Goblin Valley Trip with the Scouts!!!

Hey Peeps,

It's official. My first triumphant act as a Scoutmaster took place last Friday and Saturday as we conquered the canyons of the Little Wild Horse, mastered the Ridges of the San Raphael Swell, and devastated the Hoodoos of Goblin Valley. Well, maybe not devastated, but we had a heckuvalot of fun. Just as I suspected, the boys are a little more pampered than I prefer, so I'll be working on that for a while. Most of the boys brought iPod's, several brought PSP's, and one boy brought not one, but two DVD players.

You know what makes you feel like a loser? When three boys pile into your car, but instead of taking the comfortable shotgun, they all crunch together in the back, leaving shotgun wide open for my imaginary friend Jimmy Johnson. Boy, that's a real self esteem booster. According to one of the scouts, apples are also for losers. So many things my mom forgot to teach me! Didn't matter, I ate two apples in front of him just for spite. :)

We had some great times even when we weren't on our official hikes. We had set up camp in a bowl-type depression with 150 foot "mountains" all around. Friday night was clear and illuminated by the waning moon. Several of the boys had climbed up on the ridge and were throwing rocks at the others below. I decided to charge their position to see what they would do, and they scrambled all over the place. For the next 15 minutes, we played a rousing spy game as I would sneak up on their positions, scare the heck out of them, let them scramble, and pursue again. They had so much fun that we created an official game of pursuit. Before we started, I told them, "no flashlights are aloud, and the chances that you will get hurt are almost 100%." We only had to bandage up a couple of boys'legs. A couple others did faceplants into the dirt as they ran down the mountains and another sprained his ankle - a trifle for how much fun we had.

11:30 P.M., six boys have announced that they will be talking in the "cool" tent until they decide to go to bed. I said goodnight to the other leaders and then sneaked over to their tent. I invited them to go on a night hike with me on the condition that they go to sleep right when we returned to camp. The four littler (sizewise) boys went right for it, the other two bigger boys agreed with a fair amount of peer pressure. The benefit - the rest of camp actually got some sleep, and I had the chance to wear these boys out on a vigorous ridge hike. I can't describe how beautiful the Swell is by the light of the moon. Breathtaking to say the least. When the boys weren't scaring each other about "inbreeds" attacking us (something about The Hills Have Eyes), they really opened up about the evil they are already being exposed to. The hike was a great opportunity to earn their trust and counsel them on how to resist the billions of temptations they're going up against. It was sweet!!!

Miraculously, the boys did as they agreed and went to bed when we returned. I don't care how many Mountain Dews they had, two hours of hiking did the trick. As many of you know, the winds of Goblin Valley are horrible, and not too many of us got much sleep. Several of the boys' tents migrated quite a bit in the course of the night.

We awoke to a still and crisp morning. I cracked 36 eggs and threw some bacon on the griddle, we packed up camp, and we spent the remainder of the morning in Goblin Valley playing Hot Pursuit and Sardines, and scaling the hoodoos at the far end of the Valley. All in all, the trip was a wild success!!

Just so y'all know, it has been awesome to be back in Utah. With the flexibility of running my own company, I have been hiking, roller-blading, rock-climbing, biking, and camping more in the past six weeks than in the previous 18 months. This Thursday, Catherine and I are heading to Orlando for 5 days, and directly following that up with 5 more days in St. George. I don't deserve to have this much fun!!!

Ricardo