By Colin T.
Troop 101 Historian
Imagine trying to sleep on the bare
ground, only to open your eyes to see hordes of earwigs crawling toward your
nose. You turn your head quickly
only to see a large green spider scurrying past your head. You look up and see a mosquito hawk
dive-bombing toward your left ear.
Such a sleepless night I recently had while learning to survive in the wilderness!
Incarnation Boy Scout Troop 101 recently
completed a weekend backpack to Henninger Flats above Pasadena. As part of the trip, we worked with
park rangers to earn our Wilderness Survival Merit Badge. We reached Henninger Flats on a Friday
evening after hiking several miles up the mountain. Saturday morning we met with the rangers and began working
on a service project. We cleared
out all the weeds on a trail, and it was here that we built shelters that
night. We also attended presentations
throughout the day on first aid, pointers on how and where to build a shelter,
and the importance of wilderness survival. A good part of Saturday afternoon was spent creating our
shelters. We weren’t allowed
to use tarps, so the scouts decided to make one big shelter out of their
ponchos taped together.
When midnight arrived, there I was in the
makeshift shelter with my new best buddies: Nicholas, David, Richard, Willie, Paolo and Josh. Throughout the night, we played cards
and other games, and then we tried to sleep in what were the most cramped,
uncomfortable positions. But guess
what? We survived! The next morning, we also survived
taking a test on our newfound survival skills. In all, it was an interesting weekend, and I’m ready
to put my survival skills to use if I ever need to use them.