My First Backpacking Trip

It was 1962. I was 12 years old, a new Boy Scout in Troop 53 in El Paso, TX, and I was going on my first real camping trip. We were told we were going to New Mexico and would have to backpack in to the camping area. We were issued heavy canvas Army surplus shelter halves (half of a pup tent split down the ridge line.) Each boy would have a tent mate and the halves were buttoned down the ridge line to make a complete, but floorless tent. We would have to figure out meals, cook them over a fire. We would have to start the fire with flint and steel sparks. In other words, a full up wilderness adventure! I was excited! 

My family was not a camping family, so we had to go out and purchase a sleeping bag (rectangular bag with cotton batting for insulation), a backpack (a frameless rucksack/day pack), an official Boy Scout round metal canteen with a canvas case and shoulder strap, a big D-cell battery flash light, a mess kit with pot, frying pan, and plate, a rain poncho, and other odds and ends. Along with the extra clothes and other junk, like a large deer skinning knife, and other items I figured would be essential, it all weighed a ton. Or it seemed that way when I shouldered the overstuffed rucksack. I could barely walk it was so heavy. 

The place we were going was Camp Tyler Frances, a Boy Scout camp about 10 miles from downtown El Paso and just over the boarder in New Mexico. Not exactly the remote mountain forest I had envisioned. Fortunately the backpacking part turned out to be that the adults let us off just outside the Camp and we walked the mile of road to the Camp with our heavy packs. A few boys had pack frames made of solid oak to help distribute the load, but most of us had rucksacks with no hip belts. The full weight was on our skinny 12 year old shoulders. That was possibly the longest mile I ever walked. I had blisters on my shoulders from the straps rubbing, But we made it. It was in the Fall, so it wasnzt killer hot, but we were spent when we got to the campsite. 

I think we had hotdogs and beans burnt over our campfire for dinner. One of my buddies had had the foresight to scrape the phosphorous compound off the tips of a box of matches. These were divided up into four piles and then put into tiny packets made of notebook paper. When it came time to start our cook fire with flint and steel, he made sure to stick a little packet near the edge of the pile of sticks we had gathered. Amazingly we were always first to get our fire going. 

The next day it rained much of the morning. I learned a lot about canvas tents that day. Turns out you should never touch the inside of a canvas tent in the rain. If you refrain, the canvas sheds water amazingly well. When you do touch it, it starts to leak right there. Not that it mattered much, because we had gotten the flattest spot for our tent which was also the low spot in area. So we were set up in a tiny pond in our floorless tent. It also happens that cotton batting, the kind you find in sleeping bags of that era, makes an excellent sponge. Who knew? The rain moved on in the afternoon and the sun came out, and at the urging of the Scoutmaster, we wrung out, then hung out, our sleeping bags to dry in the sun. Which is probably why we didnzt die of hypothermia that night. 

The next day, bedraggled, hungry, and tired, I returned home, alive. I had had the most amazing adventure and I had a story to tell. I wanted to do it all again, as soon as possible. 

The week after getting home from that trip, the world came to a standstill as it was discovered that the Russians, our arch enemy at the time, had placed missiles in Cuba, aimed at the US. 

I do remember, vividly, that my father, an Army doctor, came into my room one night, sat on the edge of my bed, and tried to explain what was going on in Cuba and how he might have to go off to war as a result. We were living on the very brink and President Kennedy was preparing the nation and calling up the armed forces for that possibility. Fortunately the Soviets blinked and WWIII was avoided, but it was a very tense time for the world and especially this 12 year old. See you back in 2 weeks, 

Stay Safe and Happy Trails