I saw this:
https://www.scouter.com/topic/13625-...-alternatives/ It's an old thread, and it may be too late to schedule most of them even if they are still available, but there might be something there. If you do find something that only takes a week, for example, you might be able to find a few nearby day trips. My troop did a tour of Alaska, which was made up of just sequential day trips. |
Thanks HM. I'll dig into this.
I've been busy at work lately and haven't had time to research as much as I would like to. Other people are like "we should do something cool instead. Plan our own trip." They have no idea how much work it is to line up permits, find available sites, etc. etc. Our 12 person crew exceeds the permitted size of a back country group in some national parks. And we're competing with literally hundreds of other crews to find slots. A big part of me is wishing everyone just says they are dropping out, and then I will fly to Colorado with my son and take a vacation there. Get some hiking in, just the two of us, and visit the sites. Sleep on BLM land for free. |
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It's hard to make the kids, and their parent's lawyers, happy. :rolleyes:
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I've been too busy to update, but things are really working out well.
I found a High Adventure back country Boy Scout camp in Northern Montana that had an opening. It's a week long and looks really cool. It will fill the second half of our canceled trip. One of my co-leaders found another Scout camp in the Black Hills of South Dakota the week before that will fill up the first part of our trip. And we have a few days in between, which we will need to road trip between those places. So we fly in to Denver, immediately hit the road to get to South Dakota. We visit Crazy Horse and Mount Rushmore. Maybe even the Badlands and absolutely Devils Tower. Sleep in the camp every night. Maybe get a swim or an afternoon in on the ropes course. And then take two days to drive way up to the NW corner of Montana to learn how to fly fish as we hike through back country mountains and valleys for a week. I was super pessimistic the last two days but talking to Scouts literally all across the country has restored my faith in humans. Everyone I reached out to at camps from Utah to Virginia was super friendly and helpful. They all wanted to be part of the solution. There were over 1,000 crews that were displaced by the fire at Philmont and we were all in a mosh pit of phone calls and emails trying to land a plan B. I'm thrilled it worked out for us. We may even swing by Yellowstone on our way back to the Denver airport. |
Good news, glad it worked out.
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Nice!
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Awesome
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That's fantastic, I'm so happy for you, that will be an amazing trip
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I was talking to my wife about it a little while ago. She made a point that resonated with me. We live in a crowded city full of type A personalities. We are used to having to compete against other people all the time in order to get to do anything.
Philmont had instructed all 1,000 plus displaced crews to wait to be called in turn and have their options spelled out for them. It's been 3 days and Philmont still hasn't made it through the crews before us to give us a call. I am so used to competing against the throngs that it didn't even occur to me to wait for a call. I pounced, and slowly at that. I poked around the web for a day, sent a few emails, but didn't pick up a telephone until about 40 hours had gone by. About 6 hours after picking up the phone we had a solution. I wonder how many crews are out there just waiting for the call from Philmont before they act? |
Is this new itinerary more expensive for the crew?
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Probably not.
Maybe. It's going to be close. If we go over, it will be the gasoline that does it. 2 minivans driving 30 hours each. Plus a couple extra meals out. And one hotel. But the programs are about $200 less pp total. It will be close. We'll see. |
That's reasonable for a last minute scramble, good job. :thumb:
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Superb news!
Sent by magick |
Let us know how much you're off by if you end up off, maybe we can cover it
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