UKScouterInCA

Well, National discontinued this medal after all. No announcement, no community feedback, no phasing it out so as to allow Scouts actively working on it to complete it. What a shame.

Our Troop has earned the National Outdoor Challenge Unit Award for the last few years (https://www.scouting.org/awards/awards-central/national-outdoor-challenge/). The PDF is still available but it has gone from the awards website https://www.scouting.org/awards/awards-central/ The National Outdoor Challenge Unit Award is a requirement for the Scoutmasters Key Award https://www.scouting.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Scoutmaster-Key-23.pdf which is still there. Anyone know if the award is truly retired or someone just messed up on the awards central website?

To earn the Cycling Merit Badge a Scout rides a minimum of 150 miles if taking the road cycling option, or 52 miles if taking the mountain bike option. (NB if they do Motorboating they have gone a minimum of a mile, if Horsemanship 60 feet). I do not interpret 2a to be 100. miles in addition to the merit badge, I interpret it to be including the badge. So, if taking the road cycling route the Scout needs an additional 50 miles above and beyond the Cycling Merit Badge. This does illustrate some of the inequity in the award, it is easier to achieve road cycling than mountain biking, which is itself easier than horseback riding or skating. But to earn the award via any of the tracks you have to show a commitment to the sport beyond just getting the Merit Badge.

Agree. A reminder that this is the National Medal for Outdoor Achievement. Doesn't mention Adventure (except within the Adventure segment, which you don't have to earn to get the medal) The Mission Statement and Vision of Scouting are, IMO, kind of vague corporate meaningless blah that could equally apply to any youth organization. The meat of Scouting is in the Aims and Methods. So, does this award utilize the methods of Scouting to achieve the Mission? Ideals - Essentially follow Scout Law, Promise, Motto and Slogan. This is a little abstract abstract, but this award has lots of service and conservation. Wilderness First Aid satisfies involves prepared and helping others. Leave No Trace Trainer requires being clean, helpful, being prepared (LNT #1) Patrols - a little weaker, but you have to organize trips for your Troop/patrol Outdoor Programs. Yep. Lots of that. Advancement - huge. Have to get to FIrst Class, Have to get a gazzilion merit badges along the way. Plus WFA, LNT. And, though rather self-satisfying, it is a whole award structure in of itself. Association with Adults. Organizing trips. Working a season of summer camp. WFA, LNT. You cannot get this medal without a whole lot of adult association. Leadership Development: "Plan and lead, ..., an outing for your patrol, troop, .." The only method that isn't directly involved is Uniform. Unless you argue that this aim is promoted through having to earn a gazzillion merit badges. FWIW the award is still on the Scouts BSA landing page, very prominent:

Congratulations on his achievement, and I hope National are listening.

I guess the question is - who is coming up with the meeting agenda's? The Scouts or the Scoutmaster? I'm not a huge fan of Troop meetings being very focused on MBs but to each their own. MBs seem to be better done in Scouts own time with meetings focused on (fun) Scout Skills more.

According to National Scout Store, they are issuing new medals. So maybe my dream is coming true and they are replacing the old janky medal with something more impressive.

According to National Scout Store, they are issuing new medals. So maybe my dream is coming true and they are replacing the old janky medal with something more impressive.

Scouting - An amazing program that is successful because of the amazing volunteers in Troops nationwide, DESPITE the best efforts of National.

You can still buy the patches online and at the Scout Store. It is just the medal that is unavailable. If they are discontinuing the award, National are not being communicative about it. Really unfair to anyone currently working towards it.

Our Scout Shop told us that National had pulled back all remaining supplies and destroyed them. Not sure if that is true. It's an absolute shame if they discontinue this award, the achievements a Scout needs to get to earn it are absolutely core to the mission of Scouting. I would way prefer to see a Scout earn this than every merit badge.

Talking about janky cheap medals in an earlier thread, this medal is most certainly not!! We just had 2 adults and 2 scouts earn this beauty! The thing is weighty! To earn this the Scouts (and Adults) had to earn 4 separate local High Adventure Awards. As part of that they had to complete: A 2 (or more) backpack to the summit of Mt San Gorgonio (11,503 ft) A 2 (or more) backpack to the summit of Mt San Bernardino (10.649 ft) A 2 (or more) backpack to the summit of Mt San Jacinto (10,834 ft) A day hike to the summit of Mt Antonio (aka Mt Baldy) (10,064 ft) Not too shabby!

Does anyone here know what National is doing with the National Medal for Outdoor Achievement? https://www.scouting.org/programs/scouts-bsa/advancement-and-awards/noa/ The medals have been removed from Scout Stores and supposedly all collected by National and destroyed. The medal itself is a janky piece of junk, so flimsy and lame. But the level achievement you need to reach to earn it is super impressive. I for one think it would be an absolute shame if National discontinued this medal. And doing so without any comment period, skulking away in the dead of night, seems super shady. I kind of understand them discontinuing other awards like the NOVA Stem, although I thought they were fun they were always a little like National were jumping on the STEM bandwagon. But OUtdoor Achievement? That is front and center our Core Mission. Maybe I can dare to hope that National have realised that the medal is cheap and tawdry and not worth of representing the accomplishments, , and decided to replace it with something more worthy of the incredible achievement the Scouts have made to earn it. Yeah, I doubt it.

