Growing up, I was in Boy Scouts. While I didn’t earn my Eagle Scout, I had lots of great learning and experiences participating in Troop 237, a part of the Blue Mountain Council. I ended up dropping out of scouting in high school, when I started making poor decisions and going in a different direction. But from Webelos on through being a Boy Scout, I learned so much and went camping and on various trips so many times. It seems like almost every month I went on some sort of camping trip.
I learned to give back to my community, doing community service projects. I gained experience being in nature and picked up other skills. Consider the scouting motto,
Be Prepared!
- Scouts BSA Handbook
I do wish that I had gone through and gotten my Eagle Scout, but that would have also meant that my life during my high school years would have been pretty different.
We have been going on family camping trips every year for a number of years. I love being in nature, and always hope to camp a couple of times each summer. There is something so connecting about being in the forest and surrounded by green. This year, we went to Kachess campground. It is actually somewhere that we have wanted to go for a number of years, but we never made reservations early enough. It is near Cle Elum and is a massive campground and lake. It sits at 2,254 ft elevation, which means the water is on the cooler side, but it was still amazing to get in. The campground is nice, and while most of the bathrooms are vault toilets, next to our loop was one with running water. That positioning was nice, though the two campsites we picked across from each other were on the smaller side. Overall, the campground is pretty big. I recorded a 4 mile bike ride going through every loop.
We cooked great food and spent time together (my direct family, our grandbaby, my Cuñado, his kids, and another nephew). We made trips to the lake, I spent time writing and reading, walking through nature, and just being there. I didn’t realize that phones could now take images of the night sky, but they can to some degree.
We actually went to the lakeside one of the evenings to see the stars. While it does feel open, and a bit unnerving (Belinda and the girls started to go down, but got scared and went back to the car), it also was amazing to see the wide open sky without light pollution. You can see some photos from our trip:
On Friday, we also went on a day hike to Mt. Rainier. We did a camping trip there several years ago and have been talking about going back to visit (we want to camp there again too, but this year was just the hiking trip). So, with Friday being the observed holiday, we decided to make a day trip of it. It did make for a long day (we left at about 6:30 AM and got back at 11:30 PM with picking up and dropping off people), but it was worth it. Not just for the dinner at Miners on the way home, but really because of the experience.
There were a couple of minor surprises. First, we hadn’t realized that the entrance would be free, due to the holiday. It was very busy (I’m not sure if that is pretty normal or because of the holiday as well). While it is nice when I’ve been to places where you don’t see many other people, it wasn’t bad to have so many people. I will say, if you stopped on the trail (which we had to do a number of times), you would get passed by a number of other groups every few minutes. The second surprise came as they passed by: so many of the people who passed us were speaking different languages. I will also admit, our group was speaking Spanish most of the time, but it was a bit unexpected how diverse the population visiting this scenic area was. Again, this makes sense. We all can benefit from connecting with nature and being in landscapes that make you want to twirl like you hear The Sound of Music and understand the hills are alive.
We went to Paradise, and ended up hiking Skyline and Golden Gate Loop. It took us about 3.3 hours to go 4.6 miles (with breaks and a lunch). It was a pretty challenging hike (although listed as Moderate) and had a lot of elevation gain, especially at the start.
After some overpriced ice cream and a rest, we also went to the overlook for Bench Lake. All in all, even though I’m still a bit sore, I’m so glad to have gone. You can see some photos from this as well.
I’m glad to be able to go and do these things, but I hope that getting to take my kids gives me an opportunity to teach them to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent (just like scouting).
