Always Be Prepared!

It was late March and the snow was deep at the top of the best hike in southern Utah, The Subway in Zion National Park. I had been on this hike many times and knew that as we worked our way closer to the valley floor below, the snow would dissipate and then the real fun would begin! Despite the cold, this reconnoitering trip came off without a hitch and the following week we returned with a brand new Venturing Crew made up of BYU college students.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened during the first half of the hike. We descended to the canyon floor some 800 feet down a windy trail and made our way boulder hopping and crossing the river as we traveled several miles to the cascading waterfalls. Spring was in the air with a crisp breeze and we had remained dry and warm so far. As we entered the actual "Subway" part of the hike we saw rounded walls that were shimmering with the mist rising from the torrent of water flowing through it. The water was wall to wall, about 18 inches deep, and was approximately 35° F because of the snow melting two miles upstream.

I posted myself at the base of a short scramble and spotted the students as they made their ascent and continued on up the canyon. After several students had made it to the top of this wall, I took a step back to call the next one up the river. Unexpectedly, my footing slipped and I vanished into a deep pot hole that was filled with freezing cold water over my head. I remember looking up at the next girl in line as she stared down at me through the water. She was helplessly trying to figure out how to get me out of the churning water while I frantically kicked against the current to get to the surface. After what felt like hours I was able to get to the top and take a breath, but then the real challenge began. The walls of the pot hole were covered with a thin layer of green algae that were so slippery that it was impossible to get a good grip. Thinking quick, the nearest student stripped off her backpack and threw me a strap. This extra help enabled me to pull myself up and roll out onto my side like a beached whale. I was soaked to the skin and my gear was completely wet with everything ruined, including my radio. We were miles away from any outside help.

Before shock and hypothermia set in, with the help of several students we worked our way downstream. We could see one ray of sunshine shining down into the canyon from the 2000 foot sandstone walls towering above. We had to get to it! As we came around the corner we saw Michael Chang, a good friend of mine and another of the leaders on this hike. He was a true Boy Scout and was prepared with every needful thing, plus some! After removing most of my wet clothes, he wrapped me in an emergency blanket and cracked a small heater inside. Several of the class members gathered around and prayed for me that I would make it out okay.

I truly felt the hand of the Lord warm my body and my heart that day! 

The sun began to dip below the canyon walls and we were still hours away from the cars. Wet, cold, and with it getting dark, we had to move fast. It was slow going and we didn't make it back to the car until well after dark.

The moral of this story for me is: Be Prepared, or at least be with someone who is!

Thank you to Michael Chang and that Venturing Crew for saving my life by doing things for me that I could not do for myself.

I Can Sleep When The Wind Blows

When I was a boy I went camping with my grandfather, Carlon Hinton. He was a retired farmer who loved to tell stories from his farm life in Arizona. My cousins and I huddled close around the campfire, with the wind howling behind us, as we listened to our grandfather tell about hiring a new ranch hand...

I owned 10 sections of land just south of the airport at Luke Air Force Base west of Phoenix, Arizona. One day I found that I needed some help managing all of the cows, cotton, and corn that I had planted, so I put an advertisement in the newspaper for a farm foreman. Over the next couple of days I had several people call on me to request employment, but most of the men decided that the job was too much work and decided not to start. One man in particular captured my attention when he came to me and said, "Carlon, I can sleep when the wind blows." This statement struck me as odd, but I needed the help so I hired him on the spot. After several weeks of training, followed by a much-needed vacation on my part, I returned home during a great storm. It was one of those Arizona monsoons, a blow the doors off the barn kind of wind storm! I immediately went to my new ranch hand's house and knocked on his window: tap tap tap, then Pound Pound Pound, then BANG BANG BANG! After several minutes of pounding a very annoyed foreman came to the door and ask what I needed. I said, "Can you not hear the wind? Do you not see the rain? We need to get the chickens and the cows in and close the barn doors with bolts to keep them safe against this storm!" My new foreman put his hand on my shoulder and calmly said, "Remember, I can sleep when the wind blows." I told him I was not concerned with his sleeping habits, I was concerned with my farm! He explained that he could sleep when the wind blew because he lived by the motto, "Be Prepared." He always closed up the barn and bolted the doors and was prepared for a storm every time he left the farm. That was how he could sleep when the wind blew. 

