Report from the National Boy Scout Jamboree: Hike to the Summit

By Elian Rubin

In a place with 40,000 boys scouts and leaders, you wouldn’t think everybody could do the same thing. While there are many individual activities and options, like rock climbing, archery and zip lines, there are two activities that everyone does. One of these things is a hike to the Summit and the other is a day of service.

The hike to the Summit is a hike to the top of Garden Ground Mountain, which has an elevation of 2,798 feet. Our hike was 7.5 miles long, because we chose one of the least steep routes. It was very tiring and we were the fastest troop on the trail at our time. The troops are spread out over four trails and with different start times for their hikes so the trails won’t be too crowded. The Garden Ground Summit was a lot bigger than the trails so it could hold all of the scouts once they got to the top. It is the size of a nine-hole golf course! Over 5,000 scouts made the trek each day.

When we got to Garden Ground Summit the first thing we saw was the the water buffalo, a giant tank of water where we could refill our water bottles. Water is really important, because you need to stay hydrated to avoid dehydration a, heat exhaustion and heat stroke. The Summit have four levels to tell scouts how much water they should be drinking. They were: Green: ¼ to ½ quarts of water/hour, Yellow: ½- ¾ quarts of water/hour, Red ¾-1: quarts of water/hour, and Black: 1-1 ¼: quarts of water/hour. As scouts we know you should always be drinking more water than you think when you are out in the summer.

After we walked under the sign saying, “Welcome to the Summit of the Summit,” there were activities and games for all the scouts, including a Native American Indian Village, Highland (Scottish) Games and Buckskin (Native American) Games. There are even board games and karaoke. It is a chance to be with scouts from all over the country. I participated in rock and tomahawk throwing (at targets) at the Buckskin Games and tug-of-war at the Highland Games.  Each troop left a labeled (large) rock to be put around the fire pit for future campfires. Only the troops on this Jamboree will be able to do this.

There was also a lot of patch trading going on, where boys trade each other for cool patches. Patch trading happens at every Jamboree. Each Council gets a back patch set and the set contains one council strip for every troop. The most I saw was ten patches for one very big Council. Some boys had really big collections. Patch trading was another opportunity to meet scouts from all over.

Well, all that hiking made us tired and we slept well that night. My next article will focus on our Day of Service to the local community.

Rubin is a Princeton resident and a member of Princeton Boy Scout Troop 43. He recently attended the National Boy Scout Jamboree at the Summit Bechtel Reserve in West Virginia and submitted periodic reports from the field.