The Big Bags

One would think that living in Utah (the state with more National Parks than any other state in the country), and being an Eagle Scout would make me an avid camper. The reality of the matter is that I absolutely cannot tolerate it. To be honest, I’d rather crawl through a patch of poison ivy… naked… in the winter, than go camping. Oh, wait, that would be camping then, wouldn’t it?

I have good reason to have such disdain for this atrocious pastime. That reason is actually what spawned this post. Over the next week or so I have decided to relate a few of the experiences that help contribute to my absolute loathing of the casual overnighter.

Back in March of ‘96, I was an anxious young lad of 11. In roughly one week, I would become a man. I would graduate from cub scouts and move up into the ranks of the testosterone laden, hormone crazed pyromaniacs that make up the boy scouts. It was during this exciting time that I was invited by my future scout troupe to join them at the Spring Camporee.

Oh, I was excited. It was finally my turn to cut the umbilical chord and celebrate my freedom by farting and burping whenever I wanted, staying up late into the night and, most importantly, playing with fire.

My father was also obliged to come as a supervisor to the rest of the boys (I, of course, needed no supervision).

As I packed my bags with all the things a scout needs for an overnighter, (canteen, matches, mess kit, lighter fluid, hatchet, fire sticks, and a swiss army knife) my father coaxed me to bring a foam pad to put under my sleeping bag.

“No way, Jose!” I thought. “There’s no way I’ll ever need a pad. I’m a real man now, I can take a few rocks in the spine. Soldiers and cowboys and other real men do that sort of crap every day.”

Needless to say, we journeyed to our destination, played with a lot of fire and then , one by one we stumbled to our tents to turn it in for the night.

It wasn’t until about 2:00 in the morning that I learned my lesson. I woke up next to my best friend shaking uncontrollably. I could barely get the words out, my teeth were chattering so ferociously. “Mark… g-g-g-get m-m-my D-D-D-D-D-Dad.”

I heard my friend roll over, half awake. “What?” He asked groggily.

“I n-n-need help. G-g-g-get m-m-y D-D-D-Dad.”

He clumsily got out of his sleeping bag and walked over to the ‘Leader’s Tent’ and woke up my father. My Dad entered my tent, picked me up, carried me back to his sleeping bag and shoved me inside it. He then crawled in with me. Despite the awkwardness, I started to warm up.

I found out later that I was in the beginning stages of hypothermia… and it was because there was no pad to insulate me from the ground; the very ground, that as I slept, was being coated in a layer of freshly fallen snow.

I’m quite certain my Father saw this coming (whether by Father’s intuition or by watching the weather channel the night before), because he had packed an extra pad for me without my knowing. After I had warmed up sufficiently, he set up my new sleeping area in the appropriate manner, and I endured the rest of the freezing night feeling like a fool.

To summarize, my very first boy scout camping experience almost resulted in my freezing to death. I now know why Han stuck Luke in the Taun Taun… especially if the feeling he got was anything like being ‘little spoon’ to my Dad.