Trip Report: Eagle Island Wilderness Survival High Adventure

Trip Report: Eagle Island Wilderness Survival High Adventure

For the last 8 years or so, I've run a high adventure trip for 3 or 4 Scout troops who operate together more often than not, for lack of large memberships. Because we're not paying BSA overhead, I typically end up spending a small fraction of what a trip to an official BSA camp costs. This year the ratio was 1:6. That's right, we spent 6 times as much money to send the same number of boys (in the younger age bracket) to Goshen scout camp, than it cost me to take 15 boys out to Eagle Island. And I think these older boys had a better time.

This is the story...

15 young men between 14 and 18 years old, up at 5am on a Tuesday morning. Blowing off the last so-called day of school, nothing happening so we took 'em. I had my chuckwagon (old dodge van) with 2 canoes lashed to the top, and a trailer behind with 3 more, and 7 kayaks. Food for 20 people for a week, and a little program gear (table, shelter, my hooch, etc.) for the leader camp.

We hauled out to West Virginia, by way of the town of Paw Paw. Had a safety brief, put them out on the water, and I proceeded to haul ass to my parking spot nearby our island. I call it Eagle Island, because the first time I visited, I saw a bald eagle take a fish from the river not 100 yards from me. I considered it a good omen. It's part of Maryland Wildlands, abutting a state forest, and when I called the rangers and asked about the hunk of land with a different shade of green on the map, they told me it was pretty much at my disposal - no way to collect fees, they didn't mind us making fire and cutting small trees for projects, perfect for my wilderness survival high adventure.

So I get around to my spot, which is on a CSX road, under an abandoned bridge. There are private lots on the river there, and most are posted, so I try not to park in front of their space. I drag my canoe down the hill, and float over to my island, check out what the last couple years have done to it since I've been there. It's low enough, most of it gets flooded at high water... so leave no trace is less emphasized here. It also means there's no shortage of driftwood and trash, other people using the place and leaving their junk and garbage - there's no way to clean the whole river, so we tidy up as we can, but generally leave it no worse for our use, refuse-related at least.

The boys have paddled for 7.5 miles to get here, and when they do, we get them wet and test the waterproofing of their gear. One of their first challenges is to start setting up camp, get a fire going, and start purifying water. We're drinking out of this river all week, so every drop needs to be treated, filtered, boiled, somehow made safe. No excuses.

Day one is pretty light, I get them organized into teams, let them settle in, explore the place a bit. Make the boats safe, get dinner into them.

Wednesday morning, however, is a different story altogether.

First thing we have them do, is work with fire. To be rescued, one must be seen. Be seen from space, I say. The first challenge was to build a signal fire, which could produce good contrast smoke visible against the sky. The boys snapped to it, and got hot fires going quickly. Being adaptive users of their environment, they immediately seized upon some of the river trash to help - old tires. There are hundreds of them on the banks of the river, scattered about. Most are pretty damn old, but they have a half-life of a century at least. Grab one of those, and toss it on the flames, and in about 5 minutes you have a good smokey signal fire reaching up to the sky. As soon as I see it's taking off, I have them kill it, so as not to pollute too much, or attract actual attention we don't want. Good times.

The next challenge is to improvise the purification of water. Sometimes, you just don't have a pot you can boil it with, your filter's broken, your pills lost in the river - pick an excuse, sometimes an emergency leaves you with little but your wits. I gave them a container, but a rule that they were not to boil the water over fire.

The solution is hot rocks. Get a new fire going, get the rocks screaming hot, and start adding them to the quart of water, until it comes to a rolling boil. Allow to cool, then the team must drink the quart to finish. The smart kids took the container down to the river to cool it off faster, and then put a t-shirt over the top so strain out the soot and sand. What's funny, is after a week of boiling, pumping, etc., they all agreed that the rock water was the tastiest of all they had, all week.

That afternoon, they were challenged once again with fire, this time, carrying it. They were required to start a fire in one location, and then carry a flame or ember capable of starting a 2nd fire about 200 yards through an obstacle course which took them up terrain, through heavy overgrowth, down a slope, and across open water to the sandbar they'd made their signal fires on. What made this one great, was that just as the teams were getting ready to build their new fires, the skies opened up and started dumping... I mean dumping rain. It must have been some of the hardest rain I've ever seen, just sheeting down, so bad you couldn't see far through it. Three of the four teams got their fires going despite it, which was admirable. Of course, they'd not prepared their camps terribly well for such a downpour, and some shelters suffered for it. Experience is a meaner teacher than I ever could be.

