Anyone can go camping on a nice day. Oh, I would not deny anyone the pleasure of camping and trekking on a fine New England day, but the true test of Scouting and your dedication to the outdoors is when the snow lies deep upon the ground, the temperature is in the single digits or in the double digits with a minus before them, or the rain is falling in sheets.
To recognize the hardy among us Troop 160 has a Degrees of Frost award. We also have a more recent Days of Rain award. Though not as easily quantifiable, the requirements are that a significant portion of at least one day of an outing must be spent in rainy weather. It must be of a severity that the unprepared would be disheartened. It must interrupt the setup or teardown of the campsite and it must affect the preparation of at least two meals. It cannot be the gentle patter of the spring or autumn rain upon the leaves which serves only to remind us that we are out of doors rather than inside. It must be a hard, driving, cold rain and it must be met with equanimity, perhaps even welcomed.
Jack London is the basis for our Degrees of Frost award so it should be no surprise that I quote from his short story, The Unexpected, to explain the Days of Rain award.
It is a simple matter to see the obvious, to do the expected. The tendency of the individual life is to be static rather than dynamic, and this tendency is made into a propulsion by civilization, where the obvious only is seen, and the unexpected rarely happens. When the unexpected does happen, however, and when it is of sufficiently grave import, the unfit perish. They do not see what is not obvious, are unable to do the unexpected, are incapable of adjusting their well-grooved lives to other and strange grooves. In short, when they come to the end of their own groove, they die.
On the other hand, there are those that make toward survival, the fit individuals who escape from the rule of the obvious and the expected and adjust their lives to no matter what strange grooves they may stray into, or into which they may be forced.
On our trip to the White Mountains in 2005, it rained for much of two days. Still, the hikes went on, meals were prepared and campfires were lighted and well attended because we are Scouts, living with Nature and not constantly railing against her. The trails were streambeds, the water stood in great pools, but we slept dry and we ate well. We camped in three days of constant downpour at MassJam. Just as 2005 was turning into 2006, we camped in warm rain, but when it turned cold that night, we woke to find sheets of ice covering tents and ground. We do not melt in the rain. We live in it. We revel in it. We are Scouts!
