“Heave ho, let’s go! Pack it in and pack it out, leave no trace without a doubt!”

The chorus of the Boy Scout’s voices chanted all along the trail. Some were loud and eager but most just mumbled along, loud enough to be heard and avoid being chastised for being too quiet by the leaders.

It was too early in the morning for hiking chants, in my opinion. I wanted to enjoy the peace and quiet, listen for the birds or other animals. Everyone has their own views on how the outdoors should be enjoyed, I guess. I loved the mountains and often went hiking with my family. These mountains were much wilder than the ones I was used to. The trees were much denser and the rocky outcroppings of shale stood out in stark contrast to the evergreens.

This was my first big, multi-day campout with the scout troop and my mixed feelings about the whole endeavor were not new. I didn’t really have any close friends in the troop, more like acquaintances that I knew really well. We’d been in the same troop together for years and, for the most part, everyone got along pretty well. They were good guys; I was just a bit shy and didn’t share many interests with the rest of them.

The troop leader, Brent, lived down the street from me and probably had the most camping experience of all the leaders. He knew how to start a good fire, could tie most knots, and was used to doing a lot of other outdoor activities. He didn’t chant while we hiked along the trail and I appreciated that. What the other leaders lacked in skill they made up for it with enthusiasm. Brent’s two councilors, Dan and Chet, had been on numerous overnight camping trips, but not many multi-day ones. They both lead the pack of scouts along the trail, setting the pace and enforcing the chants.

For my own part, the only multi-day camping trips I’d ever been on were when I’d gone with my dad and uncles to go hunting and they’d always been in charge of the planning and packing. Still, I’d gleaned enough to feel moderately prepared for the trip. My pack was a sturdy, canvas and steel rod hiking pack I’d found at a secondhand store. The padding was long gone, though, and so there were several places where I could feel nuts and bolts poking into me. The only saving grace was the hip strap that bore most of the weight. Not many of the other scouts had a pack with a hip strap and I could tell just by looking at them how much of a difference it made.

I fished a granola bar from a side pouch on my pack and took my time eating it since Dan had noticed I wasn’t chanting along. As long as I was chewing I would have an excuse not to join in.

For the most part, the morning was fairly uneventful. We were only going a few miles in from where we’d parked the trucks since there were a couple scouts in our troop who struggled with physical exertion. By lunchtime we’d reached the spot where we would be camping. I sat down on a fallen tree and slung my pack off and onto the ground. My tent was strapped to the back of the pack and I was just about to begin loosening the straps that held it in place when Dan walked by.

“Hold on there,” he said with a wave, “don’t set up your tent just yet.”

Dan walked over to Brent and Chet and the three of them began a quiet conversation. There was enough commotion and conversation from the other scouts that I couldn’t hear what the three leaders were discussing but I could tell from their expressions that Dan and Chet were trying to sell some idea to Brent, who looked doubtful.

Dan and Chet were always looking for ways to, as they saw it, enhance our experiences. When we went on our last winter campout, they wanted to build a snow cave to sleep in so that we wouldn’t need to pack in tents. I packed my tent anyway, Be Prepared, and all that. After several failed attempts at digging out a snow cave to sleep in, the scouts all piled into my tent and the leaders slept in the bed of Brent’s truck. It wasn’t until after the camping trip that Dan admitted he’d gotten the idea for a snow cave after watching a news story about a group of scouts who’d died when their snow cave collapsed on top of them.

Hence my apprehension when the leaders called out for us to gather around for an announcement.

“We’re not making camp here,” Dan said with enthusiasm. “There’s a much better spot just a couple more miles along the trail. We’re going to eat some lunch and then hit the trail once more.”

There were a few moans of complaint from the scouts, myself included.

“What’s wrong with this spot?” one of the scouts asked.

“There’s not enough spots here for all our tents,” Chet said even though we were in a wide clearing that clearly had room enough and to spare.

“No one’s going to know where we’re at,” I pointed out.

“We’ll know where we are just fine,” Dan said.

“No, I mean no one besides us,” I corrected. “We told people this was where we’d be.”

“What does that matter?” Dan asked. “No one else is going to be joining us up here.”

