You know, for kids!
Just so you don't think I've completely given up on this whole dissertation concept, here's a tidbit from today's research.
I'm reading the early scouting handbooks, including Ernest Thompson Seton's 1906 "Birchbark Roll" guidelines. It gives suggestions for setting up your own scouting troop: by-laws, organization, merit badges, etc. I skimmed the merit badge section until something caught my eye: mountain-climbing. Suggestions: Mt. St. Helens.
Nothing like climbing an active volcano to make a man outta ya!
I'm reading the early scouting handbooks, including Ernest Thompson Seton's 1906 "Birchbark Roll" guidelines. It gives suggestions for setting up your own scouting troop: by-laws, organization, merit badges, etc. I skimmed the merit badge section until something caught my eye: mountain-climbing. Suggestions: Mt. St. Helens.
Nothing like climbing an active volcano to make a man outta ya!
Labels: books, cascadianness, history, travels
posted by Courtney at 9:24 AM
4 Comments:
Well, at the time it was a dormant volcano. Mt. Hood is also a dormant volcano, and Mt Bachelor, and Mt Shasta. Oh, and don't forget the largest natural disaster on the west coast, just waiting to wake up from dormancy...Mt. Rainer. Oh, oh, ohhhh, that'll be spectacular.
I knew my geology peeps would have something to say on this topic. And now that I think about it, i've done my share of hiking along Helens (not to the top, obviously).
Ranier is the next to go? I've always heard that Helens was still the hot point.
Also, for our European scouts, Seton suggested Vesuvius. Heh.
Please Please Please don't mention Mt Rainier!!!
We're all just holding our breath up here in Seattle about that one!
btw: There was a boy scout camp at the no longer existent Spirit Lake.
Don't forget Mt. Tabor in Portland
Spirit Lake still exists, just in a highly modified form. The Boy Scout camp is, well, toast. Mt Tabor (the namesake of my black cat) is a truly extinct volcano and is in no danger of erupting.
Motto of the Cascade Mountains...
"As long as there's subduction, there'll always be an eruption."
Another tidbit of geology humor...
What did the subducting slab say to the Cascade volcano?
"I Juan de Fuca."
(For those who think this is a dirty joke, it's not, only a double entedre (o.k. o.k., it's a dirty joke). The Juan de Fuca plate is the plate subducting beneath the North American plate and the reason the cascade mountains exist).
Julie, you can tell these to your friends as your huddled in the dark of an eruptive afternoon. Should provide a light moment. Just make sure you're a couple of hundred feet above any rivers draining the mountain so you can deliver the punch line.
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