Expect the unexpected

Photo by stuckincustoms

In a previous post, I detailed some of my packing thought processes. In particular, I mentioned that we didn't pack any tents. We had no lightweight hiking tents, and the weather in the Cederberg is generally pretty dry in December. Nothing to worry about, right?


The hike had been going well until then, we stopped at a dry riverbed to set up camp for the evening. We made dinner, I accidentally tried to pick up the camp stove before it had cooled (I still have the scar), and we rolled out our mattresses on the lovely soft riverbed sand and went to sleep.

Sometime later, I was awakened by a huge rain droplet hitting me smack in the face. A look up confirmed that the cloudless starry night had turned into some very angry looking thunderclouds, and we were going to be in for a hell of a storm. We woke everyone and, as the downpour started, we all crawled into our survival bags, pulled our backpacks in with us, and went back to sleep.

We didn't, however, think about getting out of the riverbed.

Some time, and one flash flood later, everyone got the hint and moved up to higher ground. We didn't lose anything or anyone, and all in all, we were in reasonably good spirits when morning rolled around. The rain gave no indication of letting up, so we hunkered down, built a mostly waterproof fort out of emergency bags and tarps, and made breakfast.

It rained for a while, and I no longer recall what we did to get to the next base, but so much for it never raining in December.

The way to a scout's heart

Changes depending on whether you have your first aid badge or not.

Oldest biscuit in the world. Proton biscuits looked
suspiciously like this. Photo by Paul Cziko

Oh, right, the food. Food at my Cederberg hikes was a mix of "just add water", a lot of glow in the dark egg substitute, MREs and the surprise hit for our group, "Proton Biscuits" (cookies for you Americans). We think they were called that because they were made of byproducts from the Koeberg nuclear reactor. If you've read much Terry Pratchett, think Dwarf Bread. They were provided to us in old shopping bags, and I have no idea where they came from or what their nutritional value was. Most patrols thought they were a joke, and used them as currency in the swap boxes at bases.

Our patrol, purely due to having boys who would literally eat anything, discovered something amazing about the proton biscuits; after you've had about ten of them, they somehow become delicious. Less than ten, and you'd rather eat the shopping bag, or one of your patrol mates, but once you reach around ten, you simply can't stop eating the things.

This was lucky for us, since at every base we stopped, the swap box was literally overflowing with bags of Proton biscuits left there by patrols who had obviously not eaten the magic number. We capitalised heavily on their lack of fortitude and would grab any bags we came across, leaving behind anything to do with powdered eggs.

By the end of the hike, the supply started drying up. I believe the other patrols had finally hit critical biscuit mass and discovered that they weren't just made from recycled cardboard, or toilet paper. I still think fondly about those Protons, but since I never found out what they actually were, I have never managed to find them outside of Cederberg. They must have been quite nutritious though, we basically lived off them for a week.

Outside of the food you carried with you, there was the Dutch Oven base. This is a highlight in a week filled with radioactive eggs and collapsed matter biscuits. With a bit of preparation, and some patience, you can make delicious confections. I think we skipped it the second time around though. It was overshadowed by other, more important, bases. And we didn't want the Proton Biscuits getting jealous.

The Packening

So you're going to be in the mountains for ten days. What do you take with you?

In our case, it was "as little as possible". A couple of pairs of jeans (despite the heat, I still prefer jeans for hiking), some shorts, underwear, tshirts, a pair of flip flops.


You need a sleeping bag. When I was doing it, materials science wasn't as advanced as it is now, so you were very lucky to have a high tech light sleeping bag. Mine was a pretty good one. Tent? Fahgeddaboutit. It's December! It never rains in December! We'll sleep under the stars. One of those sleeping mats is essential. As is a survival bag. On my first trip, I had an external frame backpack. It was useful, but not the most comfortable thing to hike with, and it made this clinking noise with every step. Drove me nuts. clink  clink  clink. Duct tape would probably have fixed it, but for some reason, we neglected to bring any. I see nowadays it's recommended. Probably due to some clink related death previously.

On my second trip, I had upgraded to a lightweight internal frame backpack. It was a dream to use. About the only thing bad I could say about it was that it makes your back a bit sweaty.