OK, bit of an aside, but I always found the Req's for the Camping MB weird. The Scout can only claim one long term camping trip (up to 6 nights) and needs 20 nights. But no guidance on what a short term camping trip is. 1 night? 2? 3? 4? 5?. What about a Scout who has done multiple long term camps? It seems weird that they can use a one night car camping trip, but no nights at all from that 12 night Philmont expedition because they already had a summer camp counted? Or does it camp for x nights?

NAYLE and Rayado are very different propositions. I honestly think it is a mistake to approach this as a "I want to visit a HA base" instead of a "I want to experience ..... activities offered by a HA base". Philmont base camp is essentially a bunch of tents in a field, fun to see it if you never had for a couple of minutes (or maybe an hour if you go to the store). It is the activities and experiences where it shines. NAYLE is an extension of NYLT, you are going to learn leadership skills. Very classroom based. Rayado is backpacking, in the wilds, walking a long way and seeing remote places with a pack on your back. Both could be great experiences, but very, very different. I would come at as "I want to hone my leadership skills, and wouldn't it be cool to do that at PSR rather than in a random classroom somewhere" or "I would love to experience the intense backpacking experience in the NM mountains I can only access at PSR, along with the chances to do gold panning, horse riding and whatever" If I were still young enough, I'd jump at Rayado, but that's just me. Other individual opportunities in a similar vein as Rayado would be Trail Crew or OA Crew, STEM trek, Ranch Hands. This is something that seems to be unique to PSR as one of HA bases is the wide range of individual treks. Be ready that if you go to Rayado and do well, you could end up working on staff for the rest of the summer (if you are old enough).

It feels so easy to define a mammal. Until you learn about the Duck Billed Platypus.

For those in or around Southern California, or with interest in visiting, I wanted to let you know of a new award we just got approved. The Southern California Historic Trails Triple Crown award is this cool medal: To earn it you have hike and backpack on three historic trails in Southern California, namely and earning the related awards: The Mormon Battalion Award The El Camino Real award The De Anza Trail award and do a little trail maintenance.

We went up Mt San Gorgonio, which is the highest mountain in Southern California, about 11500 ft. Despite planning a 3 day trip the kids decided they wanted to compress it into 2 days: (miles are total/cumulative, not per section, height is altitude not height gained) Day 1: Trailhead (0 miles, 6880 ft) to junction to campsite (about 5.5 miles, 9520 ft). Dumped packs, took daypacks to summit (9.5 miles, 11502 ft) and back to campsite (14.0 miles, 9220 ft). Day 2 Campsite (14.0 miles, 9220 ft) to Trailhead (19.5 miles, 6880 ft) Winds at the summit 30mph gusting to 50mph. Strong enough to be unpleasant but not to push you around. Sheltered at the campsite, though sounded like an express train all night. Earned the San Gorgonio Climb award from the local High Adventure Team. 7 Scouts, aged 11 through 17. 2 Adults. All did great including the huge day 1.

There is a ship you can book a trip on in the San Juan islands? https://www.sssodyssey.org/bsa-charters-details Or if you start considering something further south, the Sierra Nevada is awesome. Though backcountry permits have been crazy to get this year. One seemingly long term effect of the pandemic (or maybe the Insta craze) is that EVERYONE wants to get into the backcountry.

I don't think there has ever been one. Why? I can guess at two reasons. First, Philmont charges per Scout not per Crew, so unless your number goes below the minimum for a crew then there is little incentive to add strangers into your crew. Second, there are great options for Scouts to attend Philmont as individuals (OA Trek, Ranch Hands, Conservation Crew etc) where those opportunities don't (I think) exist at the other HA bases (except a single Opkip trip)

Orange County have revamped their High Adventure website (and seemingly added a few new awards. I added a separate topic here:

For those unaware, various councils around the Southwest (Southern California, Nevada, Arizona) in what I think used to be Area 4, have a set of local High Adventure Awards. I had previously mentioned these in and These awards are given for participating in various local High Adventure trips, climbing local mountains and so on. Many of them include additional requirements for trail maintenance or conservation. I don't think other councils have similar programs.

I wanted to highlight that the Orange County Council High Adventure team have recently revamped their website and it is PHENOMENAL! Check it out at https://www.occhat.org/ They have details on their various trainings, a whole interactive searchable section of all the various High Adventure awards from Southern California and the Southwest, trek suggestions etc. I think this site really sets the bar for other councils who mostly, at best, have links to the 4 National High Adventure Bases on their website and nothing else. I really hope this invigorates some interest in High Adventure programs in their council.

I wanted to highlight that a cool High Adventure award patch is currently in the semi-final of the Scouts Life Favorite Patch March Madness competition. If you aren't aware of the competition, Scouts Life magazine recently solicited Scouts and Scouters to send in photos of their favorite patches. They then created a little competition to do pairwise voting, aka brackets, where every day you can vote for your favorite patch out of pairs. After a few days the patch from each pair with the most votes moves into the next round, and so on until the final winner. Right now the competition is in the semi final and the Orange County Council patch for the Canyoneering High Adventure Award is still in the competition. The patch is the one on the right hand side of the image below. The image on the patch shows the "Cesspool" which is a highlight (or lowlight perhaps) of a backpacking route in a slot canyon called called Buckskin Gulch in southern Utah. Quite an epic trip if you ever get the chance to go. Another image shows the brackets. The competition can be found at: https://scoutlife.org/giveaways/scoutpatches/ The Award can be seen here: https://www.occhat.org/hat-awards-3/wilderness-slot-canyoneering-award

Whereabouts in Inyo NF were you? We want specifics. Looks awesome (looks like it was a GREAT Adventure)