GimletBlog

Editor’s note:  The Gimlet’s friend mentioned in the story below recently celebrated an Eagle Court of Honor for his own Thing One (congratulations!), and while searching for pictures for his ceremony, these photos were found.  And no, they haven’t been run through some fancy Photoshop filter or iPhone app:  these photographs are genuinely old.

Back in the summer of 1984, I was an 18 year-old who had finished one year of college (one quarter at USU and one semester at UNM), and was waiting to go on an LDS mission.  My friend and his parents let me stay at his home while I worked at the same Shell gas station I had worked at during high school.  I remember taking all my earnings, buying ten white shirts, and having very little money left after that.  I also remember my father reading my mission call to me over the phone from our new home in Albuquerque to me while I was at my grandparents’ condo in Thousand Oaks, CA.

I also remember my grandfather being convinced that my cousin and I were going to do something risky and get ourselves killed just before we went on our missions.  My cousin planned to go on a white water rafting trip, but that is another story.  As for me, my friend and I went to Idaho to have my uncle guide us on a climb of the Finger of Fate, which Mountain Project.com describes as a “ridiculously cool looking granite spire in the Hell Roaring Lake area” of the Sawtooth mountain range.  The previous summer, the three of us had successfully summited the Grand Teton.

My memories of the climb are mixture of vague and unbelievably clear.   I vaguely remember the drive to the trail head in my father’s 1981 VW Scirocco (which was soon replaced with a 1984 Scirocco after I left on my mission)  I do not remember how close this was to my August 9, 1984 report date to the MTC.    I remember the trail and the beautiful peak we were going to climb.

Most vivid though is the memory of my uncle not being able to make the last move on the climb to get to the top of the peak.  He is not a big man and his arms were not long enough to reach.

Then I remember my attempt.

I got to the peak and put my arm across the top.  The cliff on the other side was about 1000 feet.  I imagined myself pulling myself over the entire peak and going over the other side.  With that thought, I realized I physically could not force myself to make the move.  At that point I realized in spite of all my dreaming and working toward becoming a great alpinist, I did not have the drive or recklessness to put my life on the line any farther.

I remember my arm across the rock and the look across the top of the peak, but I could not quite get there.  My friend couldn’t make it, either.

We climbed down the mountain without summiting and you can tell from our expressions on this last photo that we were disappointed.

At that time, I might have believed that I was done with mountains, but mountains weren’t done with me.  After my mission (nicknamed “The Mountaintop Mission“), I returned to Idaho, and with my uncle, I climbed the Middle and South Tetons.  Later I summited law school, but in retrospect I often wonder if I should have kept up with mountains of granite, ice and snow.  Now, to steal a thought from Timothy Egan, I live in a city where (on a clear day) I can look around me and see three national parks at one time:  Rainier, North Cascades, and Olympic.

Links for fellow armchair mountaineers:

• Overview of the Finger of Fate from Summitpost.org
• Topo map of the Finger and related hikes from Mountain Zone.com
• Idaho: A climbing guide
• All Fourteen 8,000ers by Reinhold Messner on Amazon.com

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See all the photos from this year’s scout camp in the Gimlet Gallery.

Another summer camp has come and gone.  The staff at Camp Pigott is great and the facilities outstanding.  I am not just saying that because Thing One worked there all summer!

Monday August 1, bright and early we gathered 16 scouts from Troop 175 and headed off to Camp Pigott.  It is about an hour drive there.  We arrived just in time for the flag ceremony and breakfast.

After breakfast, the scouts quickly dropped our gear at our campsite and headed off to merit badge classes.

Once the scouts were on their way, I had work to do in my capacity as District Training Chair.  I headed down to the chapel where I was helping to teach an Introduction to Outdoor Leader Skills course.

An experiment in providing the course to Scoutmasters and Asst. Scoutmasters at camp.  On Tuesday I taught knife, axe, and saw safety.  I had to bring my axe unsheathed because the sheath that was on the axe disappeared once my scouts got hold of it.  “Imagine there is a sheath on this axe.”

On the topic of safety, our most serious injury during a Scout camp occurred this year.

| …continue reading Scoutmaster’s report: Camp Pigott 2011

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Every week we’ve been sending a care package of homemade cookies to Thing One while he’s working on camp staff.  This past week the Gimlet was at camp too with his troop, so we baked a double batch.  Little did we know where the cookies would end up!

A Japanese scout troop from the Hyogo Council was settled in the camp site next to the Gimlet’s troop.  The Gimlet will write up his scout camp report with more details about their neighbors later, so for now we’ll just mention Thing One’s part in the story:

The Japanese troop needed to leave camp one day early to catch their return flight home, so the two troops met for patch trading Thursday evening.  When Boy Scouts from other states, regions, or countries gather together it’s traditional to exchange patches, neckerchief slides, and other small souvenirs.  For example, Thing One exchanged patches and troop T-shirts with scouts from other states at the National Jamboree last year.  At World Jamborees, scouts will usually bring extra unworn uniforms for the sole purpose of exchanging their country’s scout uniform for those from other countries.

In addition to patches (hastily mailed from home along with the cookies, which were shared with the Japanese troop), Thing One brought one of his Jamboree uniforms to the exchange.  It not only featured the Jamboree patches and shoulder tabs, but also the special T’Kope Kwiskwis Order of the Arrow 100th anniversary commemorative patch, an NYLT patch and of course his Eagle Scout rank.

