The Words of the Burton Family
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The Words of the Burton Family |
On a snowy parking lot of the New Hope Academy in West Lanham Hills, Maryland, on Sunday night (March 1), a troop of 17 exhausted boys and six weary men piled out of their vans and cars to conclude an outdoor tradition that has come to epitomize America’s first Unificationist Boy Scout troop. All had packed their food and bedding on their backs and hiked for six hours into one of America’s largest wilderness parks, camped near a bog on Feb. 28, and rambled on and off trails for hours the next day, stumbling wearily back to their vehicles at dusk to begin the 200-mile drive back to the Washington, DC, area.
Ten years after the founding of Troop 1212, no annual trip remains as challenging or as storied as this annual winter backpacking hike into West Virginia’s Dolly Sods Wilderness Area near Davis, West Virginia. On some trips the overnight temperatures have plummeted to 11 degrees below zero, whereas this last trip was comparatively balmy with overnight temperatures in the mid-20’s. When trails are buried by snow, the Scouts use their maps and compasses with high seriousness. Starting out this time, the boys were disappointed that little snow was on the ground, but they awoke the next day with about two inches of snow on their tents.
The destination of their hike this year was the stand of red spruce and pine ensconced around a large upland bog in the northern end of the park at about 4,500 feet. Land there is beyond cell-phone range, seemingly out of the reach of civilization, and some say its tundra-like surface exudes an eerie, gray, other-worldly beauty.
Why camp in such forbidding conditions? It’s a test of scouting skills (food preparation, mapping, compass, and choosing equipment) Each hiker carried two liters of water, his share of the food. a sleeping bag, ground cushion and a piece of equipment such as a stove or a tent. Such trips also usually lead to a unique bonding of the boys, virtually all of whom are second-generation children of parents who were married at Madison Square Garden in 1982.
The hike route was planned by Scout Master James Boothby but it was revised in close and frequent consultation with the senior boy leader, Theo Wilkening. Theo’s father, Assistant Scoutmaster Christoph Wilkening, led the boys in prayer Sunday morning. Other adults making the trip were Assistant Scoutmasters Jonathan Clark and Peter Holden and Troop committeemen Doug Burton and Nick Kernan. Troop 1212 alumni Jacob Mas and George Burton also pitched in as mentors.
Under the guidance of Scoutmaster James Boothby, who formed the troop in 1999, Troop 1212 has produced 21 Scouts who have obtained the coveted rank of Eagle. Several alumni of the troop have gone on to study at prestigious universities, including New York University, Cornell, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Three are serving in the U.S. Army, including Ian Scott, Richard Abendroth, and David Muhlbock. Unlike most troops in the area, Troop 1212 retains the interest of many boys into their mid-teens, and even those who “age out” of Scouts at 18 continue to camp together or meet in an informal fellowship of blessed children in Bowie, Maryland.
Contributed by Douglas Burton