“It’s just, if something happens to us and they need to come looking for us –

“Man, calm down,” Chet interrupted me. “Nothing’s going to happen to us. Besides,” he added, “I’ve got my cellphone in case we need to call for help.”

I stared at him, dumbfounded. Didn’t he know cell phones wouldn’t work out here?

“He’s right, though,” Brent said before I could find my words. “We should at least leave a note here that’s easy to find so if anyone does come looking for us they’ll know we’ve moved up the trail a bit.”

Dan and Chet shrugged and left it to Brent to make the note, which he tucked into a sandwich bag and then pinned to a tree.

“Remind me to grab it on our way back out,” he said to us all.

I pulled a can of soup from my bag and drank it down cold. While I ate I looked around at the other scouts. All they seemed to be eating were twinkies and candy. I hadn’t packed any candy myself, preferring to save on the weight of my pack since the foods I had to bring were mostly canned and therefore already pretty heavy.

“Let’s head out!” Chet called after about fifteen minutes.

I zipped my pack shut, swung it onto my back, and joined the group as we began the hike. At first it wasn’t all that bad, but after a couple hours people began to ask the age-old question of how much further we needed to go. The answer was just as ancient, that we would get there soon.

The longer we hiked, the more pronounced the differences in physical fitness from one scout to the next became. What had once been a tight line of scouts along the trail began to have gaps. Those at the front would stop and wait for those at the back, but once the slower ones had caught up, the lead hikers would resume their march. The result was that the slower hikers never got much of a rest and they slowed down even more.

“We’re sending an advance party ahead,” Dan announced after one such stop. “We’ll get there and begin setting up camp so that when the rest of you get there you won’t have as much work to do.”

The advance party was made up of Chet, Dan, and the faster hikers of our troop.

“Aren’t we supposed to stick together?” I asked. “You know, only go as fast as the slowest member?”

It was a phrase often repeated in our planning meetings leading up to the camping trip but now that it was being brought up both Dan and Chet waved it away.

“Brent’s agreed to stay behind with the rest of the scouts so it’s all good,” Dan explained.

“So is the advance party taking everyone else’s tents to set up?” I asked.

“What? No, don’t be ridiculous,” one of the scouts in the advance party replied.

“So, how’re you going to set up camp for the rest of us?”

“Look,” Dan said, “we need to get going if we’re going to make it before sunset, so no more questions.”

I shook my head. Sunset? We were still high Summer when the sun wouldn’t set for several more hours. How far were we hiking in? So much for going only a couple more miles along the trail. I watched as the advance group pressed on and then disappeared. Everyone else took a short break and then we pressed onward once again as well. The horizon was difficult to see though the trees but I could tell from the heaviness in the air that a storm was building. Late afternoon downpours were common and I was glad I’d packed a few rain ponchos.

As the first raindrops began to fall I slipped the thin plastic poncho over my head. I’d made sure to get some that were extra large so they could cover my pack as well. For a while I thought I’d lucked out but then the trail began to shift into a stream. My hiking boots were great for hiking, but waterproof they were not. The cold water soaked quickly through to my feet and before long my teeth were chattering. Looking around I realized I was the only one wearing a poncho. Even Brent, whom I had expected to be just as prepared as I was, if not more, was soaked through.

“I’ve got some extras,” I offered, holding out the plastic sealed packages that each contained a poncho.

“Too late for us now,” Brent said tersely and left it at that.

Within the next hour the first big meltdown occurred. Jim, the smallest of the group, began to cry. Besides the leaders, we were all in our mid to late teens, and so for Jim to begin crying was a testament to how rough it was for him. No one told him to suck it up, or anything like that, but neither did we really know what to do for him.

“Give me your pack,” I said at last.

Jim let it drop from his shoulders almost at once. I grabbed it as quickly as I could to keep the bottom from soaking up any of the muddy water, though it felt as though it were already waterlogged from all the rain. I wore his pack on my chest, over my poncho to keep from getting wet from the wet pack. We carried on that way for another hour or so but my own strength wasn’t enough to keep going with the two packs. We began taking it in turns, carrying Jim’s pack in addition to our own.

The rain stopped at about the same time that Paul, the next smallest member of our troop, broke down crying.

