Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board What about the girls?

Ok all you Sierra experts... I have spent the last several months listening to conversations about taking children out into the beyond... reading about scouting adventures and multi-day treks and thinking about taking my Boy Scouts out. And then I had my own overnight experience on Whitney and meet Laura and the JMT sisters (Sierra and Iris) and it really got me to thinking. Why not take my Girl Scouts? (I am a leader in a cadet troop of Girl Scouts).

So... here I am asking for input from everyone here. Have any of you ever had any experience, run-ins or stories about Girl Scouts doing a couple nighter backpacker up in that neck of the woods? Technically, I know it's possible, it's just logistical coordination, convincing a bunch of parents that it's fine and safe enough, and teaching some city-ish girls how to pee in the woods (Go ahead.. laugh guys.. it's not as easy as you would think. It takes massive skills in coordiation, balance and accuracy!)

Any input would be awesome... I'm off for a weekend of tent camping with aforementioned girls at Palomar Mtn.

Thanks,
Chris

Without putting a date stamp on myself, I have to say that the closest thing I ever came to the mountains in Girl Scouts was some kind of large hoohaw where we did [stupid] activities that fell under more of an artsy craftsy nature rather than teaching survival and basic hiking skills.

I think you have an excellent idea there - you just may come across some red tape with the GSA.

formost - logistics

Permits in popular areas can be hard to come by ahead of time. I would look into permit availability before making definite plans. There are still many great areas to hike in - but you need to do your homework - the rest will fall into place.

Are you saying the Girl Scouts don't do this already? I've never been a GS, but I assumed they did, at an appropriate age.

Last summer coming down from the summit I met a large group of young girls on their way up, I thought they were scouts. They all looked about twelve to thirteen-ish and they were all smiling.

That would be an awesome experience you would be giving the girls. How about starting them with camping at a local camp ground with hiking trails. Have them bring all their gear as if they where really going on a backpacking trip. Spend some time at the campsite teaching them about their gear, packing, and trail/wilderness etiquette, maybe call it backpacking 101. Then take the girls on a short hike wearing their backpacks to see how it feels and to properly adjust the packs. Just a thought.

Good luck!

So far as I know, unless you have a totally awesome girl scout leader (mine was the Best Girl Scout Leader EVER!) then the girls do not do anything like this. They have their annual camp-outs (lots of craftsy stuff and friends making and teaching a few basic outdoor skills).

I will have to check the regs with GSUSA and see what their rules are, I know that with the BSUSA there are guidelines in place regarding long distance trips of this "high adventure" nature. I don't know that I've ever heard of anything for the girls though.

I know logistics wise it'll be interesting.. but I think we can borrow enough equipment to make it happen. I have been considering local areas where we can "dry run". The beginning of the PCT is less then an hour from here so I thought maybe a day or two (depending on the situations of the campgrounds and how far spaced they are) working in this area.

Anyways... I'm off to try to help the girls learn to appreciate as much as my kids and I do!!

Thanks,
Chris

I have been backpacking since boy scouts, and a member of that group for over 30 years. My wife had a girl scout troop for a few years, and I signed on as her assistant. As they got older I gave a presentation on backpacking to a group of about 100 girls from many troops, and our troop decided to start. Here they had a training program I had to complete before I could take them backpacking (in spite of 30 year experience, boy scout training including Woodbadge and mountaineering and rock climbing). Their adult training included 2 backpacks. The first was a desert backpack, about 2 miles down a jeep road and back out the next day. The mountain trip was a similar length, but because there was a 20% chance of showers they canceled it and didn't reschedule until next year, at which time a poor campfire set up almost set a meadow on fire. (Not slamming the organization, but that was the only thing different in the training from boy scouts!) By then the girls had all left, and they never did get to go backpacking.

My point is, if you are interested, DO IT. Get trained now, and teach them the wonders of creation and how to respectfully behave out there.

I'm a Girl Scout leader from San Diego. My co-leader and I took our troop on a one-day summit of Mt Whitney last August 15. They were Cadettes at the time. Our troop has 11 scouts. My co-leader is a triathlete and planned all of our training. The training was approved by our Activity Consultant so we were completely legal with Girl Scouts. Seven of the girls completed all of the training and we set out on this adventure. In addition to the leaders, we took along our husbands and two other experienced female hikers. One of them is an emergency room nurse who was training to do Kilimanjaro. Five of the girls and 4 of the adults made it to the top. The other 4 made it within a mile but were forced to turn back due to altitude problems. This was an incredible accomplishment for all of us. Check out our pictures with captions at Troop 3116. I would be happy to talk to you about this some more via email or phone. If more leaders would consider trips like this, more girls would stay in scouting through high school!

All of you did a great Job on this hike! You have plenty of reason to be happy with results! It is really hard to keep on time schedule for one day hikes because the tiredness factor kicks in,,,

congratualtions to all of you!

Great pictures and narration. As noted earlier, it is hard to predict what will happen above Trail Camp when fatigue and altitude effects kick in. It can be deceiving to think that the performance on the first quarter of the trip will predict the the remaining three quarters of the trip (the summit is only the half way point).

Thank you everyone for the input. It really gives me a basic idea of where to start with this. I am becoming very aware of the differences between Girl and Boy Scouts and their regulations. I am also becoming more and more determined to see this through.

I spent the weekend camping with the girls up at Palomar and had a chance to talk to a couple of the leaders/parents who would be involved in the planning of this. They all seem to be pretty much on board with the idea. We have a fairly small group of girls old enough to go... I think there's only 2 cadettes and one senior.

Adventuregirlz... I would love to talk to you more about this via email... csistrunk@cox.net . The more I think about this and the logistics of it.. the more excited I get. I want to show the girls that the outside isn't just for the guys...

SoCal, have you thought about working with the Boy Scouts on this? The BSA program for older youth, 14-20, now known as Venturing, is open to both boys and girls. Venture Crews can be single-sex or co-ed, providing that they have the proper adult leadership.

You might check around your area for Venture Crews who specialize in climbing/backpacking and see if there is a Crew with whom you could work to get your girls up into the mountains.

You might even get them interested in some longer treks and think about taking them out to Philmont, the big Scout ranch in east-central New Mexico. 10-day treks from 50 to 90 miles, altitudes from 6,500' at base camp to as high as about 12,400' at the summit of Baldy. Female or co-ed Venture Crews are welcome at Philmont.

If you have questions, send me a PM off-board and let's discuss further.

SoCalGirl-I'll contact you via separate email. FYI, some of my girls are also Venture Scouts. I'm sure this varies crew by crew but I would tell you that in our experience, we prepared the girls for this hike much better than the crew prepared them for Packard and Philmont. We are considering starting a new crew because as Alan states, it gets us in the door to some cool properties that only BSA has access to.

I was actually discussing starting a crew with one of my other Girl Scout/Boy Scout Moms (we work together in both troops)... but none of our kids are old enough yet for Venturing... it's never to early to start planning though!