Scout Backpacking in the San Juans in Colorado

[69RoadRunner]

We're still considering our "roll your own" high adventure options for 2023. One option I want to present to the troop is doing about 6 days in the Weminuche Wilderness in Colorado.

We've rotated through the national high adventure camps and are looking to save a little money and do something on our own. This also might be my last as scoutmaster.

We're in northern VA outside of DC and I like having the scouts experience something very different from what we have in our area.

This is one of the top backpacking areas in the the country and no permits are required, which simplifies things for a group. Andrew Skurka has taken groups here, so I know it's good.

I'm curious if any of you have taken a group of scouts here for backpacking and what your thoughts are.  Thanks!

[MattR]

There are a lot of nice backpacking trails in Colorado. So much that I've never been to Philmont. Philmont isn't about beauty, so I understand why scouts would like it.

To answer your question, no, I haven't taken scouts to the San Juans. So you can get better specific trail information from others. However, in other HA trips I've taken scouts in Colorado and Wyoming, the things I'd be aware of is that

1) June in the high country is not summer, it's late winter/early spring and I've had 10 foot snow drifts to deal with over July 4th. Given the run off, trails can be very wet and muddy.

2) The biggest mistake we ever made was to go backpacking about 2 weeks after everything thawed out. Talk about mosquitoes. A few of the scouts also did the boundary waters before our trip and they said the mosquitoes in Southern Wyoming were much worse. Two weeks later and they would have mostly been gone.

3) Altitude sickness is real and random. Scouts that are carrying extra body weight can really suffer going up those hills when they have half the oxygen they're used to. Dehydration and lightning.

4) All that bad stuff said, the views are incredible. The scouts may not respond like the adults but they will remember. Years later I've talked to a few and they now have an appreciation of nature. Something stuck with them, even if part of it was playing cards in their tents while waiting out rain or bugs.

[69RoadRunner]

1 hour ago, MattR said:

There are a lot of nice backpacking trails in Colorado. So much that I've never been to Philmont. Philmont isn't about beauty, so I understand why scouts would like it.

To answer your question, no, I haven't taken scouts to the San Juans. So you can get better specific trail information from others. However, in other HA trips I've taken scouts in Colorado and Wyoming, the things I'd be aware of is that

1) June in the high country is not summer, it's late winter/early spring and I've had 10 foot snow drifts to deal with over July 4th. Given the run off, trails can be very wet and muddy.

2) The biggest mistake we ever made was to go backpacking about 2 weeks after everything thawed out. Talk about mosquitoes. A few of the scouts also did the boundary waters before our trip and they said the mosquitoes in Southern Wyoming were much worse. Two weeks later and they would have mostly been gone.

3) Altitude sickness is real and random. Scouts that are carrying extra body weight can really suffer going up those hills when they have half the oxygen they're used to. Dehydration and lightning.

4) All that bad stuff said, the views are incredible. The scouts may not respond like the adults but they will remember. Years later I've talked to a few and they now have an appreciation of nature. Something stuck with them, even if part of it was playing cards in their tents while waiting out rain or bugs.

Yeah, I know what you mean about the bugs. Well, at least I've read it enough times to understand. I think if we do a trip like this, we'd need to go early August.

Can you tell me about your Wyoming trip? That's also under consideration. I'm not sure if we could go late enough in the summer to be there at an ideal time.

[MattR]

We did the Wind River Range in Wyoming. That was where the bugs were but it was stunning. My understanding is that the start of August would be fine there but don't quote me on that. We tried to do a 50 mile loop in about 6 days and we were just beating ourselves up. My GPS said we were doing something like 500' vertical for every mile horizontal. So about a mile vertical every day. We finally decided to cut a corner off of our loop and make it 38 miles or something. The scouts started smiling. Now, this was all because I, the old man in the crowd, pulled a muscle in my knee because I wasn't drinking enough. (First of all, who has ever pulled a muscle in their knee? Second, do as I say, not as I do. Finally, they did start smiling after I hurt myself, so that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.)

Anyway, Wyoming might be quicker to get to from DIA but there are more towns and fun things to see in Southern Colorado. We have done backpacking trips that are 5 days or so and then we add on something fun like river rafting. It's a nice mix of pushing yourself and then just having fun.

We did another trip in the Frying Pan wilderness somewhat close to Aspen and then spent a couple of days in Glenwood Springs. The only problem we had was we wanted a loop and couldn't find one so we bushwacked over a pass. Not exactly the safest thing with all the loose rock but that was just 2 hours out of the whole trip. The most incredible part of that trip was waking up at 2am to pee and seeing the stars. I've never seen clouds of stars before. It was so dark at night and there was no moon. I just stood there and stared up until I froze and jumped back in my tent. I should have just dropped my tent but for some reason we were expecting rain.

Thanks for the memories!

[InquisitiveScouter]

On 1/15/2022 at 8:19 PM, MattR said:

Altitude sickness is real and random. Scouts that are carrying extra body weight can really suffer going up those hills when they have half the oxygen they're used to.

Ibuprofen is your friend.

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2012/03/ibuprofen-decreases-likelihood-of-altitude-sickness-researchers-find.html

[69RoadRunner]

10 hours ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

Ibuprofen is your friend.

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2012/03/ibuprofen-decreases-likelihood-of-altitude-sickness-researchers-find.html

I had a backpacking trip in Inyo last year. I forgot to ask my NP for altitude sickness pills during my annual physical, so I went to a CVS Minute Clinic.

It was that NP's first day by herself. The tech who checked me in asked why I'd come and I said I wanted altitude sickness meds. She said they'd have to refer me for a psych exam. I said altitude, not attitude. She was still confused.

I finally got to the NP. She said she had to call a colleague. She prescribed me motion sickness meds and said it did the same thing. Huh?

Next day a more experienced NP called and said, uh, she prescribed you the wrong meds and after a basic call about my health, prescribed the right meds.

I know altitude sickness can be debilitating. I took the meds the day before and for the next 2 days. Then I stopped. I was fine. I also had 1.5 days at altitude before starting the backpacking part. That's one of the best ways to prevent getting sick.