“I’m cold, I’m tired, I’m hungry,” he sobbed. “Can we just turn around and go home?”

Brent pulled the small pack that Paul had been carrying off and began to look through it.

“Let’s just get you some food and you’ll feel better,” Brent said. “The rest of you, why don’t we have an early dinner and then we can get going again.”

Brent continued to rummage around in Paul’s pack a while longer, his expression darkening all the while.

“Where’s your food?” he finally asked.

“I didn’t bring any,” Paul whimpered. “I figured since you said the leaders would provide dinners and breakfasts, that I could just skip lunches. That way I wouldn’t have to pack as much.”

“I don’t remember that,” Brent said. “You scouts were always expected to bring all your own food.”

“I do,” I said, and the rest of the scouts nodded in agreement.

“Do you mean to tell me that you only packed lunches?” Brent asked us, shocked and more than a bit upset.

“I packed food,” I said, but no one else spoke up and I could tell from their expressions that they were all in a similar situation to Paul and had skimped on their food to save on weight. “But it’s only enough for me,” I added quickly when several pairs of hungry eyes turned to my pack.

“Fine,” Brent huffed and pulled some jerky out of his pack and began handing it out to the others. “Eat it quick and let’s get going. I think the rain’s going to start up again soon.”

Everyone was quiet after that. We were now passing both Jim’s and Paul’s pack around and Brent’s prediction about the rain turned out to be accurate as heavy drops of rain pounded down on us. Inch by inch, step by step, we began to spread out along trail once more. Jim and Paul had to stop frequently. No one said anything against them since they both had known health issues. In fact, it had long been debated as to whether or not they should even be allowed to go on the trip. Part of the reason why our initial camp site had been selected was because of Jim and Paul’s physical limitations.

Still, with the day wearing on and there still being no sign of the camp site, everyone was growing impatient. I stayed back with Jim and Paul, and for a while Brent did too, but eventually even he had had enough.

“I’m taking these guys on ahead,” he told Jim, Paul, and me. “We’ll send some of the others back to help once we get to camp.”

With that, Brent handed Jim and Paul their packs back to carry and then left us. I was the youngest of the three, and yet they each looked to me now to lead them. The problem was, I’d never been to this camp site. Every story I’d ever heard about scouts getting lost in the woods began to play through my mind.

“Alright,” I said in as cheerful and confident a voice as I could muster, “let’s get going.”

The rain didn’t let up as the shadows lengthened and the sky began to darken even further. We stopped frequently and both Jim and Paul sniffled more often than the rain alone would explain, but none of us complained. We had all silently agreed that the situation was a bad one but seeing as none of us could do anything about it we didn’t feel the need to say it out loud.

I gave them each a granola bar after another couple hours of hiking and that seemed to cheer them up slightly. For my part, I was barely containing my panic. There were several times that the trail vanished, wiped away by the rain and runoff, and I had to search ahead for where the trail picked back up. Other times the trail seemed to branch off in multiple directions. Each time I tried to look for footprints in the mud or other signs of people passing through. From time to time I found candy wrappers and used them like breadcrumbs to lead the way. I also tucked the wrappers in my poncho’s pocket to return to whichever scout was leaving them behind.

At long last, a couple members of the so-called advance party met us on the trail. By this time I was exhausted. I had been alternating between carrying Jim’s and Paul’s packs so that they could each have a break. I wasn’t very physically strong, however, and so my back, shoulders, and pretty much every other joint in my body was burning with pain from the strain. And yet, regardless of how tired and sore I was, it was nothing to the other two. Jim and Paul were limping along, figuratively and literally, while we all moved at a snail’s pace.

The two scouts who’d come back for us took Jim’s and Paul’s packs and put them on. Guilt shone on their faces as they began to turn to leave us once again and they instead scooped Jim and Paul up to carry them in their arms.

“We’ll be back for you,” they called over their shoulders and were gone.

I was too tired to follow for some time. I hoped that this meant we were close and that there wasn’t much further to go. The clouds above finally cleared and the early evening sky lit up with warm sunlight. The rivulets of runoff that had flown down the trail dried up and I took advantage of the improved weather to swap out my soaked hiking boots and sock for dry socks and my regular shoes. I always found hiking boots to be too uncomfortable for regular use and so I’d packed my sneakers to use around camp.

