Every Troop has their own unique way of organizing their annual planning. In Troop 136 we ask the scouts to turn in their list by June 1 of each year, with the conference scheduled for the second week of that month. During the conference the adult and scout leadership go over the selections and determine what is feasible, what is plain nuts (skydiving over Disneyland), and what we might be able to pull off (the somewhat crazy in-between).
One of the more popular type of outing that the Troop organizes every few years is a bush-whack. This is where we find a place, usually up in the Sierras off the I-80 or US 50 corridors, and take the scouts off-trail in country where they have to rely on their orienteering skills in order to find their designated campsites (please don't worry -- we have done this many times and have always brought back at least a piece of all our scouts :-)
Sure enough, as our Scoutmaster went down the list the scouts had added the term "bush whack" to the many types of adventures they wanted to have. Now, in a perfect world the scouts would have qualified this with a "bush whack to..., or "bush whack in so-and-so national forest." Considering the scouts range from ages 12 to 18 we are happy enough that they tell us, in some form of teen-speak, what it is they want to do. The rest of it is simply brainstorming and seeing how much trouble our own adolescent minds (by the way, one of of the prerequisites of becoming an ASM is that your sense of adventure must be on par with - or at least equal to - the average 17-year-old.)
The trick to designing a bush whack is keeping it new, interesting and very different from the last one. Which is why we only schedule one every two or three years. This way, the younger guys hear about the last one from the older scouts, and we keep it fresh for the older guys who tend to think that once they survived one, the next will be a piece of cake.
The last time we had organized a serious bush whack trip was three years before, so we were due for another. The last one took place near Carr Lake, in the Lakes Basin area off Hwy 20 and I-80. Using Carr Lake as a base camp, we sent pairs of scouts 15 minutes apart on a cross-country course up toward their final destination at Crooked Lakes. All of the scout pairs got lost at least once, somehow made it to their correct campsites, survived a night in the rain without tents, and came back with a virtual treasure chest of stories to tell.
Now it was time to do it again...
I had read somewhere about a crashed B-17 that was located in the Sierras. I mentioned the fact and one of our newer ASMs, Tom Moore, jumped on it. The outing that developed is his brainchild and I am positive it will go down in the history of the troop as one of the greatest outings of all time...
Working with a few of our older scouts, Tom was able to create an outing plan that not only challenged our scouts physically and mentally, but threw in a bit of previously unknown military history as well.
After several months of preparation and research a day trip was organized for a handful of ASMs and older scouts to head up to the crash location and see if we could successfully locate the wreckage. On June 8 we left temperatures of 108 in Sacramento for the cooler 90 degree temp of the Sierras. By 11 AM we were on site and began our search for the wreckage.
***A quick note about the research we did in the months before this outing. Tom spent a lot of time talking to people he knew who had been up there and searching the web for any information he could find. From what we could tell, the way our hike developed was much different than the path taken by others to the crash site. Since half the fun is doing your own research and finding your own way to the site I will leave the trail descriptions rather vague. If you would like more information, especially in coordinating a troop outing in the same area we organized ours please send me a note.***
The parking lot at the trail-head was much larger than we expected and I noted that our troop, or any troop for that matter, could easily prepare a car camp at the location. After walking less than 10 minutes we came to a large clearing that could easily be used as backpack camp or even portable base camp for large unit activities. Beyond the clearing we followed the trail for another mile before we came to the spot where we needed to work our way cross country. Taking a bearing on our compasses and double checking our GPS we stepped off the trail and into wild country.
Bush whack time...
My son Gavin taking a break off-trail.
Scouts double checking their maps?
On the way to the crash site.
The right wing crash site.
Me at the main crash site.
The propeller housing.
On the way to the tail section...this isn't so bad.
We quickly found our way blocked by some of the thickest and roughest terrain in the Sierras. Only by sheer determination did we manage to find our away across a foliage choked creek crossing and almost impenetrable tree filled gully. Once across and on the other side we were faced with a very steep ridge-line. It was at this point some of us were wondering if it was even worth bringing the troop this far. The scouts made up our minds for us and continued on, climbing half way up the ridge then making their own trail across as they searched for the tail wreckage. Their spirit paid off and they found the crash site within ten minutes.
Gavin crossing the gully.
It's where?
The tail section.
The tail section.
Gavin and I at the tail section. You can see the star emblem just behind us.
Searching for the left wing.
It should be right over here...
Gavin searching for the left wing.
The left wing crash site.
ASM Tom Moore, far right, talking with the scouts about troop outing options.
Links:
Two websites gave us the most information about the crash site and a starting point on where to find the wreckage.
and
There are other websites out there but these were the most helpful.
