Mountains to Climb

I was a scouting agnostic.  Until last month, that is.  Look it up.  Agnostic: a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.  Let me tell you, I’ve been in strong denial that scouting is the answer to make a boy a man.  Oh, I’ve “done” scouting for four years.  I’ve sent my boy off to be taught or “entertained” by his den leaders and 11-year-old scout leaders.  I’ve even praised the particularly good ones, thanking them for getting my boy to where he is in scouting, because clearly it hasn’t been me.  In cub scouts, you could always tell when it was about a month shy of an upcoming birthday, because the mostly-blank tracking chart would go up on the fridge and we would feverishly work to make check marks.  Admittedly, he has learned phenomenal lessons from a variety of amazing men, but despite this I for sure had not had a drink of that scouting Kool-Aid.

 Then came the ever-looming Boy Scouts, with their rank advancements and uniform inspections and the Holy Grail Eagle.   That was one mighty checklist in my mind.  We floated through 11-year-old scouts on the backs of two great leaders in two different states.  Is it sad to say there was a part of me that was hoping for a different decision when the BSA was contemplating the issue of homosexuality?  I was almost wishing it wouldn’t go well and then maybe the LDS church would part ways (I’m just being honest here, folks).  Then my husband got called to scouting, and in a flurry of new excitement “we” made a plan, which we graciously informed our 12-year-old he would be participating in.  We’re just cool like that.  Real cool.

But small things can change a mama’s mind.  Small things like an 11,752 ft high mountain.  And 3 good men.  And 1 good woman.

See, my 12-year-old Todd hiked Mt. Timpanogos last month.  All the way to the top.  And back down. 

It.

Was.

Hard.

The day started early.  We got up an hour before the scheduled departure time, having made zero preparations the night before (did I tell you we are awesome?).  Both Todd and Ryan were a little stressed (Ryan went as well—he’s a scout leader now, ya know).  But we got them ready and out the door.  It had been an ugly weather week—rain every afternoon and most mornings.  Our view of Timp from home was socked in with dreary grey clouds.  They left at 7:00.  5 boys and 5 leaders.   The other 4 boys hiked in 2.5 miles, and then had other obligations to get home to.  So they headed back down the mountain.  Those other four leaders kept going.  With one scout.  Yep.  My scout.  Let me tell you, it would have been mighty easy to say, “Let’s all head back.  We’ll do this again another time.”  But they didn’t.  They took their entire Saturday to help my son summit a mountain. 

It was perhaps the most demanding physical exertion that he has ever asked of his body.  And this kid isn’t a weakling—he swims one to two hours a day, all week.  But he hasn’t built up his hiking legs, and it was hard for him.  There was weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth (literally).  He wanted to quit.  At the top, they made a shelter for him out of ponchos and he sat in it with the one mama who was there—she probably knew he need a little mothering amidst all the manliness.   I’m sure he’ll toughen up after a few years in the Utah arctic tundra, but this kid is still a desert rat—he was cold.  She sat there with him until he got back some degree of body heat.  He truly felt like he couldn’t make it back down the mountain.  His legs were jello.  He was cold.  They ran out of food and he was hungry.  I made him wear my hiking books because we’re the same size, but that wasn’t a brilliant idea.  In utter frustration he took off his hiking boots and hiked 3 miles in 3 layers of socks (2 of which belonged to leaders).  This was not a hike to publish in Backpacker magazine.  Nothing glamorous here.

But here’s the beauty and the lesson of the day.  My son did something monumentally difficult.  In this day of ease and plenty, we rarely ask extremely difficult things of our bodies or minds.  Scouting asks these things.  And it is in those difficulties that we find out who we are and what we are capable of.  One day, perhaps 6 years from now on the streets of Chicago or in the jungles of Brazil, or on a path in China, Todd will feel like he can’t possibly go on.  His legs, or his heart, will be wobbling and threatening to buckle.  He will feel freezing in body, or in spirit, or both.  He will want to quit.  But he will remember that he hiked Mount Timpanogos.  He will remember that Brother Mason, Brother Skinner, Sister Skinner, and his dad believe in him.  He will remember that they stood beside him while he did something that felt impossible.  It may not be a glorious moment.  But when he is an 18-year-old serving a mission, or a young father struggling to find his way in the world, or a middle-aged father feeling lost and unneeded in a new place, he will remember that summit.  And he will pick himself up and keep going.  Because he will know that he can.  He has done it before.  He can do it again. 

So I’m a convert.  Scouting at its heart isn’t about badges and lists and checkmarks.  It isn’t about sewing on patches or paying registration fees.  It isn’t about deadlines and details.  It is about my son.  It is about making him a man who knows he can climb mountains.  Because there are mountains ahead.