Critique my University of Scouting dissertation draft

[Luke Schmidt]

Okay Bob let me rephrase that comment to "I highly doubt a scout troop led by adults with half a brain will get into a survival situation together."

As far as the Ten Essentials go I think the tendancy is for the typical group to go out with way more redundancy than they really need. I don't think every scout needs a complete first aid kit for example, or three different ways of starting fires, or multiple knives but thats what I see (my friend took something like three lights, at least two knives and three or four methods of starting a fire on an overnight campout).

[Bob Shaver]

"Should never be dying of thirst if you plan water storage appropriately. AM can't fail like filters can. I suppose having a filter for a troop as backup is OK. Many filters aren't small enough to get the bacteria."

I usually carry a liter of water. Sometimes that is a little short for some stretches of trail, but usually that is sufficient. We have multiple filters on trips, at least one for scouts and one for scouters. Generally we have 2 filters for 6 scouts. If all our filters fail, we would drink unfiltered water I suppose, or boil it if we have enough fuel. AM is lighter, but so far has not been worth the hassle. Sometimes I'll take AM for my water treatment, but scouts just don't want to fool with it, and don't mind adding a few oz the group gear.

I am not worried about bacteria, just giardia. We are usually hiking where there are fast moving streams, highly oxygenated, ice cold from snow run off. There is just no credible bacterial risk.

I've been backpacking since 1967, but maybe one of these days I'll figure out how to do it.

[Luke Schmidt]

Bob you obviously know what you're doing but one idea. Does your troop carry those big dromadary things for group water? I normally don't but one time we used one to carry some water. The nice thing about it was I could fill it up and dump AM in it to be ready the next morning. That was definately easier than pumping four liters of water through the filter.

[Bob Shaver]

I'm not sure what you mean by dromedary, but generally we do cooking and water by cook groups of 2-4 scouts. They usually have gatoraide bottles for water, and also fill their pots when pumping water. Sometimes a scouter will have a collapsable bucket, scoop it full of water, and we'll let it settle and then pump water out of the bucket. I take 3 liter collapsable water container by nalgene, which is nice to fill up for cooking needs for me and my partner.

Using AM on a large container of water makes sense, and would be time efficient.

New scouts tend to have big knives and no rain coat, or bring a bar of soap, but no hat. I think each scout should have a first aid kit with foot treatment stuff (moleskin, tape), and bandaids, and maybe antibacterial creme. The first aid kit spelled out in the scout handbook is pretty good. A more complete kit is something the scouters should have.

I think having multiple ways of making fire is pretty important, and doesn't weight very much. A bic lighter is the most effective survival tool there is.

[Luke Schmidt]

Bob a dromadary (spelling?) is a big soft water bladder. They seem to be popular with organized camping groups that tend to haul a lot of water. Its probably a good thing that you don't know what it is because you probably don't need to be haulling that amount of water.
I agree with basic blister treatment for each kid. I won't argue that more than one way of starting a fire and having other survival gear is a bad idea just that some groups go to the extreme here. What I did last time I took my 13 year old brother out was to give him the following to keep in his pockets
1. Lighter
2. Emergancy Poncho
3. Whistle
4. Space Blanket
I think he had a small light too but I don't remember. Anyway if for some weird reason he'd gotten seperated from me and his pack he had that gear available to him. I also kept him informed on where we were on the map. If I'd been struck by lighting he could have found his way out.

Edit – I guess I should have clarified when I said a group won't get into a survival situation together. Obviously that can happen because of accidents or poor judgement. What I was getting at was that if a group has the appropriate sleeping bags, shelters etc. to comfortably enjoy the expected conditions they should have plenty of resources to "survive" (i.e. not die) in most non accident situations. This is of course assuming the did basic things like check the weather etc. When I wrote that I was thinking of my Eagle Scout buddy who packed up all his "Backpacking" gear than added his "Ten Essentials" on top of that. I like the Ten Essentials list just fine but a lot of its covered by basic backapcking gear so there's no point in duplicating things again.

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