Trek On

The great wilderness trek of 2010 begins bright and early tomorrow morning. We'll be missing Jambo, but we have two crews of scouts exploring the Cloud Peak Wilderness of the Bighorn Mountains west of Buffalo, WY.
The two crew leaders made their routes, menus, gear lists, and duty rosters. We have our tour permits, first aid training, and practice hikes complete.

Seven scouts and four adults will cover a 36-mile route and attempt to summit Cloud Peak at a bit over 13,000 feet.   You can see the Crew #1 Route.

On Saturday, July 31, the first crew will leave the mountains and travel to Mt. Rushmore where they will meet up with the second crew on their way out. Both crews will perform the flag lowering ceremony at Mt. Rushmore which is a waaaaaay cool thing to experience!

The next morning, I head back to Wyoming with the second crew of seven scouts and two other adults that has chosen a different 29-mile route but will also attempt to summit Cloud Peak. You can see Crew #2 Route.

The routes were made on Gmaps Pedometer which is a great place to make hiking routes, bike routes, or pretty much any route you need. You can view topo, satellite, or terrain. It is very useful for planning a trip and sharing your planned route with parents. Turning on the "elevation" is pretty neat too.
If you follow the route closely, you'll see an occasional squiggle of line (see mile 3 on Crew #1's route). These are spots where we plan to camp. I've not figured out how to place markers yet - anyone have advice on that?

We will have our SPOT Messenger along and I plan to turn it on every morning while we hike. If you feel like checking in on us to follow our progress, see our Real-time Tracking starting Sunday, July 25.

Scout On