Issue 612 – August 20, 2019

Hi Andy,

A couple of weeks ago, you fielded a question about age limits on Scouts tenting together, and I’d like to add a thought to that point.

One simple solution to possible tenting complications is this: There’s nothing that says a Scout must share a tent with anyone, or that a Scout can’t sleep alone in a tent!

Whoever thinks that two-Scout tents will work “forever” is way too optimistic. Fact is, when Scouts get older (into their mid or late teens—and I don’t mean just boys!) as a rule they usually get larger, too!

Our troop has been okay with having two-Scout “backpack” tents and these will usually fit two eleven or twelve year-olds just fine. But, by the time they’re age 15 or so, that original backpacking tent is now a one-Scout tent!

The BSA stipulation on age-spread per two-Scout tent makes good sense and I respect it. But I also find that it rarely rears its head when the older and larger Scouts are single-Scout tenting. And then, for those Scouts in other parts of the country, Scouts use camp hammocks and the age issue immediately evaporates! (Damon Edmondson, Atlanta Area Council, GA)

You bet Scouts grow! This may make three-person tents a good option to start with, and let the Scouts grow into them! They’ll be a bit heavier when divided between two Scouts for backpacking, but today’s light-weight technology hardly makes this a major burden. (Yup, we carried canvas pup tents when I was a Scout and they were no fun to lug along a woodsy trail, inside our canvas “knapsacks” that had no waistband belts…but we did it!) But there may be more to this than just tents. The whole “world” of Scoutcraft and the Buddy System can be brought together with tents!

For me, the best tents—Scout- and Scouter-tested!—are Philmont Trek tents. Bottom line: We know they work and we know they’ll stand up to just about any weather!

Bunch of years ago, a Scoutmaster friend, with the troop committee’s green light, bought his troop a dozen-and-a-half used Philmont Trek tents for pennies on the dollar! Each tent had been “field-tested” over the previous summer of course, and then taken into Philmont’s tent repair shed, where they were fitted with new grommets as needed, rip-stop tears were sealed and patched, broken tent lines were replaced, and missing or bent tent pegs were replaced or un-bent. To give you a cost idea, these (at the time) $250 tents could be had for $25 apiece! Yes, they were two-Scout tents, but remember that Philmont trekkers aren’t exactly toddlers in tan shirts; they’re big, strapping, solid teenagers—both young men and young women—aand these tents worked just fine!

But here’s the really important part: These tents became teaching aids!

At the very next campout, two new-Scout patrols of six Scouts each were with the older Scout patrols of the troop. These two patrols were there as equals, with a twist: The two newly-elected Patrol Leaders were asked by the Senior Patrol Leader to select the troop’s campsite for the weekend. The two walked around for a bit, and then picked the top of a bare rise because the view of the valley below was absolutely spectacular. But they didn’t take into account the wind, which was gentle at the moment but was starting to pick up speed. No one corrected them, or pointed out that maybe they should reconsider; the SPL and the other Patrol Leaders showed complete respect for their decision. And we adults stayed out of the way—after all, this troop was the Scouts’ troop; not ours.

So when the older patrols started setting up their patrol sites, they chose as spot near the top but on the leeward side of the rise. The two new-Scout patrols started setting up at the top of the rise. They started having problems almost immediately. As each Buddy-pair in these patrols started setting up their tents—which required tent stakes and tent lines plus two uprights for the tent ends and two bungeed A poles for the rain fly—the wind began to blow their attempts down. This happened at least a half-dozen times, till their Patrol Leaders stopped and said to their patrols, “Let’s try all of us setting up just one tent. If this works, then we’ll do the next two tents, till we have all three set up.” Teamwork! Yay! And guess what…Nobody gave them any “kindly hints”—they figured this out for themselves!

The other thing they needed to figure out was what kind of knots to use for the tent lines, which were on the sides of both the tent and the rain fly, and fore and aft as well—and it wasn’t the same knot for all the lines. After scratching their heads for a bit, one Scout spoke up. “Let’s check our handbooks,” he said to his patrol-mates. “Check your handbook”—Hey, what a concept!

They did just that, and discovered they’d need about a dozen taut-line hitches and four two-half hitches, but they didn’t need their handbooks to learn how to tie these—they already knew this from the patrol knot-tying relays that were part of normal troop meetings, along with other Scoutcraft-based games.

Bam! The tents were up and solid. Not one blew down—ever—that weekend!

But even more importantly, this became a practical experience in problem-solving, teamwork, and leadership via cooperation (not “orders”), all accomplished with no “kindly adult interference.” How about that!

If this isn’t Scouting at its core and at its best, then I’m a monkey’s uncle! Thank you, Philmont tents…and a pretty smart Scoutmaster and Senior Patrol Leader!

Happy Scouting!

Andy

Have a question? Facing a dilemma? Wondering where to find a BSA policy or guideline? Write to askandybsa@yahoo.com. Please include your name and council. (If you’d prefer to be anonymous, if published, let me know and that’s what we’ll do.)

[No. 612 – 8/20/2019 – Copyright © Andy McCommish 2019]