Spring Break Mini Adventure--Day Five--Wednesday

This is a big day for us.  We will do no more backpacking down the canyon; today we will conceal our camp, don daypacks, and strike out for the Escalante River.  We're not entirely sure where it is.  I didn't plan for us to hike Harris Wash, so I didn't bring a map.  One of the dependable things about a slot canyon, however, is that is almost impossible to get lost.  You are either going up-canyon or down-canyon.

Two passing up-canyon hikers estimate that it will take us two hours to get to the  Escalante.  We load up and take off.  Without the heavy backpacks and with two days of canyon experience under our belts, we fly down Harris Wash.

Spring Break Mini Adventure--Day Four--Tuesday

We got up at 7:00 and started hiking at 9:35.  Spirits were much better; the Scouts had gotten more accustomed to hiking through the water and brush, and we weren't stopping every 15 minutes.  As we moved down canyon, it got narrower and the walls got higher.

Spring Break Mini Adventure--Day Three--Monday

We drove back up the Hole-in-the-Rock Road to the road to Harris Wash, where the high-clearance vehicles proved their worth.  We got to the trail head and began the second stage of Getting Your Act Together.  We planned to stay in the Wash until Friday morning, so we had to carry 12 meals, plus crew gear such as pumps, stoves, water jugs, and the first aid kit. Given that we were organized into two eating crews, we had a total of 24 meals to carry, divided by 13 people.  You do the math. 

Spring Break Mini Adventure--Day Two--Sunday

Another name for this expedition might be the "Learning to Get Your Act Together Tour."  Gear expands to fill whatever vehicle in which it is carried, and it took our campers a lot of effort to fix breakfast, roll up their bedding, pack away their tents, and get ready to roll.  We pulled out at 9:50 AM.

We drove through Hanksville, passed through Capital Reed National Park, then turned left at Torrey and climbed through the Dixie National Forest.  The highest point is 9,600 feet high amid the largest aspen forest I have ever seen.  We dropped into the town of Boulder, Utah, where we stopped at a good coffee place.  From there we drove along one of the more stupendous roads in the Mountain Time Zone.

Spring Break Mini Adventure--Day One--Saturday

Our troop always goes to the Utah desert for Spring Break.  This year we took five crews in all--three to Paria Canyon, and two to the Escalante/Grand Staircase National Monument.  I was with the latter bunch, seven 12-year-olds and a couple of 11-year olds and three of their fathers, so this account will be about them.  

We rendezvoused with the Paria crews at the visitors center in Fruita, where we bid adieu to them and continued to Green River, Utah, where we gassed up, drove west on I-70, and headed down Highway 24 into the wild.  We chose a campsite outside of Goblin Valley State Park.  We go here for a couple of reasons.  First, there's no charge.  Second, we can camp in places where the boys can make all manner of noise.

Going where the helicopters cannot follow

It must have been a slow news week or else Time, Inc. has laid off the people in charge of ferreting out real issues.  The November 30th Time Magazine cover trumpets the dangers of “over parenting,” aka “helicopter parenting.”

This anxious parenting bit is nothing new.  When our sons were in the Montessori School in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the mid-80s, I thought we were in the epicenter of that kind of behavior—“Yes, I know that those are the school rules, but this is our child . . . .”

We see over-parenting in Scouting, but in this organization we have one big advantage over schools and other places who suffer from the parental obsessives:  we take the Scouts where their helicopters cannot follow:  out in the wilderness.

Paria Canyon Paroxysms: BLM website is the pits

Our troop plans to hike Paria Canyon during Spring Break in March.  Paria is a wonderful slot canyon that begins in Utah and comes out at Lees Ferry along the Colorado River in Arizona.  Hikers slosh along--often in the river--for 38 miles.  At its narrowest, the canyon is about 15 feet wide with sandstone walls that go up hundreds of feet.  A wonderful place, but not one to be caught in during a summertime flash flood.  That's one reason we go during Spring Break.