20mile Hike McKenzie River Trail

McKenzie River Trail - 20miles

August 28th, 2017
McKenzie River Trail
Distance: 20miles
EG:
Completed the full 20miles: 4 adults, and 9 youth (3 older)


Let me first say I am amazed we were able to pull this hike together. The fire season this year has been incredible. We had booked our campground and were ready to do this but.... the fires were just crazy and McKenzie River was just upgraded to a level 3 right before we took off for this hike. Should we have done it? I can only say Yes! Everything worked out, though it sure didn't go as planned. Lots of discussions were had afterward to find ways to improve this adventure. In the end, we would've kept it as is.

We drove down Friday night to set up camp and get our bearings. Drivers were in place, campground secured, fire updates informed, food shopped and prepped, gear check, everything was done now it's just crossing our fingers and hope all goes well. We arrived at our campground with quite a scare as the road to our campground was closed for fire crews. It turned out it was just a few feet down the road was the closure, and the campground was still open. Talk about a scare to see the fire crews right there in your backyard. We set up camp, briefed and packed lunches for the next day's early start.

We jumped on the trail on time. Within a 1.5miles we were already having concerns with one of our scout hikers, for the sake of disclosure, we will call the scout Hopalong C (HC). His feet were already bothering him and he was complaining of pain. Not to mention he got stung by a bee within the first mile. This was not a good sign. The smoke wasn't as bad as we thought it would be, luckily the smoke cleared a bit for our special day. HC continued on with lots of complaining and wasn't feeling the love of the hike. By mile 6 I think this kid was done. He was slowing down completely at the pace of a turtle and not wanting to finish the hike. I sent the others ahead and stayed back with him and one other adult. One of the other kids who were unable to keep up with the fast group stayed behind as well (we will call him Persistent Sam), as I didn't want him hiking by himself. Around mile #8 we convinced HC to take his shoes off and hike the remaining 2 miles barefoot, his feet were blistered, he was chaffed in his private area and was crying inconsolably. This sped him up quite a bit and we were able to make some progress. Unfortunately, at this point, we were hours behind schedule and we're going to struggle to make up the time to finish this hike before dark. One of the parents that were joining at the halfway point decided to come back and meet up with us. I let him take over for me and I went ahead and met up with the rest of the group that had already had too long of lunch. I got all the scouts rallied to take off and continue the hike.


This is where things really started to go nuts. I discontinued the hike for HC, there was no way he was going to be able to continue. Persistent Sam wasn't going to be able to finish either and wasn't interested in it at the time. After getting the team motivated to continue back on the trail I asked for one of the adults to stay back with the adult that stayed with HC. None of the adults were interested in waiting so that he may continue the hike with the rest of us. Finally, his wife agreed to do so. I asked for another youth to stay back as well, as he had been struggling a lot of the hike, and at this point, we couldn't have anyone else slow us down if we were to finish before dark. His mom of course refused and I told them they would have to stay together and that we were not going to wait for them. This may sound heartless, but they were refusing me when I asked them to stay behind. This is a large group for one person to manage and I had to look out for the majority. They were welcome to continue but I couldn't be responsible for them. 

To summarize the rest of the drama, the kid I asked to jump off who's mom refused ended up turning back a mile into the second half of the hike. The dad that was left behind whose wife waited for ended up catching up in record time ( i seriously think they ran!!) The rest of the group was hiking at phenomenal speeds, they wanted to finish. Persistent sam was going to stay behind the last I had heard. The last 10miles of this hike was very hard due to the long day it took to complete. We (the adults) had planned for a squirt gun party at the end of the hike to celebrate the completion of the hike. It was definitely needed because there was a lot of unhappy hikers at the end. The boys had a great time hoseing me down to the point of being completely soaked. I didn't mind, as I knew it made them feel good. Unfortunately, Sage (my son) was so angry about this hike that he refused to talk to me and was shutting down. His feet hurt, his temperament was a complete wreck and he was on the verge of tears. While trying to talk to Sage, Persistent Sam's mom came up to me to ask where her son and husband were. Last I heard they got off the trail at the halfway point. But it turned out dad convinced persistent sam to finish. I was horrified, as I knew in order to finish before dark you would have to be able to keep a pace of at least 4mph, and persistent sam was not able to keep that kind of pace. It was already close to dusk. I'm sure the look of alarm I had on my face did not help the situation. At this point, we sent everyone back to camp and decided to wait to do Belknap springs the next day. Persistent sam's mom and I went out looking for her family. After 2 hours of searching, we were about ready to give up, tears were shed, stress was high and it had been dark for quite some time. We had no idea if they had light and we had talked to everyone we could find. We were about ready to call in Search and Rescue and we found them at a trailhead 2 miles from the end of the hike. Many happy tears were shed and we went back to camp.

Many hikers completed this hike, but many did not. For me, this was a bit traumatic. I had never had kids not finish a hike like this. It was a harsh realization that things don't always go as planned. I also realized that maybe the hiking merit badge should be saved for older scouts. Upon talking to the older youth and their perspective of this hike, they don't believe that the hiking merit badge should be left for older scouts because many of the younger scouts did great on this hike and did complete it. It was enlightening to hear the hope in the older scouts and they all firmly believed that every scout deserves to have the right to complete this merit badge at whatever age they are capable of. This left many unanswered thoughts about how a lot of things went wrong and how we can move forward with success. The smoke never presented a problem, but what did was a lot of the parents. This is a hard transition for parents in scouting because cub scouts are so different than boy scouts. In Boy Scouts, parents are asked to be leaders, not parents, wherein cub scouts parents help is encouraged every step of the way. Moving forward it is my belief that first year Boy Scouts should not participate in Summer program, that parents and families should at least experience the troop as a whole and get used to the program before participating in the summer program. Sadly this does leave out the opportunity of those scouts that are ready for it, but the beauty is that they will have plenty of opportunities to complete it later when they are older. There is really no need to rush their experience instead lets give them the opportunity to succeed.