Ideas! Teaching Backpacking to High School Students

[balzaccom]

I think it is a bit amusing that we often suggest to beginners that they test out their equipment in the backyard before they take it into the wilderness...and then dissuade Daisy from having High School kids camp on the football field.

Daisy--any chance you can get the sprinklers to go on at 2 a.m., so they can practice dealing with rain?

[Wandering Daisy]

I was a high school kid a LONG time ago. No way would I want my parents along! My childen, who were in high school in the early 90's probably were even less inclined to want parents along. However, those kids of mine have become "helicopter parents"! Go figure? (I think it is all the fear mongering child raising books out there nowadays). Funny thing is that even though I did not want MY parents on the trips, I loved being out with adults who were NOT my parents.

Solution to supervision help? Break it into two trips - groups A and B. Parents of A go with kids of B, and visa versa.

Lori, you are right - maybe parents could sit in on the classes on gear so they understand what thier kid is packing. BIG THING - KIDS pack their own packs. This brings up a funny story. I ran into a father and son in Emigrant Wilderness. They had only made it half way up Kibby Ridge in two days. Packs were way too heavy. The wife had packed both their packs - with THREE total changes of clothing! Horrors upon horrors if her little darlings spent even one day in the same dirty clothes! And to top it off, father and son had not even looked inside the packs before starting. Father said his wife always packed for his business trips so it did not even occur to him to pack his own pack. Man, I really had to bite my tongue on that one! I did not say a word.

[rlown]

The pack your own pack is pretty good. I think I repack at least twice before I leave the truck.

Reminds me of a trip I did out of Salt Springs Res up the Mokolumne with a friend in the early 80's. He was a Mech Engineering major and in the middle of a 2 semester physics course. When packing up, I managed to slide a 5lb big green physics book into his pack.

He didn't even know the book was in his pack until day 2.