Week 3 just passed:
18062006T2208: Today was a DAMN good day. First I slept in, then in the afternoon, lots of great things happened. I arranged for a wild pig to be kiled and cooked for next thrusday, and used a free ice cream pass from a trooop last week to celebrate. Then while eating it, some Scouts cam up to Cat, the lady climbing instructor who was celebrating with me (I owed her ice cream for a bet on if it was over 100 F on some day), and dropped her all kinds of crazy compliments before asking if she owned a stash of Red Bul they’d seen that wasn’t for sale. They offered 10$ for a can! It was hilarious. And, I got a surprise crew! So I’m leading a crew out for backpacking this week because Mountain Man was overcrowded. Five guys, plus me! Isn’t life grand? And then, Bob the Cavalcade director offered me a parachte he has in his stash to make a tepee with, njust like out of FM 21-76! I never thought I’d ever get to play with one; this’ll be awesome! I read that manual at least 5 times, including that parachute part, and never thought I’d ever get to do that. So, we’ll see. Everything looks promising.
20062006T1515: I am sitting in the OFH (Old Folks Home) with a canteen cup stuffed with ice and a full can of Moutain Dew in it. After today’s uneventful, pleasant day hike where I got some nice pictures, I am ready to commit to paper the stressful experiences of yesterday.
The morning passed uneventfully, with the exception of a fat Scoutmaster who fell asleep on the couch here in the OFH from early morning to lunch. The old guy looked dead, and it took me a worrisome 3-4 minutes to rouse him. He apparently pulled the same stunt again that afternoon till dinner, and everyone was in awe of his ability to take long, snoring brath intakes that seemed to go forever. But anyhow, in the afternon I ended up prepping hard and fast for the crew we pulled from the overcrowded Mountain Man. We bottomed out at 3 people: Myself, a 14 year old named Ben, and another adult 18 year old named Robert, who was there for out 2 deep leadership requirement. We put together a good plan that had us only carrying a breakfast, lunch, and dinner with all else provided by extra food Cavalcade had. With Bob the Cavalcade director’s help, our range was really extended. However, I discovered rather traumatically that Robert wasn’t mature enough. He really was a huge drag on everything.
We started well enough on the Green Trail headed to Mountain Man Camp. After making Mountain Man without incident, we headed on looking next to connect to the Silver trail. This is where the trouble started: we missed the Silver and hit Needle Rock. This wasn’t too bad; it was only a couple hundred yards of winding trail from Mountain Man camp to Needle Rock, plus there were Mountain Man Scouts passing by continuously who could help us. But Robert decided that we wouldn’t go back the way we came; we’d take “shortcut” over the mountain. How this guy stayed in Scouting so long without learning seemingly anything amazes me now; after all , how many getting lost scenarios start out with taking a “shortcut”? So he charges the mountain and he’s climbing before I can convince him otherwise. I follow because this guy is on my hike and I feel responsible for his well-being. We make it halfway up the mountain before he stops. I take out the map and compass to figure where we are, but I’m unsuccessful, because all the moutain tops look out of place, so my resection fails. All I can clearly see is Needle Rock, so I take a bearing and use a rough distance estimate from my eyeball to figure where we are. We dig out the Garmin GPS unit I’ve been issued, try to use it, and it fails because it can’t get a lock on three satellites for a position. Robert insists at this point that if we reach the top of this mountain, which doesn’t lok far away, we’ll be able to see over the top to the Silver Trail and catch it. Another ten minutes up the hill, I call another stop and again attempt to locate us. Again, I can only see Needle Rock and the GPS won’t give us coordinates again. I get worried. Robert still insists we can make the Silver “over the hill” and to me, the top seems to be moving farther and farther away. Up till this point, I’ve ignored the warning bells sounding loud in the back of my mind, putting a little faith in that maybe Robert knows something I don’t because Ranger Dan and our High Adventure Director Janene knew this guy from a previous summer camp and they have faith in him by sending him on this trip with me. Now, I ask him point blank if he knows where we are, and when he hesitates, I push: “You don’t know where we are, do you?” He has no answer, but again insists if we hit the top we’ll find our way. I’m extremely suspicious of hi abilities now. Then, I do a water check, seeing how much we have. Ben has a quart and a quarter, Robert has a quart and a half, and I’m at just under two. Robert insists that’s enough to get there. I look at the map and show it to him; even if we do find the trail and continue on it without incident, we still won’t have enough to make it to Eskondido where Bob is. Robert says we’ll be fine. Now I know he’s ignorant and incompetent, and all the more dangerous because he’s strong and overconfident. He’s strong and stupid enough to take us far enough off the trail so that when we collapse, SAR will have a bear of a time finding and carrying us out, if they find us. I make a command decision: We need to go to Mountain Man camp now to get more water ASAP. We’re not lost because we can still see Needle Rock, but we’re getting mighty close to attaining that status with Robert.
It takes me 10-15 minutes to prevail upon him with this view; to soften the blow to his ego and distract from the main issue, I have us all take pictures of the view. Then we start back to Needle Rock. We manage to get down without incident; Robert gets there ahead of us to where Mountain Man Bob happens to be, and goes to the camp with him. We meet up in the camp, I tell Bob what’s happened so far, and he is unimpressed with Robert’s performance. He tells me that Socks the supply horse, is going to be picked up and sent back to camp, but probably not before 18:30, dinner in camp. Their water is also chlorinating, so I have a few minutes to think. I opt to head back to camp, to catch dinner without the benefit of the extra adult supervision going with the horse, figuring we made it this far without incident, we can make it back alright. When the water finishes purifying, I do another water check. Ben emmediately tells me he has a quart when I ask how much water he has, but Robert doesn’t. “How much water do you have?” I ask Robert. “Enough,” he replies. This exchange repeats verbatim twice more, at which point I’m pissed and cooly state, “Specify a number.” At this point he tells me a quart and a quarter. Bob witnesses and is very unimpressed by this exchange. It’s bravado and ego getting in the way of my ability to keep the crew safe.
