This was my idea for our venture crew fundraiser (which was never followed up). I heard this story a from another venture advisor that they sold BSA mouse pads on ebay and made enough money to travel to Denali and to Morocco.

On this idea - I bought one of these antique repro maps for my house and had it framed. It is really beautiful. I purchased it from Zazzle.com (off ebay), but it is sourced from the LOC. Probably lots of other distributors (type in your home town on ebay and see what comes up - hopkinton, ma has a bunch of them now).  The LOC has maps from all over the country.  You pay say $10 for the map, get a framing deal for say, $30 each (it has to be framed nicely), then sell for $125 around Christmas time. Good luck.

A friend at work introduced this to me and I introduced it to my daughter. I’m bringing it up because they have a great Junior Program for kids starting at the age of 14. I think this is a great opportunity to do something challenging and really build confidence.  If your son has any thoughts of going to the Air Force Academy, it wouldn’t hurt being part of something like this.

 http://www.soargbsc.com/juniors.php

I also learned about a program in Texas affiliated with a venture crew.  Crews don’t have to be high adventure camping focused. There are crews involved in civil war reenactment, emergency response, railroading, you name it. If somebody was interested in starting a crew either up here in the Boston area or really anywhere in the US, you may want to consider an affiliation with a flight club. Keeping a crew together is hard work, something interesting like this might really get kids in and then keep them interested.

This a link to a brief mention of the Texas program:

http://www.texassoaring.org/Documents/VentureProgram.asp

This is an easy but interesting merit badge. In the northeast, we’re blessed with numerous early American history sites, but I bet wherever you are you can find something interesting. I’ll work on some training material, in the meantime, I’ll share this one piece I was working on:

The Concord Hymn

 ”…And fired the shot heard round the world.” so wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. This famous poem (actually a sung hymn) is studied & analyzed from grade school through college, but the history of the poem is what I was interested in. I knew it was prepared for the dedication of the battle monument at the Old North Bridge in Concord, MA, but I wanted to get a feel for the circumstances. I visualized the famed orator standing near the obelisk, one arm on the monument, one arm raised high, flags around him ‘unfurling in the April breeze,’ but alas, it was much different. Surprisingly, very little is available on the web, it took hours/weeks to find out what I could.  I eventually had to make a trip to the Special Collections vault at the Concord Library. Maybe you’ll find interesting…

story-of-concord-hymn.pdf

Here is a midi of the tune sung: old_100th.mid

This is a great read on Emerson and transcendentalism: ralph-waldo-emerson.doc

There are some great hikes out west (MA!). Mt. Greylock on the AT, Bash Bish Falls, Kent Falls, Snowhole (a cool cave where you’ll see snow in August). You won’t be disappointed in any trips to this area.

Start here to get some ideas: http://www.berkshirehiking.com/hikes/a2z.html

Leave No Trace is not simply a program for visiting the backcountry, it is an attitude and a way of life.

I plan to expand this area considerably, I have lots of material to share on this topic.

Here’s one that is pretty good - an extensive powerpoint done on the entire program:

Leave No Trace Powerpoint (large size (35MB) but a very comprehensive, useful download. Credit: Blaine Boxwell, Connecticut Yankee Council)

Here’s BSA’s comprehensive training doc: LNT BSA Training Doc (pdf)

Here’s LNT’s Trifold handout: LNT Trifold Doc

Her’s another good powerpoint (b&w unfortunately, but good intro material):Intro LNT powerpoint)

Here’s a link to listings of LNT Master Educator’s Courses:

http://www.tcfroar.org/boyscoutofamerica2008mastereducatorcourses.html

(Note: a very good one is coming up in August08 in Baxter S.P. Maine)

Here is a cub handout along with a card I created (for reqt 5):

cubscout-lnt.doc

(from LNT.org)

This is it, the best mountain bike for the money - the Trek 3700. I was for a long time a Specialized bike guy, but they became too clunky and expensive. Then I purchased a used (practically new) one of these off Craigslist for my son.

It has everything you need, it looks cool and it has good components for the money. New ones are $300 (I just bought a second one for my other son). Above $300 is too much bike for a kid, below it is dept store level. Best bike store that I know of is Milford Bike off Rt. 16 in Milford (MA). Very nice people, everyone I know is happy with them.  I don’t take spending $300 lightly, but I figured they can keep the bike through college and when out on semi-tough rides, they don’t have to worry about breakage. It’s like driving a Honda.

My view on bikes - don’t spend any money at all on a good bike until they move into a 26″ tire size one. They grow too fast and at a young age, they are reckless. Stay on the 24″ tire size bike until your child can handle a 26″ tire size bike with a 15 or 16″ frame. Don’t get a 26″ tire size bike with a 13″ frame, they’ll grow out of that. Age 10 is approximately the time they can move up.

Always carry an emergency kit that includes spare tube, pump, allen wrenches, an adjustable wrench, screwdriver, some wire, tape, patches, bandaids, and a chain repair tool. Put in a small seat bag. Makes for a worthwhile birthday or Christmas present.