The improvement in my mood was immediate. I stopped shivering and the aches in my body lessened. I ate one more granola bar and a can of soup before resuming my hike. The trail was still just as hard to follow as before, however, and my fears of getting lost soon returned. As an hour passed, and then another, and sunset was passed and gone, I began to wonder at the various branching trails and if perhaps they were the ones I was supposed to follow.

My fears were, fortunately, never realized and I eventually made it into camp. There was no camp fire, the wood was all far too wet to light, and everyone was busy trying to set up camp. What exactly the advance party had done with their time I had no idea. The scouts and leaders were all setting their tents up on the side of a hill beneath some trees. There were several little ribbons of dirt and leaves weaving through the area; signs of where the rain had made impromptu streams.

“That area’s going to be flooded every time it rains,” I warned them but it was without much hope.

“Dude, the ground’s so soft here,” I heard one of them remark. I set up my tent a little way away on a higher piece of ground that felt solid beneath my feet.

There was a line hung out in camp for damp clothes to dry on. I added my socks and hiking boots to it and then pinned my poncho over them in case it rained again. I made sure not to pin the poncho too tightly so that there could still be good airflow, otherwise I knew my socks and shoes would never dry.

“Alright,” Dan called out, “I’ve found some good firewood for us but it’s going to take everyone to get it.”

We followed him a short way into the woods until we reached another clearing. In the center of the clearing stood a long dead tree. It was perhaps fifteen or twenty feet tall and Chet had lassoed it with a rope.

“It’s gonna be like a big tug of war,” Chet announced.

I looked over at Brent and was glad to see concern on his face.

“Come on now guys,” he said to Dan and Chet, “it’s got to be dry, dead, and down. This is only one of those.”

“Well, what do you suggest?” Chet asked and there was a sudden bit of impatience in his voice. “We’ve combed this whole area and there’s nothing better than this.”

“Do we have an ax?” one of the scouts asked. “Can’t we just chop it down?”

“Best we have is a hatchet,” Dan admitted, “so chopping this down is out of the question.”

“How’re we going to chop it into firewood once it’s down then?” the same scout asked.

“We’ll brace it against the hill at an angle and then jump on it to snap it,” Dan replied.

He and Chet then began to line everyone up, handing them the rope to pull on. I gave the rope a small tug between my hands. It stretched slightly. Great. This was nothing but a giant rubber band with us on one side and the tree on the other. If the tree did break, the rope would pull us right into its path. The alternative was that the rope would snap and we’d all be flung to the ground.

“Make sure there’s nothing around you could hit your head on,” I said as we began to pull.

As I suspected, the rope began to stretch. We kept pulling and with each step backwards I became more and more nervous. With an almighty noise of cracking and splintering wood, the tree gave way. The moment I felt any slack on the rope I dove to the side, hoping to land out of the path of the tree. I landed and rolled and didn’t stop moving until I felt the ground thud beneath me as the tree hit the ground. Everyone was splayed out on the ground. Those who let go of the rope mostly fell backwards whereas those who tried to hold on were yanked forwards. Fortunately, no one had been crushed by the tree, with only a few being cut by whipping branches.

And then we saw Dan. He was lying on his back where he’d fallen and his eyes were fluttering. Beneath his head was a large, wide rock. Chet grabbed him and pulled him into a sitting position.

“Dan, DAN!” he shouted while Dan’s head lolled about, semiconscious.

“Wha’s gha…gooeen on?” Dan’s slurred speech was difficult to understand

“We need to check his pulse,” one scout was saying.

“He could have a neck injury,” another added, grabbing Dan’s head and turning it from side to side as though trying to detect signs of damage.

I was horrified. If Dan did have a neck injury, twisting his head was the last thing he needed. However, it was most obvious to me that he at least had a concussion.

“Do you know where you are?” Chet asked.

“Huh?” Dan looked around and there was only confusion on his face.

“What’s your name?” Chet asked

“Mm…ma nam…I…uh…”

“Don’t worry,” Chet cried out with dawning triumph in his voice. “I’ve got my cell phone.”