Thursday, we stepped away from fire for a bit, and worked on making things. The first was, a ladder or tower, to simulate the need to get up high and survey one's surroundings. All of these challenges, mind you, must be completed with only the contents of the boys' personal survival kits, and fortunately some carried some cordage, enough to get through this challenge at least. Duct tape got involved in one tower.

We also worked on signalling, using tools other than fire this time. We sent a leader half a mile upstream with a radio, so he could report on what he saw or heard. BIG LESSON TIME: Those high-pitched, shrill whistles everyone gets, do not carry over distance at all. You'd make your ears bleed next to one, but only half a mile away, 2500 feet or so over flat water with no obstructions, they couldn't be heard over the talking of the boys in their lower-pitch noise. There were one or two whistles that worked, those which produce a split tone and a harmonic in low frequency, and that carried. Flares work, big bright ponchos work, yellow and orange life vests sort of work, just jumping around does not. A signal mirror, properly used, works great, and some shiny knives were made to do as well - and a flashlight, pointed right at the guy, was visible against shaded brush. The best audible was a low-pitch holler, though, and the best visible seemed to be large orange panels.

The boys were next challenged to make their own cordage, something one might be faced with when something needs to be built, and one's paracord in the pack is used up, gone, or insufficient to the task. They were taught how to weave a 2-ply opposing twist from grass or bark, and they were required to make a 5-foot length which could be tied in a knot, as to suspend a bucket with about 5 or so pounds of weight. Not quite as easy as it sounds, but they learned a ton about the use of natural materials and how weak spots can ruin the project.

That afternoon, at their constant insistence all year, they were provided an opportunity to hunt, trap, fish, or gig. Despite my reluctance to do this (not that I'm squeamish, but the business of killing and gutting and cooking requires commitment I wasn't sure they had... these are city boys, after all) they were given instruction on several forms of hunting and trapping earlier in the year, and a refresher on site, and given the afternoon to produce something. Every event had points on the line for teams, so there was an incentive to at least catch and cook a small fish, or frog, but every team reported no success at the end of the day.

Friday, being the last full day on the island, was our Total Survival Scenario. Teams were brought in for a meager breakfast, then sent to fetch all the boat. We took them a hundred yards downstream, and had them swamp the boat with their personal survival kits, until everything was soaked, then led them up the steepest, muddiest hillside to the island we could find. They had to get their boats up out of the current as well, which took some doing. Once up on dry land, we simulated an injury per team, and had them perform first aid. The rest of the day was mainly taken up with fulfilling the other requirements for survival - building a shelter (which they were to sleep in that night), purifying water all day, cooking their lunch and drying their clothes which required a fire, attempting to signal for help, and so forth.

This is where it gets interesting. The dominant small tree there is the Paw Paw tree. The fruits were not yet ripe, but we were all using our knives to work with the bark, which is very fibrous and makes great improvised cordage.

It also is quite toxic. Not to the skin so much, but extract of the bark juice used to be sold as an emetic 100 years or so ago. This, we did not know.

While the boys were keeping busy, we were preparing them a feast to celebrate a week of hard work. Food safety was observed, we even tried to clean our knives, at least as much as a rinse and a wipe can do out there. It wasn't enough, and the oils in the sap got into our food. While the food itself was cooked well, and delicious at the time, about 5 hours later like clockwork people started getting sick, myself included. And I mean sick. Projectile dry-heave sick. Stomach cramps, dehydration, the works. It was horrible, and lasted all night. I didn't get any sleep at all, shat liquid death about 8 times into the next morning, and generally wanted to die.

Since about 6 boys were also in a bad state of affairs, and the morning's activity was to be primitive fire-making (a physically intense exercise which I was simply not up to) we called a halt to formal activities, and focused on making the ill comfortable, and slowly packing up camp. Around lunchtime I started shuttling cars with another leader to the pick-up point, and the boys put out to river for the 4 mile float down to meet us. Fortunately there was a gas station in the middle, where I bought them out of gatorade, and started pushing fluids as hard as I could, just so I could function. One visit to a proper toilet helped my mood immensely, and we finally got everyone home by dinnertime.

So I owe them a Saturday campout, locally, where we cover the last day's program, but they seem to have had a great time, illness notwithstanding. I've heard since, that it was hard, really hard, but good. I heard feedback from the boys about the things they learned. Some had never really used woods tools seriously before, not at this level. They had a great appreciation for the comforts of home. They certainly learned the importance of teamwork, of listening to people's ideas, and relying on one another in a high-stress environment.

And that's what Eagle Island was for us this year.