View a larger image after the jump:
Read the rest »

There are quite a number of good extended bike trips in the area -Miles Standish State Forest, Cape Cod Canal, Nickerson State Park (Brewster, Cape Cod, right on the CC rail trail), Lexington/Concord RtT, Northampton RtT. I’ll post more on these later. Here is a list of MA trails: http://www.massbike.org/bikeways/

Here is a map of the local rail trail in Milford. It is meant to form a large loop through the surrounding towns. That will be a nice ride someday. rail-trail.ppt

If you are interested in mountain biking, a good place to start is: http://www.nemba.org/ridingzone/places.html

This is the trail section of the New England Mountain Biking Assoc. These guys do quite a lot to promote MB activity. They purchased 47 acres of property near our town and created one of the premier single track rides in the northeast - Vietnam.

Here is a link for the info available on that area: http://www.nemba.org/Articles/Vietnam/NEMBAsVietnamProperty.html

Located off 495 at the Rt. 85 exit, it is great ride for a number of reasons - it’s challenging, well maintain & planned, it’s diverse, it’s meant to be ridden, and it is easy to get to.

What I also like that many people don’t know about is the ride across the street from this area. I’ll call it the Wildcat Pond area. I’ve attached a few topo maps for reference, but what you do is take the obvious trailhead into this area, maybe with compass or map in hand. Back here you’ll discover a number of old rock quarries. Some show signs of teenage abuse, but they are really quite interesting to search out and find. You can also pedal to Echo Lake, the source of the Charles River.

These trails eventually come out on Lumber St. and Granite St. in Hopkinton. Another connected ride is to take the trails from Vietnam into the College Rock area. (Where we often start to enter the Vietnam area). College Rock is a beginner rock climbing opportunity if you want to do that with your troop. Right in front of the rock is a Kiosk built as an eagle scout project.

I’ve attached maps of College Rock, Echo Lake, Wilcat Pond, and Vietnam. The Vietnam map is a bit useless except just to get a generally sense of the trail flow. NEMBA does not have a better map. The trails aren’t really marked so it won’t do too much good anyway. Furthermore, the sound of 495 always gives you a sense of SW. The topo maps attached show some trails, but there are a lot more trails out there. I used these to create maps of all the trails but I never transposed back to electronic format after surveying the area.

bikemap1.ppt

Another idea for a local quality mountain bike ride is to go over to Blue Hills Reservation, just south of Boston. Blue Hills has some nice single track routes and it is also loaded with geocaches. Views from the top of the hill are very cool. Stay over at BSA’s Camp Sayre right on the reservation. A nice low logistics, action filled campout.  Another benefit is the Minuteman Council Egan Rec center is right at Camp Sayre and it has a pool. If this gets you excited, call ahead to make sure the pool heaters are working. When we went, the water was freezing. Here is a map of camp of Camp Sayre as well as a mountain biking discussion from ragemtb.com:

campsayre.pdf

blue-hills.doc

photo credit:New England Mountain Biking Association

 I intend to have an entire section on this website devoted to long distance hiking. For now, let me mention this great little hike in MA you might like if you are local. The AT passes next to a historic village in western MA called Tyringham. It was one of the original Shaker Villages (established in 1792). This is a nice 1/2 day hike, as it combines history, architecture, waterfalls, walks across cow fields, bogs, near rivers, through a maple syrup gathering grove, and past an overlook.

I have an article I wrote on the hike, let me try to dig that up and post. For now, I’ve attached a map that will help you find your way.

Information on the Shaker settlement in Tyringham is hard to come by. I was able to obtain this document while doing research for my article - the application for the settlement to be registered on National Historic Registry.

The application includes details on the history of the settlement as well as a discussion on the buildings. I found it to be very useful.

National Registration:  NRHP Tyringham Shaker

Article: To be posted

Map: tyringham-map.ppt

This is an article by Steven Paterwic, probably the most knowledgable Shaker scholar I’ve ever met: mysteries-of-the-tyringham-shakers-unmasked.doc

The attached is not mine, it was emailed to me a few years ago. The author (listed), gets full credit as well as an applaud from me for a) doing a great trip; and b) doing a followup trip report that is just incredible. The photography alone is outstanding. Have a read and I’m sure you’ll agree. I’ve never done the Allagash (a waterway across northern Maine), but hope to do so soon. This will help me trip plan with the kids.

allagash.pdf

Here is a decent NY Times article relating to the northern waterway:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2006/09/10/travel/10northcanoe.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1194671925-FJ/ioco4cIAYBmd1oTLYng

This looks like an interesting program in Maine for scouts:

scout-whitewater-badges.pdf

I’m of the opinion this is the best map to get if you are hiking in the Whites (NH). They probably make for other areas of the country as well. It is waterproof, colored well, and just plan easy to read.  The AMC maps are fine, but this one just has it all.

www.mapadventures.com 

(I bought my copy at EMS)

There are dozens of hiking books available and it is easy to get overwhelmed with information. If you want to pick one, I recommend Jarad Gange’s 100 Classic Hikes of the Northeast. I have the older version and have found it to be a great resource to explain hikes to people and get ideas for hikes that don’t just pop into my head.