High Adventure: The Adventure Trek

Every summer a group of Troop 23 Scouts and adult leaders leaves Brooklyn for five days or more and sets out to cover fifty miles under its own power: by bike, by canoe or on foot. We call it the Adventure Trek. It is the troop's high adventure and, with summer camp, one of the two big trips of the year. It has run every summer since 2018, the Covid years included.

No two treks are alike. Some years it is a river: the James River in Virginia, twice by canoe. Some years it is a long towpath by bike, along the C&O Canal from Washington to Cumberland or the Erie Canal from Buffalo to Syracuse. And some years it is mountains on foot: the Presidential Range in New Hampshire, and Katahdin, the highest peak in Maine.

Below: how the troop builds a trek, every trek since 2018, and what a trek counts for.

Bikepacking: Canal Towpaths and Gravel Roads

Bikepacking is camping by bicycle. Everything for the week rides in bags on the bike, and camp is wherever the day's miles end. It is the form of the trek the troop has chosen most often.

The C&O Canal Towpath runs 184.5 miles from Georgetown in Washington, DC, to Cumberland, Maryland. The troop rode it in 2018 and again in 2022. The 2022 ride took five days end to end, through thunderstorms, flat tires and detours, including one uphill stretch where the loaded bikes had to be pushed through a storm.

In 2025 it was the Erie Canal section of the Empire State Trail: about 220 miles from Buffalo to Syracuse in five days, with the bikes carried west by truck and the riders by train. On the way came a morning of service on the ships of the Buffalo Naval & Military Park, canal locks at work, a cold front, four flat tires, and a campfire under a picnic pavilion in the rain.

In 2026 the bikes went to northern Maine: 72 miles of gravel on the Park Tote Road and the logging roads of Katahdin Woods and Waters, where past the park gate there is no store, no fuel and, for most of the way, no cell signal.

Canoeing the James River

Some years the trek goes by water, down the James River in Virginia: in 2021, and again in 2024, from Iron Gate near the river's headwaters. The upper James is a river of riffles and small rapids with long quiet pools between them, and the mornings start in fog.

A canoe trek is the one where the troop leans on an outfitter. In 2024 Twin River Outfitters supplied the canoes and the group gear, drove the crew upriver to the put-in and picked it up at the end. Everything else for the week travels in the canoes.

Backpacking the White Mountains and Katahdin

On foot, everything rides on your back, and the miles come slower and steeper. In 2019 the trek was backpacking at Cranberry Lake. In 2023 it went to the Presidential Range of the White Mountains in New Hampshire, the most rugged mountains in New England, where the trail climbs above the treeline into alpine tundra.

In 2026 the climb was Katahdin, the highest mountain in Maine. The Hunt Trail gains some 4,200 feet in a little over five miles and changes character three times: a walk in the woods, then a boulder field with iron rungs driven into the rock, then the open Tableland below Baxter Peak, 5,267 feet. The cloud was down on the way up and lifted on the way down. It was a twelve-and-a-half-hour day, and the descent took longer than the climb.

A Week on the Trail

Whatever the route, the days have the same shape: break camp in the morning, cover the day's miles, make camp again before dark, cook, clean up, sleep. The rest is weather, terrain, and how the group handles both.

The treks are remembered for their details. On the Erie Canal a flat tire on the second morning became a roadside lesson in fixing one. On Katahdin, after the mountain, the Scouts spent a slow morning tying knots and lashings with twelve feet of paracord each, and two days later, in the rain at Lunksoos, the same cord became the guy lines for the tarps over camp. And on the night of August 12, 2026, under a new moon far from any town, the group counted more than ten shooting stars in half an hour, for several of them the first they had ever seen.

We Build It Ourselves

The best-known way to do high adventure in Scouting is a trek at one of Scouting America's national high adventure bases: Philmont in New Mexico, Northern Tier in Minnesota, Sea Base in Florida, the Summit Bechtel Reserve in West Virginia. There the base runs the program. It lays out the itineraries, supplies the crew gear and the food, and puts trained staff on the trail with the crew.

Our trek is built the other way round: it is the troop's own work, not a package. The adults who go plan the route, get the permits, book the campsites and drive the car shuttles, and the Scouts do their share of the work rather than ride along. Where a trip needs equipment or know-how we do not have, we hire it in. On the James River in 2024, Twin River Outfitters supplied the canoes and the group gear, drove the troop upriver to the put-in and picked it up at the end.

Two things follow from building it ourselves. The trek can happen every year, not once in a Scout's time with the troop. And it stays within a family's reach. On the 2026 trek to Katahdin the shared costs came to $82 per Scout, park map included; each Scout bought and packed their own food for the week and brought cash for meals on the road. For comparison, a seven-day trek at Philmont is listed at $1,460 per person for 2027, before the trip to New Mexico.

Safety: Plans That Bend to Conditions

A trek is planned for months and then fitted to what the trail, the weather and the group actually are on the day. In 2026 the rangers of Baxter State Park doubted our plan to climb Katahdin and ride thirty miles of gravel the next morning. The ride went ahead with a noon start after a slow morning in camp, and on the mountain the leaders kept an eleven o'clock turnaround time. On the last day, with tired legs, rain and a service project to reach by one o'clock, they took the hardest ride off the schedule.

In Maine one support car led the column up the gravel road and another followed behind it, and when a rider went down on the gravel, a first-aid kit was open within a minute. Every adult on a trek is a registered leader with current Safeguarding Youth Training, and two adults are with the group the whole way.

The Treks So Far

• 2018, by bike: the C&O Canal Towpath.
• 2019, on foot: Cranberry Lake.
• 2020, by bike: Harriman and Fahnestock State Parks and New York City.

From 2021 each trek has its own page with the plan, and the recent ones also tell what actually happened on the way.

• 2021, by canoe: the James River in Virginia.
• 2022, by bike: the C&O Canal Towpath from Georgetown in Washington, DC, to Cumberland, Maryland, 184.5 miles in five days.
• 2023, on foot: the Presidential Range of the White Mountains, New Hampshire.
• 2024, by canoe: the upper James River in Virginia, from Iron Gate downriver.
• 2025, by bike: the Erie Canal section of the Empire State Trail, Buffalo to Syracuse, about 220 miles in five days, together with Troop 253G.
• 2026, by bike and on foot: Baxter State Park and Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine, 85 miles including the climb to Baxter Peak, the highest point in the state. Read the trip report.

Awards and Preparation

The trek takes its distance from Scouting America's 50-Miler Award: at least fifty miles in at least five consecutive days, with no motors along the way. A trek can also complete the long-trip requirements of merit badges such as Backpacking and Cycling.

In 2023, when the trek went on foot to the White Mountains, three shorter trips close to home led up to it: an overnight in Harriman State Park, twenty miles at Ten Mile River and twenty miles of the Appalachian Trail in Connecticut. In 2026 the preparation was local: a few group sessions in a park close to home to set the rhythm and pace, and everyone rode on their own schedule.

Questions Families Ask

How much does a trek cost?

It depends on the route. In 2026 the shared costs were $82 per Scout, plus each Scout's own trail food and money for meals on the road. Each year's fee is on that year's trek page.

Does my Scout need experience?

A trek is a step up from a weekend campout. The basics come from our monthly campouts: packing, cooking, making camp. The trek itself is prepared closer to home, as described under Awards and Preparation above.

Can parents come?

Adult leaders go on every trek. A parent who wants to come along needs to be a registered adult with current Safeguarding Youth Training, and registration takes weeks, so start early.

Where can I see more photos?

The trek pages linked above have photos from each trip, and the full albums are in the troop's members-only photo archive.