PIEDRA BLANCA BACKPACKING, SEPTEMBER 21-22, 2024
Early Saturday morning we met at the Big 5, divided up the food amongst the scouts and
drove up to the trail head to start our trek. With 13 scouts and 4 leaders we hiked up the
gentle slope for 4.2 miles at a very modest pace to the Piedra Blanca Campground. True to
its name, Piedra Blanca, we hiked through a patch of white rock with strange formations
which we learned to be sandstone and carbonate formed millions of years ago. Mr. Hey
gave us a geology lesson on the structure of the rocks around us. We learned the
di erence between carbonate and sandstone and that years ago, this area would have
been at the bottom of the ocean. The holes in the sides of the rocks were formed and
became smooth as the acidic rain wore them down by neutralizing the base carbonate. We
were very fortunate to have an expert accompany us on the trip.
The trip with many younger scouts backpacking for the first time, literally learned “how to
carry their own weight” up the trail, contributing to the group e ort. Mr. Schley spent
some time teaching orienteering and several of the scouts worked on requirements for their
cooking badge. Not only did we all achieve one more night to add to our camping badge
requirement, we learned to be prepared – bring repair patches in the future so you don’t
have to sleep on a deflated mattress pad. In spite of being a warm day and the flies making
themselves a nuisance, it was a good trip into the back country. Jack G.
