High Adventure Planning

Reading Canoeing Wild Riversis like attending a master class in wilderness travel. Cliff Jacobson’s 30th anniversary edition of the classic *Expedition Canoeing (nowCanoeing Wild Rivers)*is required reading for anyone planning or even thinking about a high adventure trip. This completely updated and revised edition features dozens of full-color photos, how-to illustrations, source charts, canoeing and camping techniques, and a chapter full of hard-won advice from a couple of dozen canoeing experts, and a new chapter devoted to paddling desert and swamp rivers....

… you know you’d like to go! Getting a high adventure trip off the ground sounds difficult, but you can make it happen for your Scouts. This week I’ll discuss some of the things you need to do to set up high adventure, and answer email questions about attendance at outings, and advise a new committee chair Links Mentioned in this Podcast Ken Greenberg’s Troop Patrol Practices Survey High Adventure Planning posts mentioned in Scoutmastership in Seven Minutes or Less...

Podcast Episode (00:32:48): Download MP3 Listen to Scoutmaster Podcast 220 | Sponsored By ScoutmasterCG.com Backers In this podcast We talk about high adventure, answer email questions on a ‘one man show’ and a bullying incident, and share a great Scoutmaster’s Minute. All this and your messages in the mailbag! Get The SCOUTMASTERCG APP Podcast Archive Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

On our high adventure canoe trip each crew packs and cooks food for a group of five to nine Scouts. Our menu is a combination of freeze dried and grocery store food that keeps the cost reasonable while providing good nutrition and good eating. After making adjustments to our menus and the kit we assembled to prepare it over two or three years we developed a pretty well tuned approach. Our cooking gear packs down into two basic packages – a cook box that we fondly call ‘Tidy Cats’ and a bag of cook pots....

Modern portage packs have an advanced suspension system that is much like a normal backpack. At the beginning of a high adventure canoe trip our portage packs our packs weigh about 60-70 pounds. This is quite a load for some of us but time has proven that even our smallest Scouts can handle them very well. As the trip progresses we eat our way light and by the last portage out the packs are about 20-30 pounds lighter....

: Portage pack and day bag (the waist or lumbar pack) The canoe never gets lighter, but the packs do. Pack with paddles. Triumph! The end of a five mile portage. Any high adventure canoe trip requires selecting the right gear and clothing. I am pretty specific about what we carry on our trips because I know one thing for sure; in the case of where we are going:...

For the last nine years every summer our Scouts pile into a van and drive north to Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park for a week-long high adventure canoe trip. Our crews typically cover 40-50 miles of paddling and portaging during our stay. Two years ago we started alternating these canoe trips with a trip to Kandersteg International Scout Center every third year. Here’s the background information on how we make this happen....

If you read and listen regularly you know I am a big promoter of High Adventure in Scouting. How are your plans for your next high adventure trip coming along? That’s right, you, how are the plans coming along? Here’s a few reasons why most of us don’t even get started: It’s too expensive. No, it’s not. A perfectly great high adventure trip doesn’t have to cost a lot – we’ve done backpacking trips of five days for less than $200....

Outdoor leadership is different. Good administrative skills go just so far when leading a group in an extended outdoor experience. What works at a Troop meeting or in the boardroom does not always translate well on a week-long backpacking or canoeing trip. Scouting offers great administrative training and valuable supplemental training in outdoor skills and safety. What we don’t have is a comprehensive training course in the group dynamics of long-term outdoor trips....

The success of any high adventure program is more about the people you go with than the place you go. A prime trek in Philmont, the crown jewel of Scout Camps, under crystal blue skies in moderate temperatures with no bugs and five star meals becomes a slow death march with a dysfunctional, poorly prepared, poorly led crew. Likewise a few days hiking in less inspiring environs as it rains day in and day out with a constant diet of instant ramen with a sharp crew who knows their stuff leads to lifelong golden memories....

Training and skill development is important to the success of a Troop based high adventure program. Adult Advisor and Youth Crew Chief Training – All trip leaders should take advantage of online courses offered by the BSA. Youth protection and Weather Hazards is a good idea for any trip as well as activity-specific courses: Trek Safely, Safe Swim Defense, Safety Afloat and Climb on Safely. The online training is only available to registered adult leaders the information can be shared with youth leadership and crew members....

Detailed preparation is the key to any successful high adventure program. Place State, provincial or national parks are the most likely destinations. Each will have it’s own particular rules and procedures. Information gleaned from the web is a good start. Online trip reports and reviews can be quite informative. I’d suggest that once you have the information you think you need pick up the phone and call someone at your destination and confirm that the information you have is correct....

On one of our first Canoe Trips to Canada we sat around our campfire the first night after getting to our hard-won campsite. A long day of paddling and portaging and a frustrating search for a camp site (during which we became separated) had me pretty wrung out. I was lamenting over a couple of mistakes I made that day to one of my fellow adult leaders who looked up from the fire where our dinner was cooking and said; “Well, here we are camped out on a lake in Canada and I am just about to enjoy a steak dinner!...

Where to go and what to do for your high adventure program? The simple answer is just about anywhere and just about anything. It may be a week of backpacking, canoeing, touring, cycling, boating or the adventure of your choice. You don’t need to travel very far, look at nearby state and national parks, talk to your Scouting colleagues, check out council-based programs at local summer camps. Once you have an idea of a destination making the trip a reality requires four things:...

Philmont, Seabase and Northern Tier are the three most familiar national High Adventure Bases, there are dozens of other Council Based Programs. Thousands of Scouts participate in and enjoy the big three high adventure bases each year. I have colleagues in Scouting who recommend them highly. At the other end of the high- adventure spectrum are the Troop and Crew-based high adventure programs that explore less known territory. Our rationale for building our own high adventure program is based of a few logistic and philosophic criteria;...

Anyone planning a canoe trip of a few days or a few weeks will benefit from studying Jacobson’s careful treatment of the subject: he offers solid, tested techniques and then points out the many ways things could go wrong. He uses stories from his considerable experience to illustrate how important it is to plan carefully, not to compound mistakes and thereby opens up the possibilities of canoeing in some incredibly wonderful places....