Scouts cheered as he pulled it out and dialed 911. His reaction when it failed to connect would have been humorous had it not been such a serious situation.

“You need to be within a mile or something of a cell tower to have reception,” a scout said after Chet’s third failed attempt to make his call.

“But, I thought you could just call from anywhere,” Chet said in defeat.

“That’s only with satellite phones, I think,” the scout replied.

“Okay, well,” Chet muttered, think hard, “I’m going to hike back out until I can get reception. Going to travel fast and light.”

“Make sure you take some food and water with you,” Brent said but Chet was already heading off to the trail. “Okay everyone, let’s get Dan back to camp. We’ll keep him comfy and maybe he can just sleep it off.”

“WHAT!?” I cried out. “No! Do not let him fall asleep. That’s the worst thing to do for a head injury.”

I tried to push my way through the press of bodies all trying to help Dan but was pushed back.

“We’ll handle this,” Brent growled and he lifted Dan into a fireman’s carry, leading the way back to camp.

It began to rain again.

I had a spare poncho in my back pocket and put it on quickly as the rain turned from a light drizzle into a heavy downpour within minutes. I stayed in the clearing for some time, just staring at the direction of camp. I couldn’t see it through the trees but every once in while I heard snippets of voices. What would they do with Dan? Would they try to put him to sleep? I wasn’t sure what the consequences of that would be, only that it was heavily stressed in our first aid class that that was a very bad thing to do. I also wondered about how Chet was faring. He’d probably have to hike all the way back to the cars before he could get a call through, and then what? How fast could help get to us out here?

It was properly dark by the time I had the will power to force myself to go back to camp. Even before I reached my tent I knew something else had gone wrong. Scouts were complaining loudly about their tents being swamped and their belongings being even more soaked. I felt a pang of guilty satisfaction. However, when I reached my tent I found all of my belongings had been thrown out onto the ground and were just as soaked as everyone else’s. I opened the tent and found Brent sitting beside Dan who was lying unconscious beside him.

“Scouts aren’t allowed in leaders’ tents,” Brent said shortly.

“This is my tent,” I said with rising anger of my own.

“Well all the other tents are soaked and Dan needed someplace dry to sleep.”

“So you just threw all of my things out into the rain?” I demanded. “I’m not the one who put my tent in a flood zone!”

“Get out!” Brent hissed and then recovered somewhat. “Just go and eat some dinner with the rest of the scouts.”

“Fine,” I shot him an angry glare and zipped the tent door shut once more.

I gathered up my things bast I could in the dark. It was as if they had literally thrown my things out of the tent with the intent of scattering my belongings as much as possible. I found my clothes and toiletries well enough, but what I didn’t find was my food. It was then that I caught sight of the other scouts, gathered around a few camp lanterns, and realized they were all eating. Eating out of cans of soup. Cans of soup that looked a lot like the ones I had packed and was now no longer able to find.

Besides Dan recovering, the camping trip did not improve from there. It was those four days that made me realize why so many scouts go missing or get injured each year on camping trips. On the second day I watched as several of the scouts took dares to sneak up on some moose, and then watch them run for their lives while it tried to charge them down. By the third day I succumbed to the bad decision making, having one scout roll boulders down a cliff while I stood below to take pictures. I was nearly crushed on more than one occasion.

It wasn’t all bad, though. We learned to fish with our hands once the food I’d packed ran out, and several roots and leaves were tested to see if they were edible by the more adventurous scouts who thought plain fish didn’t taste good. Once they recovered they found plain fish to be just fine.

The stars were by far the best part of the trip. Since all but my tent were flooded, and Dan refused to relinquish my tent even after he regained his senses since his was among the worst of the flooded tents, we mostly slept under the stars. I don’t think I’d ever been able to see the stars with such clarity. It was during that trip that I learned to pick out the constellations, something that’s much easier to do when the stars are so bright.

On the whole, I concluded that scout camping trips were not my thing. I enjoyed hearing tales from the others whenever they’d return from one misadventure or another. The others seemed to find enjoyment in them, at least. For my part, I liked hearing about their trips far more than I ever did going on them.