Scoutmaster

Making Small Gear Harder to Loose

A tip from Crow at As The Crow Flies

I put red reflective tape and bright flagging tape on small pieces of gear that would be easy to lose.   Neither of them makes a recordable difference in weight.

I got the red reflective tape at Walmart in the auto supply aisle.  They probably have flagging ribbon as well; most likely with the tools.  But flagging ribbon is also easy to attain  hanging from trees in the wilderness; help your self.

The Everlasting Tortilla

The folks at Packit Gourmet offer some evidence of the indestructible nature of the humble tortilla. My favorite tortilla 'recipe' is peanut butter and jelly on a whole wheat tortilla for a quick, filling trail lunch.

Tortillas are an incredibly versatile and easy-to-pack bread. They hold up well in your pack and can be used for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We’ve dined on tortillas with everything from breakfast tacos to ‘sandwich’ wraps to quesadillas – not to mention the more traditional tacos and burritos. But which tortilla holds up best on the trail?

We tested out three types of flour tortillas to find out which one would make the grade: freshly made tortillas (made the same day that we purchased them), Mission Brand tortillas and Tia Rosa Brand tortillas.

We placed two sets of tortillas from each package in a freezer bag. We then placed one set outside in 100° weather, and left the other set inside where the temperature was about 75°.

Here is what we learned...

Read on at the Packit Gourmet website

5 Quick and Healthy Breakfasts for Camping

Oatmeal, again? Pop Tarts? Doughnuts? A good quick breakfast while canoeing or backpacking (or car camping for that matter) is as important as it is elusive.

Bryan Hanse at the Nessmuking shares five simple yet nutritious ideas for a lightweight breakfasts:

On my first paddling and camping trips, I often overlooked making a good breakfast in favor of eating a few quick snacks, like Pop Tarts ...   Essentially, they’re just empty carbs and eating them in the morning creates high blood-sugar levels, which will eventually crash throwing the body into a battle that’ll will last all day.

Now there's really nothing astounding or new about his five choices but they are well thought out and look very tasty. For example:

Super Charged Couscous

1/3 cup dry couscous
1/2 cup water
1 tbsp almonds, sliced
2 tbsp raisins
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/6 cup dry milk
Honey to taste

Calories: 340
Fat: 5 g
Carbs: 64g
Protein: 14g

Instant couscous cooks in five minutes, and when augmented with tasty ingredients, it makes a great breakfast. Mix everything, except the optional honey at home. Boil water in camp and add the mix. Remove it from the heat and in five minutes, breakfast is ready.

I like couscous for breakfast (oatmeal still gives me the willies, it's a texture thing) I'll be sure to try this one.

Read his post here for the other four ideas.

Backpacking Gear Narratives

Your Troop goes backpacking doesn't it? Backpacking is a definitive Scouting activity that requires stamina, skill, preparation yielding adventure and a great sense of accomplishment.

What backpackers carry and why is a subject of endless fascination and study. Here's a couple of narratives from two Scouters as to what they choose to carry.

Walter Underwood describes what he packed and why for a recent trip and using a tarp shelter in the Sierra mountains of California. 

 

My more conservative pitch, I call this “the cave”. I learned the pitch from this You Tube video about pitching an 8x10 Etowah tarp. I don’t pitch it exactly like the video — I use a front guy-line and throw a clove hitch around the top of my trekking pole. Still, it is easy for a single person to set up. If you look carefully in the photo, you can see that I’ve used my other trekking pole to pull the center tie-out up and make more room. A lot more room, it turns out. My tarp is an Integral Designs Siltarp 2, an 8x10 tarp. In bad weather, a 10x10 tarp would provide a more coverage. Or you could pitch a poncho over the open end. At Bonnie Lake, I was more worried about dew (34º) and wind (the stiff breeze all night).

My pack is a Starlite from Six Moon Designs. It was completely stuffed at the beginning and not especially comfortable over 35 pounds (its advertised upper limit), but was just fine from the 3rd day on. My good ol’ Lowe Expedition carries weight better, but it weighs 6 pounds and carries almost twice as much (95l instead of 55l in the main bag). Not really worth it.

Scoutmaster Jerry, from Oregon,  discusses the contents of his backpack in this blog post and in two of his podcasts.

Most Backpackers are always tweaking their gear, replacing old stuff with new, looking for lighter, tougher, more useful (multi-use) and of course just plain cool gear.

Recently I upgraded some gear, namely my backpack.

After years of carrying my Kelty External Frame Tioga 5500 I have switched to an internal frame pack.  Now, before anyone says I jumped ship on my philosophy of External frame packs being better for younger bodies or beginning Backpackers.. Stop.  I still believe that.  External frame packs offer a much easier platform for the beginner and the young Scout to load and carry.

I have been looking for about a year now and finally fell in love with a pack I could not live without.

Loading it and walking around with it, doing the homework to see what its capabilities are and what I won’t be able to do with it.  Looking at all my gear and how I use it and what I use it for.

Trail Cooking Videos

Trailcooking.com (an expansion to Freezerbagcooking.com) has a number of  step-by-step  videos that demonstrate recipes featured on their site and in their book Freezer Bag Cooking.

Freezer bag cooking is great for Scouts. It is inexpensive, simple and much better tasting than most of the freeze dried foods I have tried. I also appreciate cooking that requires some thinking, preparation and a modicum of skill  beyond simply running to the Walmart and grabbing pouches of Mountain House.

