Simsbury Boy Scouts Featured in National Cover Story

It’s not every day that a national magazine that goes to over one million households decides your adventure is big enough to fly in a renowned adventure photographer all the way from Colorado to document it. That’s exactly what Boys’ Life magazine did when eight teenage Scouts and their four adult leaders decided to climb New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington last February.

Home of the “world’s worst weather” and the highest peak in the northeast, Mt. Washington is a destination for mountaineers from around the world to practice for higher ascents. This was the seventh time in the last eight years that Troop 76 Scouts had undertaken the high adventure. 2015 was the coldest of all the treks, in fact recording the second most frigid place on earth at more than 30°F below zero. Only Antarctica was colder that weekend.

After the trip, Boys’ Life interviewed all the adventurers by phone. The article documents the boys’ preparations and most importantly, highlights the decision making skills they learned in the troop. They were ready with double plastic insulated mountaineering boots and crampons, ice axes, and goggles and masks that protected every inch of their skin. At night they slept in extreme cold weather sleeping bags and cooked on liquid fuel backpacking stoves that they knew would work well in the icy temperatures. They had monitored the weather in the weeks and days leading up to the trek, and the morning of their summit attempt, they checked in with rangers twice to confirm their turnaround plans and times.

After climbing 2,000’ to above treeline and nearing the Lion Head rock formation before the final summit push, the crew finally made the wise call to turn back as wind gusts turned to a steady 50mph+ gale and whiteout conditions.

The 4-page article features Eagle Scouts Tyler Drake, Richard Havighorst, Jackson King, Rigby Michaelsen, and Cole Starrett; Life Scouts Ben Cary and Guy Weiland; and German exchange student and Scout Jan Kadel, who spent a year with Troop 76. Scoutmasters and Simsbury residents Chris Weiland, Harry Starrett, Keith Michaelsen, and Dan Carr accompanied the Scouts but aren’t mentioned, in keeping with the magazine’s focus on the younger men.