My cousins and I were mesmerized by this story and wondered what we could do to be able to sleep when the wind blew. After a few minutes of silence, one of my cousins finally asked, "Grandpa, how can we be prepared?" If you knew my grandfather, you would know that he was a great scoutmaster and this was exactly the response he was hoping for. He quoted the Scout Oath and Scout Law to us, then told us that we needed to "be prepared" for a mission, a righteous temple marriage, and that we needed to prepare to be the leaders of our generation by studying the leaders of previous generations.

I will be forever grateful to my grandfather for teaching me how to "sleep when the wind blows." 

Helaman 5:12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

Losing a Scout at Goblin Valley... Almost!

Imagine the stars as bright as the headlights of a car above you, a clear winter night in mid-February, with the towering hoodoos in the distance. We were planning to go on a slot canyon hike in the morning, so I rolled out my sleeping bag to try and get some rest. It was 2004, and my assistant Scoutmaster and I had brought seven brand new 11-year-old Scouts to Goblin Valley, outside of Hanksville, Utah, to commune with nature in the great outdoors…

We had done everything that we thought we needed to in order to "Be Prepared." 

We prepared by doing a gear shakedown a couple of days before this trip. We had previously gone on a 5 mile hike (which turned into a 20 mile hike) that prepared us for physical challenges. We had prepared by teaching the boys most of the preparedness skills during their First Class rank advancements. We even did last minute checks of all gear and food. We had assigned the Senior Patrol Leader to work with the Quartermaster to bring a nice meal of tinfoil dinners so that we were prepared with good food to eat. The SPL had assigned another patrol member to bring wood for the fire, and another to bring the patrol tent.

As we laid out camp after dark, one of the patrol members came to me and said, "Scoutmaster Lawton, we have a problem..." The Boy Scout who was in charge of bringing the patrol tent had not set it up before coming to make sure that all of the parts had been put away properly last time. One of the main crossbeam poles, as well as the rain fly, were missing.

I thought to myself, "This should be a great learning opportunity." These new Scouts were asked to rig the tent the best they could with the resources they had available. It looked like something from a hobo camp, but the Scouts were able to roll out their sleeping bags inside and get comfortable.

It was one of those nights where it got so cold that it seemed like your heart could stop beating. One of the times I woke up during the night I checked the thermometer on my sleeping bag and it read 9 degrees Fahrenheit! To this day, after the hundreds of nights I have spent in a sleeping bag, I can honestly say that I have never slept well on a Scout camp out. I have spent many, many nights up worried about my Scouts, and this night was one of the worst.

By three or 4 o'clock in the morning I was seriously worried that we were going to lose a Scout or two!

The boys were so cold that night that they ended up in one big pile in the middle of the tent. Icicles had formed from the moisture in their breath and the dew on the mesh tarps hung where the rain fly should have been. The water in our cooler had frozen solid, as well as in each of their canteens.

At best I figured that they were never going to want to go camping ever again! 

But quite the contrary happened the next morning… At sun break the boys squirmed out of bed and started the fire, they bragged about the cold night they had endured, and went about the business of the day. After hiking through Ding and Dang Canyon we returned to our camp to pack up and go home. On the hike, as well as the four hour car ride back to Provo, all they could talk about was how tough they were as 11 year old Scouts! They bragged to their parents and the older Scouts on Sunday as well. I fully believe that even to this day they look back on their freezing cold star filled night in Goblin Valley as a defining moment in their lives…

If they can survive a night like that, they can survive anything they put their mind to!