Into your backpack goes all your clothing. If you've done it right, you still have a lot of space left. some toiletries and a small first aid pack get added to that. The sleeping bag gets strapped on top or stuffed in, depending on your sleeping bag and backpack. And your mat straps on the bottom. Then you weigh it, mentally double that for the food you'll be carrying, wince, and wonder if you can hike naked. You can't.

The food. I'll talk more about the food in future posts, but essentially, you have to carry it all with you. I think they give you one drop point that you can make a package to resupply, but that's about it. At the start of the adventure, they give you this pile of food, and it's your job to make sure you don't starve. So you portion it out amongst you, weighted to the older folks and go from there. Pots and pans are irrelevant. You have a combination pot-bowl-plate-cup thing that also holds your utensils, weighs very little and is probably about 15x20x10 centimeters. It'll do. There's always the Dutch Oven base.

Cooking is done on those tiny camp stoves. We carry a couple of them and a few refills.

I agonised for days over what I was packing and what I needed. In the end I think my backpack (both times) weighed about 20 kilos, or over 40 pounds. For someone not yet 15, this was considerable. If I fell over backwards, I was like a turtle and had to be helped up again. It's not as bad as it sounds, because a good backpack puts most of the weight on your hips, but you better be fit, and you better have worn your hiking boots in.

The hardest part

One of the routes for the 2010 adventure.

There are many things about Cederberg that are hard. You have to be fit, because you're going to be hiking up and down mountains, with deadlines. You have to be prepared, because lots of unexpected things can happen, and you have to come to terms with the fact that you won't be able to attend all the bases.

The hardest part, from my experience, is choosing which of the thirty odd bases you won't be attending.

All this happens long before you get into the mountains. You sit down as a group, and find a way to decide which of the bases you want to go to the most. Tally that up, come to some consensus, and then try to work out an itinerary that most closely matches your wishlist. They've simplified it a lot in recent years, it seems. When I was doing it, there were literally 50 itineraries in the booklet, and you put down your top 3 in the form, and if you were lucky (and quick to return the paperwork) you'd get the one you wanted.

For our group, some of the choices were easy. Everyone wanted the water activities (Parasailing for the win). Diving and Rock Climbing were close contenders, and paintball was a definite yes. It was much harder finding an itinerary that matched our wishes. We gave up things like Archery so we could fit everything we had to have in.

The first time around, we did the water activities near the beginning. The second, we made sure that the water activities were near the end. It's pretty much the only bath you get in the ten days you're there...
The problem is twofold. You only have ten days, and each base takes a goodly amount of time. The Water Activities base, for instance, can only handle about two patrols a day. There are 50 patrols. Some other bases, like paintball, accommodate two patrols at a time, for 4 patrols a day. And others can essentially take care of any amount, limited only by the number of helpers.

Combined with some low-throughput bases being very popular (Electronics, Water Activities, Rock Climbing), this makes for an exciting and tense time from when you send in your paperwork until you find out if you hit the jackpot and got the itinerary you wanted. I think our first time we got our second or third choice, and the second time we got our first choice. We knew what we were up against, and we planned ahead.

In the end, it doesn't really matter which bases you go to. They're all interesting, and you're guaranteed to get a few amazing ones in any route. Some of these will stick with you forever. You may not remember the names of the people you went with, but you will remember the things you did.

Welcome

When people ask me why I seem to know at least a little bit about almost everything, I tell them it's for two reasons, I'm naturally curious, and I pretty much did everything when I was younger. I have no idea how I fitted it all in, actually. When I compare my youth experiences to other folks I talk to, it appears I must have been working in 8x fast forward until I was 18. I find that a lot of my memories of that time are starting to run together, so I decided to put some of them down in writing, and hopefully entertain some people in the process.

I'll start the blog off with a series of posts about my experiences of the Senior Scout Adventure held every two years in the Cederberg mountains in South Africa, and we'll see where it goes from there. I was one of the lucky few who got to go twice, and I loved it both times. This year is the 20th anniversary of the last time I attended, so these memories are more than half my lifetime ago.