which includes very sore fingers and hands. The results, though, made me very proud of my part.

We planned the trip very carefully as well. We wanted to maximize the time spent paddling the lakes and minimize portaging the canoes and our gear. Portaging involves carrying everything across land to get from one lake to another. This involves emptying the entire canoe and making several trips across a hopefully short and level path to the next lake. Unfortunately sometimes there is a miscalculation of the elevation of the land in the middle that requires carrying heavy things up and down a steep hill! After searching the maps carefully, we planned our route and applied for an entry permit.

The Quetico, like the Boundary Waters, has strict rules of what can be carried in, in order to protect the cleanliness and pristine beauty of the lakes and park. Camp sites have no latrines and no facilities for garbage. That means we had to carry dehydrated foods and supplies that would not produce waste. Anything that did generate waste had to be burned or carried out. Also for obvious reasons, we could not carry in coolers or drinking water. Lance bought a water processing system that pumped lake water through a filter that created drinkable water free from parasites and pollutants.

I took on the role of planning 3 meals a day plus snacks for the week of our trip. Purchased dehydrated camping meals are very expensive so I planned for regular foods that could be bought in a grocery store. Of course I got a lot of input from my fellow travelers about foods that sounded good. We ate things like oatmeal with dried fruit, and pancakes for breakfast. Once I made baked cinnamon rolls which were not so successful. We took along dried salami and sausage to provide meat in our diet. For lunches and dinners we had macaroni and cheese made with powdered milk, and other pasta and rice dishes favored with lots of spices. We also made pizza from dough mixes, powdered Parmesan cheese, and tubed tomato paste. Snacks included nuts, dried fruit, gorp, beef sticks, candy, and packaged cheese and crackers. Butch and I had bought a camp oven that was heated by a small Coleman stove. We were able to make pizza, brownies, and even coffee cake. Camp cooking was a group affair and we took turns taking the lead. It is one of the fun activities of camping that I have always enjoyed plus everything tastes great when you are out in nature and hungry!

We drove to Canada in two cars. Butch and I had our small Chevy truck with a rack to carry both canoes on top. Our gear fit into the back. Lance and Cherise with their two dogs drove in their own car. We left very early in the morning and planned to reach our destination in one day. We found a resort close to our “put-in” site so we could sleep there over night and get an early start in the morning. This was before easy internet access to everything and we found the place and booked the rooms without much information about the place. It ended up being pretty basic but clean. Our plan was to stay there again on our way out. As a side note, we entered Canada with just our driver’s licenses unlike passport requirements nowadays. We went into the nearest town for pizza and ended up spending over a hundred dollars for pizza, a salad for Cherise and maybe a beer.

In the morning we drove to our entry site, loaded up and took off across the lake to the ranger station. All of us were experienced canoeists but the wind was blowing really strongly straight into our faces. We ended up struggling to get there in any good time. The ranger made comments about doubting our abilities which was a bit insulting. He looked over our permits and our plan and redeemed himself with some very helpful recommendations. When he asked to see our itinerary he was dumbfounded that we actually had one. Apparently most people wing it! We had picked a lake destination that was described as, “the Jewel of the Quetico” in our books. When he discovered we had not brought fishing gear he said that the description was because of the great fishing. He suggested lakes that were actually closer and said we would be more isolated from others, hear wolves howling at night, and see native ancient pictographs on the cliffs. We were convinced and readily changes our plans! We had much easier paddling as the wind died down and spent most of our travel actually on the water with a couple of very short portages.

We found a great campsite with a nice clean, rocky place near the water with a place for the tents higher up. There was a little cove to the side for wading and bathing which the dogs found great fun.

Our weather was very good. We came prepared for wet and dry and cold and warm weather. By and large, at least a part of everyday was beautiful. We had some fairly regular afternoon showers but they were mostly gentle and gave us a great excuse for a nap and some alone time. We had brought a Jane Smiley book and I often read aloud to Butch inside our tent. We spent our days exploring in the canoes. The Quetico, at least in the area we camped, was different from the Boundary waters in a couple of ways. First, it has not been as heavily or as recently logged so the trees tend to be bigger, thicker, and older. Also, I was particularly charmed by the lichen growth in small bays along the lake shore. They were varied in color from lots of shades of green, blues, yellows, and even dusty pink. They encrusted the rocky shores and looked like a fairyland to me. Also, there were a lot of rocks piled up everywhere as part of the landscape.

The best most exciting feature were the native pictographs the ranger had told us about. Many of them were right above the lake waterline. You could imagine the artists paddling up to the cliffs just as we were doing. Some were handprints left by spraying pigments over their hands placed against the cliff. It was awesome to see such a personal signature left by an ancient person. It was tempting to put our hands in the same place, but the ranger had asked us to avoid touching them to preserve the magic for other visitors. We also saw paintings depicting canoes, animals, and people. It is amazing that they have been there for so long and respected by other visitors as they deserve.

We also found and explored an old logging camp maybe from the 20’s or 30’s. We found some discarded or burnt cans, shards of dishes and crocks, and part of an old car or truck. The buildings were pretty much gone. I can’t really remember hearing the ranger’s promised wolves howling but we might have. The Quetico, like the Boundary Waters does have lots of wildlife. We saw more birds by far than on previous trips but no bears or moose at our campsite. We did have the two dogs with us which might have been a factor. We had a scare one night when the dogs ran off at twilight. Lance called and whistled to no avail and eventually they came back with no injuries. They could have run into all sorts of trouble but apparently were unharmed. We did see a moose and calf while driving, but no bears.

A less than pleasant adventure was toileting. When we went to the Boundary waters there were latrine boxes back in the woods away from the lake. Fellow campers gave you privacy by staying away. On this trip there were no latrines. Each of us had to dig a hole with a camp shovel for our business then cover it. It is very hard to dig a hole there because in most places there is just a thin layer of soil on top of big rocks. You may have to try a couple of spots before finding a place that would work. Also, for Butch and I, it was more challenging to squat than it was for Lance and Cherise. We also brought special low impact soap for washing ourselves and dishes, another reason we liked our swimming/wading spot for a quick bath.

The night before we packed up to come home, Butch was sitting on a rock eating his meal. When he started to get up, he twisted his knee and heard something pop inside. It was very painful and made for a less than pleasant trip back. He believes it was the start of his knee troubles that eventually led to knee replacement surgery. It reminded us that we were, indeed, far from help if there had been a serious accident.

It was a fun trip and the two couples got along well and we had a lot of fun together. I love being deep into nature and there is nothing quite as peaceful as being on a lake in a canoe. It was a perfect way to launch Lance’s beautiful boat. Our trip was well planned and we had good equipment but it is good to have some skills, common sense, and trusted companions, on a grand adventure like this one!

This post is part of the StoryWorth project that I am participating in.
At the ButchieBoy main page click the “StoryWorth” category to see the rest of the entries.