Petey091

I agree the definition of what is Wilderness and Backcountry depends on where you are. Most of our Troop backpacking trips are on the Appalachian Trail in Maryland, or Pa. A road crossing is never very far way and most of the time we have cell service. That is very much different than being in the Bob Marshall Wilderness where we checked in with MOHAB basecamp each night with a Garmin In Reach and carried a sat. phone and knew we would have to get some elevation to make it work.

We usually run one backpacking trip a year. But, in the past four year my troop has sent crews to Philmont and MOHAB. As a result of that we have a group of older boys who enjoy backpacking and have logged a lot of trail time doing shakedown hikes for both trips. It is understood that any backpacking trip that the boys schedule for the troop would be designed to allow the younger scouts to attend. The older scouts who are backpacker seem to enjoy teaching the younger scouts how to backpack. If I was in your shoes i would tell the older scouts that if they want to do backpacking without the younger scouts then they need to find the adult leadership to make it happen.

Ok, seriously, in the interests of international knowledge exchange, what are you doing to your flags? On what basis are flags retired? If they touch the ground? The slightest speck of dirt? Are they use once only? 300 at a time? I'm taken aback. Ian The VFW is a collection point for the flags in our country where people can drop off unusable flags they also have a box at the county landfill in the recycling center. The VFW collects them and then schedules Quarterly for a ceremonial retirements.

Flag etiquette and flag retirement is so wrapped up with Patriotism that it is easy to offend someone. Most people have never read the flag code and understand what it actually says. Most people base what they believe the " proper, correct " way to display or retire a flag on what they learned in the military or past experiences. My troop frequently hosts retirement ceremonies with the local VFW. I make sure to have a copy of the code with me when we do this. For ease of retirement we usually cut the edge of flag with the grommets on it off and thread that onto a heavy wire loop. We burn this loop with all the ends on it at once and it makes recovering the grommets from the ash easier after the ceremony. We then cut the blue field out of the flag and cut the strips into two following the bottom edge of the blue field. We usually retire 300-400 flags at a time. Cutting them down his way make it easy to make sure the fire consumes the flag. We will take one flag and cut the stripes into individual stripes and use that flag for the formal part of the ceremony with the VFW members and troop. After the formal ceremony we then get down to the retirement of the rest of the flags and that can take several hours of feeding the flags into the fire. At the next troop meeting we will then clean out the fire pit and bury the ashes of the flags.

I took a crew to MOHAB in 2018. It was a great trip. I have also done Philmont and of the two trips MOHAB is better. The picture below is of our last campsite on the trail. My email is petey9145@gmail.com . I highly recommend this trip and if you have any questions just ask.

When me and my son joined our troop they did not do a real PLC meeting for over a year. We now have them monthly. They are always held the first troop meeting after an outing. The PLC meets while the quartermaster and patrol quartermasters have the rest of the boys clean gear and restock.

Nothing wrong with an alcohol stove for individual backpacking. I use a homemade fancy feast stove when I hike or backpack without the troop. When with the troop where we are using the Philmont Patrol method to cook then I use the MSR Whisperlite. When boiling large amounts of water you can not beat the Whisperlite.

When I was a Den Leader I eventually ended up with a Den of 15 boys at one point. I thought about splitting the den but realized that there was no way to do it without making someone upset. I told the parents that if we didn't split the den then I would need them to step up and help out at den meetings.

Try to find a used machine that is over twenty years old. The newer machines have more plastic and cheap metal parts and have issues with heavier material. I can do most stuff with a modern machine. When I am sewing gear bags or canvas material i pull out my old treadal powered sewing machine.

Philmont wants you to use their tabs to purify water. We used the tabs but also brought two Sawyer squeeze filters set up as granite filters. We had a lot of rain so most of the water sources we had was cloudy because of it. We used the filters to clear up the water and then used the tabs. At Philmont it is far easier to do as asked than buck the system.

Until you see something in writing don't get worked up about it.

I have become the Trail Boss for our local WOR. Each year we give out a new patch for the event. The patch design is the result of a contest with designs submitted by the Web Dens. The problem is I have now inherited a box of old patches from past years. I would hate to throw them away. Is there any value th these as trading stock. Any suggestions on how to get rid of them.

You just ran head first into one of scouting's problems. I can't tell you how many times I have been told that something was against national BSA policy when it's not. In my troop it's the belief that BSA prohibits open toed shoes and that aerosol cans and sheath knives are prohibited. My standard response is please show me in the Guide to Safe Scouting where it says that. Now a lot of this comes from summer camps that have camp rules that prohibit these items. More scouters need to read the Guide to Safe Scouting.

We found it was cheaper for us to rent vans in Denver and drive down to Philmont than using a commercial shuttle services. In the past our troop has driven to Philmont from Maryland but that was a no go for most of us advisors who where burning leave to go.

Yes, just one day. We arrived sometime in the late afternoon. After checking in and moving into our tents it was time for dinner. After dinner a trip tp the Tooth of Time Traders. Since our crew met at BWI at 0530 eastern time it was an early night for us.