I order them to both fill to 2 quarts, then do so myself, and we start off. Robert is far ahead and refuses to slow down for Ben or I although we’re more tired from the climb. He stops every now and again to let us catch up, but always is off before we’re too close. He finally goes the wrong direction on the Green; although the trail follows the creek bed, the trail proper goes over easier terrain. I realize we’re off when I hit brush that’s not supposed to be there; efforts to call Robert back are in vain. I finally go along because I know that we’ll get to camp eventually followin the stream bed; it’s just a harder route.
5-10 minutes later, I hear noise on the left and I call out. It’s Elizabeth, one of the wranglers on horseback, out to pick up Socks. I call to Robert, who looks back in acknowledgement, and tell him to come back and follow me left onto the trail. Elizabeth talks and makes noise I can guide on, and i make the trail with Ben close behind. I then look back and Robert is nowhere to be seen. I call for him 5 times with no response. Elizabeth can’t see him from horseback, although she says she did see himn further up the trail after we describe Robert. She convinces me not to call SAR, but to walk up the trail a bit and see if Robert is there. We then go our ways, and I thanked God profusely when I found Robert walking back up the trail towards us. It was very hairy for a few minutes there though, knowing only that this guy was somewhere between me and camp with an ever expanding circle on a map in my mind representing his location.
We started again, and again Robert outpaced us. He finally went out of sight again, and after calling him to stop with no response, I dug out my whistle and blew 2 blasts, waited a few seconds, then did it again. This is a well known international system; 1 loud noise for slow down, 2 for stop, and 3 for help. I confidently expected him to heed that; everyone who’s been in Boy Scouts any length of time knows about that. So we continue round the bend, no Robert. We go on, I sound another 2 blasts. We round another corner, no Robert. Then we hit camp. I’m again freaked out; we’ve hit camp and he ain’t there, he could be on some side trail or something stupid and I’ve missed him. So we go into camp, and I hope he’s somewhere at his troop site. Ben drops his gear and gets his class A uniform for dinner, and as we continue going along I finally see Robert in front of his campsite on the road. He slowly claps his hands in a mocking cheer, as if to say “So glad you made it!” which infutiates me to no end. I get him back though; under the guise of “making everything all better tomorrow,” I get him to write his full name and Troop number. I’ve got him now; now everyone knows who this guy is and we can mark him.
And so the day ended. I sagged with relief after leaving them both, and cooled down with a quart of gatorade for 5-10 minutes in the OFH before going to dinner in full uniform. I’d radioed into base at Mountain Man camp, so they knew to tell Cavalcade not to worry. I couldn’t eat much at dinner though, and went to bed early after an informal debriefing with the office staff, the Outback director, and the High Adventure Director. I stated I had witnesses of 2 staff members of Robert’s behavior, plus one unknown adult leader who was sitting next to Bob in Mountain Man camp who also saw everything. My story spread around camp, and I fully informed the camp director of events this morning. Robert happened along at the end of the report, and unwittingly reinforced my story by rehashing the argument that we had enough water and should have pushed on to the mountain top when I ordered us to turn back. I then left to maintain composure and joined the breakfast line while David the camp director had a long talk with Robert.
Thus far, I’ve heard disconnected rumblings, spread probably by Robert, that I’m not a competent Ranger, and got the trip lost. I’m viciously happy that my precautions and political skills were top-notch for the occasion and entirely quashed the counter-accusation I knew would come. Success is very gratifying.
My self-critique hasn’t found anything, and everyone I’ve talked to said I did everything as right as could be. I suppose this is how you build character, eh?
It’s funny to look back on now, but if they try to tack on anymore character, they might kill me. It makes me cheerful to commit this story to paper; what do you think, dear reader?
21062006T1533: Camp has a new map! It’s outstanding, with more labels, better accuracy in the already printed trails, and excellent gridlines. So, using this map, coordinates for Needle Rock are 30d49′03″N, 103d58′07″W, and camp is roughly centered at 30d48′40″N, 103d56′44″W. The coordinate system is WGS84, aka standard latitude and longitude. The Green Trail follows the valley west of camp. Combine coordinates with Google Earth and tell me what you get! This will be a fun experiment. The seconds are unfortunately estimated by eye, but you should get pretty close to the places mentioned in yesterday’s stories.
Robert, the jerk who wouldn’t be managed, has now boasted that he walked to the Notch in 15 minutes, which is at 30d48′45″N, 103d58′22″W. This is patently absurd; Jordean the Outback Director who has been here for years, made it there in a bit over 15 minutes once in a maximum speed run. Look at the valley; it’s ridiculous. We all know he’s lying. It’s hilarious. Less funny are some rumors he’s spread about me being incompetent, but I suppose you can’t win everything. Life is very good here; I’m rather cheerful.
25062006T1539: I tried to post to my blog yesterday, but a new tack is being tried to restrict access to the ‘Net. The Win98 box’s connection networking settings had the phone number removed, since apparently everyone knows the password. I’ll have to get the phone number so I can use the Internet on a regular basis. A valuable lessong learned for the future: always have a working phone modem when traveling. Since many establishments have at least the most cursory dialup Internet, once I have the login information, I can login from any phone line within the area code. And since phone lines are fairly common, this means I’ll have good, easy access. Unfortunately, this means I’d need a modem, and I unfortunately left my PCMCIA card modem at home. Perhaps CentOS has support for Winmodems now; I hope so. It’d mean I could independently get a connection inside the area code off any phone line. Otherwise, I’m stuck on the office system. We’ll see.