I was in the Boy Scouts for a while when I was young. I didn’t really get into Boy Scouts for the most part, but I did like the few camping trips we took.
One of the trips I remember most was to Cape Alava. This would have been in the mid 1970’s. The first part was a hike in though a marsh area, walking along planks. From what I read now the hike was only about three miles. But back then with a 60 pound pack on my back it felt more like ten.
We set up our tents along the shore of the Pacific Ocean. Across the water we saw an island. I know now that it was Ozette Island. I don’t remember if someone told us, or if we came up with it ourselves, but for some reason we thought it was an indian burial ground and haunted.
We did various hikes during the days. I remember one hike where we were near a cliff. I went over by the cliff, and ducked around the side. I yelled “AAAHHHHhhhhhaaaaa”, getting quieter at the end like I had fallen. The troop leader came running over looked over the edge. I stood off to the side and laughed. He was pretty ticked off.
We picked up pieces of what we called sea carrots along the shore, that we cut into tubular sections. We would blow through them like horns.
At night we didn’t tell ghost stories, but told Big Foot stories. Then at night we slept in our tents. If anyone hiked to outhouses, others would gather around the outhouse shaking it, and blowing on their sea carrot horns, and growling.
One of the nights, when the tide was really low. A bunch of us snuck out of our tents. It looked like we could make it to the haunted indian burial ground island (Ozette Island) by hopping from rock to rock. So we did. We got about halfway there, and then started worrying about the tide coming in. So we turned around, and headed back to the camp.
Dennis, a buddy of mine found the head of a dead fish. He kept it, and called it Eegor. There were some cute college age girls camping nearby. When we ran into the girls later on, Dennis shoved the head of the dead fish in their faces to try and freak them out. They were not phased, and started identifying the species of the fish. They turned out to be biology students or something. It was funny though.
The last night, there was a storm. The tent I was in collapsed in the middle of the night. I was too asleep to get up and do anything about it. In the morning, the tent was soaked, and my sleeping bag was soaked. Everything was soaked. It was time to head home, so I wasn’t concerned about the stuff being wet. But on the hike out, the stuff weighed a ton. I think I got help carrying the some of the stuff.
It was a great camping trip (except for carrying the wet stuff). One of these years when I get back to Washington, I would like to go camping out there again. I am not sure if the place is open to anyone, or is restricted to Boy Scouts.

Posted by RJ in Travel on May 1st, 2006 |