Scouts and Backpacking

Our Scouts enthusiastically take on the challenge of preparing, launching and completing a backpacking trip. As a Scoutmaster I appreciate the Patrol and skill building opportunities but the real reason we go backpacking is the sheer joy (often achieved through great effort and discomfort) of the experience.

Backpacking requires an expanded set of skills and attention to detail. Here are some resources that help us prepare for successful trips:

Naismith's Rule
Scotsman W.W. Naismith designed to predict the duration of a hike based on distance, terrain and other variables.

Ten Essentials (yes, yet again) With a Quiz
With all the "excitement" that the wilderness can throw at you (weather, critters, rough terrain, accidents), it seems to be only common sense that the hiker should be ready to meet it with at least the bare minimum of equipment. This minimum is usually referred to in hiking guides as the Ten Essentials.

Choosing a Backpacking Route

Leading a good backpacking trip begins with tailoring the route to the ability of the group. Mileage for mileage's sake usually turns a good trip into an ordeal of endurance that Scouts may not want to repeat. Better to have the Scouts eager to challenge a longer hike or a tougher trail than feel reluctant to try again.

Some Sources of Backpacking Hints, Tips and Wisdom
 Backpacking requires choosing, packing and using gear  selected for its lightest weight and greatest utility; a subject for lengthy conjecture, experimentation and development. I imagine that the ratio of actual trail time is several times less than the endless study of gear and technique - something a real backpacker may enjoy as much as actual backpacking.

Trail Information
Great web resources for trail information

Freezer Bag Cooking - Worth a Look
Freezer bag cooking is easy, inexpensive and an especially great way for Scouts (or anyone for that matter) to prepare food on backpacking trips.

Blisters

While I have managed to avoid blisters myself one or two usually show up on someone during the course of a Troop backpacking trip. Dr. Paul Auerbach has posted a very comprehensive treatise on preventing and treating foot blisters:

To prevent blisters one must minimize friction generated by the normal biomechanical forces of walking and the contributors to friction. The force between the foot and the insole is determined by the weight of hiker as well as any weight being carried. Reducing the magnitude of the forces on the feet can be as simple as reducing the carried load, whether than means losing personal weight or shedding pounds from the backpack. Another way to minimize the force on the feet is to use a padded insole or arch support. This does not technically reduce the force, but it helps to evenly distribute pressure over the bottom surface of the foot, which thereby decreases the tendency for blister formation.

The pain from a blister is due to pressure on the incompressible fluid trapped between skin layers. As the abrasion and pressure builds, there is further weakening and separation of skin layers and increased potential for rupturing the blister. When a blister opens, raw skin is exposed. If a blister is punctured with a needle and drained, it will often refill within a few hours. If a large hole is made that allows continuous fluid drainage, there is risk for tearing off the roof and leaving a large damaged area.

So, there is no one correct way to manage a blister. For every technique and product mentioned, there are at least several different options. The following blister treatments assume that you must continue on your feet, because resting and “staying off your feet” is not an option.

Product Guide
You may have difficulty finding some of these specialized products at your local drugstore. They are available at Amazon
NEW SKIN LIQUID BANDAGE BOTTLE

 

Elastikon Roll - 2 in. x 5 yards

2nd Skin Blister Pads - Box of 5
Blist-O-Ban Adhesive Bandages

Read more about treatments and products in the extended entry

Learning to be light

Tom Mangan at Two Heel Drive reports on his participation in a lightweight backpacking class

Eleven of us sit at tables in a small meeting room in a nondescript office park on the outskirts of Palo Alto. Steve faces us from behind a table containing a blue backpack that looks big enough for moon missions. Steve notes that he routinely toted 60-70 pounds in this leviathan before he saw the light and started trimming his load. While describing his idea of a "lightweight" pack, he opens a zipper and plucks a smaller pack — one that might hold 15 to 20 pounds of gear fully loaded — from the beast’s upper thorax.. Then he starts talking about his "ultralight" pack and snatches a shiny little number from the beast’s lower abdominal cavity...

...For years, one of the primary appeals of backpacking has been the melding of dreadful suffering with wondrous outdoor vistas. Most folks are content to gawk at mountains and forests from their cars or camper vans, but those who insist on seeing them up close have been forced, until recently, to carry equipment built tough enough for Everest expeditions. A few people who were not Sherpas became indignant that lugging a 50-pound pack up a hillside turned an afternoon amid nature’s wonder into hours of praying for the day’s end or death, whichever came first. They made up their minds to enjoy the show and save their shoulders (and knees, hips, ankles and feet), and the lightweight-backpacking movement was born.

Read the whole story - part one, part two

Freezer Bag Cozy

Have you tried freezer bag cooking yet? I am sold on the method - simple, lightweight, inexpensive and reasonably goof proof. Stove Stomper has a great pictorial guide to making your own freezer bag cozy from Reflectix insulation.
via Freezer Bag Cooking Blog

See also
Freezer Bag Cooking - worth a look

Sgt. Rock's Hiking H.Q.

Intrepid and experienced hiker and backpacker Sgt. Rock (Ernest B. Engman) has developed a web site for backpackers that is worth a visit.

Here is his introduction to his section on teaching compass skills -

This is a subject near and dear to my heart. You see, as a NCO in the Army, I have literally taught over a thousand people how to navigate using a map, protractor, compass, and the brain God gave them.  I personally have built or re-built two courses for the Army, and have taught these techniques for woods, desert, and steep mountain like terrain. I have worked with US Army soldiers, kids, and even FBI Agents to impart these skills. So I speak as what I would consider an expert on teaching these skills.

Visit Sgt. Rock's Hiking H.Q.