Ten Mile River - Backpacking Series 20 miler
When and Where
When:
July 21-23, 2023, 1:00 pm — 5:00 pm
Nights:
2
Location: Ten Mile River Scout Camps
This trip is the second in a series of trips to prepare the scouts for this summer's 5-day Adventure Trek. This trip is focused on the backpacking element of the Trek. This is an opportunity to get things, such as the "Trail and backpacking meals" requirement for the Cooking Merit Badge done.
Plan
Friday, leave OLA at 1 PM
Meet at Ten Mile River Scout Camps, Camp Keowa, main parking lot.
Follow the Hike 14-C to point F Trout Pond Lean-to Site (2.6 miles)
Cook and eat dinner
Saturday, wake up at 6 AM
Follow the Hike 14-C to point N Ten Mile River Scout Museum (5.0 miles)
The museum will be closed at that time, so eat lunch
Follow the Hike 14-C to point U (5.7 miles)
Switch to the Hike 10-A and go in reverse from H to E (1.2 miles) Beaver Pond Lean-to Site
Cook and eat dinner
Sunday, wake up at 6 AM
Follow the Hike 10-C in reverse to point A Camp Keowa Storage Barn (4.1 miles)
Drive to the Museum (it works from 11 AM to 3 PM)
Drive to OLA
To make it 20 miles, hike some areas around, like making a loop to Ten Mile River Scout Camps, Camp Aquehonga.
What to pack
This is a real backpacking trip, so packing is the most important and most challenging part, you need to bring a lot of stuff but still make sure your pack is light enough to always carry with you.
Some of the more important ones are:
- ⧠ Ten essentials
- ⧠ Backpack
- ⧠ Class B (as well as Class A for travel)
- ⧠ A LOT of water (2 - 3 liters of water per day + extra for cooking)
- ⧠ Food
- ⧠ Executed Troop permission from ScoutBook (if not submitted already)
- ⧠ A bear canister
This, although important, is far from everything you need. REI provides a more extensive list of things you should pack for a trip like this.
Useful links
Goals
- TMR Historical Trails Award:
- Hike 14 miles
- Visit the Museum
- Answer the quiz questions
- Write a 100+ word essay
- Backpacking Merit Badge:
- Hike 20 miles
This is our real GPX track. Three days combined. The number of tracking points decreased from thousands to hundreds, so some data may be a bit inaccurate.
Historian's notes
From 7/21 to 7/23 our troop attended the second Backpacking trip at Ten Mile River Historical Trails.
On the first day, which is on fire, we leave OLA1 pm around 1 pm and get to TMR at 4 pm, then we start the hike right away, so on the first day we hiked around 2.6 miles to a campsite and rested there to prepare for tomorrow.
The next morning, we ate our breakfast and got ready for that day. So on the second day, we hiked nearly 16 miles. Also, we got lost on the trail just because we couldn't find the trail marker. That was the reason to make this hike very hard, but we did it. We survived getting to the nearest campsite even though the camp is not on the plan, what a stiff day.
After that, on the third day, which is Sunday, we were heading back to where we parked the car. We started around 8 am and the fastest grout finished the rest miles around 10 already.
Finally, we started to head back to Brooklyn, but before that we went to the Ten Mile River Scout Museum to finish the award.
The saddest thing about this trip is we didn't see any bears.
See all 159 photos
Last updated on November 01, 2023