Night on Missouri Mountain

On Mother’s Day, my Mom told me that my scoutmaster wrote a book about his scouting experiences. Now, I’m curious. I wonder if, among all of the many boys he had grow up in his troop, he mentioned me, either by name, or by incident. Thinking back, I probably didn’t do much to deserve a mention… except maybe one unplanned night all by myself on Missouri Mountain (visible in the picture I took yesterday evening). What with all the snowy cliffs and the dark, moonless night, the thought of a stubborn boy named “Mike” splattered at the bottom of a cliff or frozen to death might have tormented him. I’m really sorry to have done that. I really didn’t plan to inconvenience him or the search and rescue patrol. I didn’t die, obviously.To make a long story short, I fell behind a group that was going to climb Missouri Mountain and Iowa Peak, but climbed to the top of both, anyway. I didn’t know that they turned back and didn’t climb the second mountain for lack of sunlight, which I did, indeed run out of on the side of Missouri Mountain. I very slowly found my way back to within about 200 meters of our camp, in the dark, with a penlight with dead batteries (good for a brief flash every minute or so), and waited for sunrise. I didn’t get much sleep that night, but thank God I didn’t die.

Maybe I’ll have to buy the book to see if my scoutmaster had a different take on that little adventure. 🙂 His book is at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1412091128/worldenglishb-20