Several of the scouts were very interested in trading for this uniform with so many unique patches, and one of the girl scouts moved faster than the others to seal the deal.  They signed the backs of their uniforms, and the exchange was made.

With the help of this scout patch guide we were able to figure out that she is the equivalent of a First Class scout and a patrol leader.  We don’t know what the little blue and yellow patches with trees represent, or the little round number pins.  Thing One earned similar number pins in Cub Scouts as part of the pack’s literacy program but these were probably earned for different achievements.  The Gimlet’s best guess is that the pins designate number of years in scouting.

Thing One was already pleased to have his staff hat and jacket as souvenirs from his first year of camp staff, but this uniform and the patches he traded for are unexpected and very special mementos.

• Hyogo Tourism Guide
• 23rd World Scout Jamboree in Japan, 2015

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We thought last summer was dismal for gardening, but this summer has been so dark and damp that the best growing crop in Thing Two’s planter box is mushrooms.  The mint and chives are also thriving; in fact the peppermint is nearly as tall as Thing Two.  A few of the tomato blossoms took, so we’re watching the tiny green tomatoes and hoping for more sun.  Thing Two has also been watching two radish tops, and this weekend we decided that the larger of the two wasn’t going to grow any bigger, so we might as well harvest it.

After posing for pictures we had to sample our garden’s bounty.  We managed to cut the radish into three pieces to share.  Thing Two decided it was “very spicy”.

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While he’s working at scout summer camp, Thing One gets to come home Saturday afternoon, spend the night at home, and then The Gimlet drives him back to camp Sunday morning.   His usual work assignment is in the Trading Post, where he makes a lot of popcorn and reports that pocket knives are the top selling item.  He also does extra work around camp as needed, with the result that for the time he is home, our utterly exhausted Thing One does little more than sleep and eat.

The past two Saturdays he’s fallen sound asleep in front of the television after dinner.  It’s a milestone in parenting when mom or dad (or even mom + dad working together) can no longer pick up a sleeping child from the couch and carry him to bed.

All teenage first year staffers have to take a turn running the industrial dishwashing machines for the camp, otherwise known as working in the Dish Pit.  Last week was Thing One’s turn.  It was also the week that the camp was filled to capacity, with over four hundred scouts and scoutmasters using plates, bowls, cups, forks, knives, and spoons for breakfast, lunch, and dinner … and the cooks using pots, pans, and cooking tools to prepare food for them all …

Needless to say Thing One is very glad this week is over, and if he had ever entertained thoughts of a career as a commercial dishwasher, he is now considering other options.   Doing dishes at home doesn’t seem so bad now, either.

Thing One was able to come home a little earlier this week, so he arrived home just as we were heading out to pick up Thing Two from a friend’s birthday party in the park.  Thing Two was delighted to see his big brother and show him off to his friends (a few of whom have big brothers, but not BIG brothers).  And after his long week, Thing One didn’t mind playing with his little brother for a while.

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One of Thing Two’s new favorite creatures is the diatryma, also known as a giant prehistoric terror bird.  We discovered them while reading an encyclopedia of world history, and then he was able to examine a diatryma fossil during dinosaur day camp earlier this month.  When it was time to celebrate Thing Two’s birthday, generic dinosaur-themed desserts were too mainstream for the birthday boy, who specifically requested diatryma cupcakes.  This was a bit of a challenge (the bakeries within our budget don’t offer post-Cretaceous prehistoric designs), but Thing Two was very pleased with the flock(?) (herd? throng?) of diatrymas which greeted him at breakfast that morning.

Some of the cupcakes accompanied Thing Two to summer preschool.   While the original terror bird may have hunted small mammals, today the small preschool-aged mammals eagerly devoured the cupcakes.  Contrary to the expectations of some, diatryma cupcakes don’t taste like chicken.

Thing Two was so excited all day long and his cheerful enthusiasm was contagious.  He had a wonderful birthday and has been enjoying his gifts.

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It’s been a couple of years since the blog was last hacked, but it happened again this week.  Fortunately we’d been backing up the blog weekly, so once we identified the most recent clean backup it was a relatively quick process to restore the blog and reclaim a clean bill of health from Google.  Captchas have been added to the blog comments form for an additional layer of security.  We’ll be working on other ways to keep the blog secure, but for now it’s good to be back.

Thing One may or may not be swinging from the rafters in the Quartermaster’s store, but this weekend he reported for duty on his first day of staff at Camp Pigott.  But first, we had to take a base measurement so we can see if he grows any taller while he’s away for the summer.

We discovered that Thing One has grown half an inch in the past two weeks, putting him at 5’11½”. (Since he spent last week doing little but sleeping, eating, and catching up on Doctor Who, this growth spurt is not too surprising.) Thing Two is fast approaching the 4′ mark as well.

Then, it was time to load up the car and take another picture.  Thing One is already getting into the staff spirit.

We had originally invited Bopa to come along to see Thing One’s camp, if he were feeling well enough to make the trip.  Instead, Hå joined us.

While Thing One and the Gimlet were signing in, the rest of us took a walk along the lake.

| …continue reading There are staffers swinging from the rafters

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