How will you organize your Treasure Hikes - by Den or Pack? There are pros/cons for both. Here is what experience has shown for these different methods. We also suggest another approach that has proved successful. Whichever method of Treasure Hiking you select, your boys will love it just the same !
As a general rule, you should not have more than 8 boys or 15 total people in a hiking group. Keeping under these numbers will assist your boys in getting the most out the experience and at the same time being aware that you will be sharing public areas with others. Also remember that two-deep leadership means that each group should have a minimum of 4 adults.
Den
Treasure Hiking as a Den is really easy to organize, just turn your next Den Meeting into a hike. It is that simple. It will also meet a variety of rank specific requirements in the process.
The boys will be with their best friends and you can even invite siblings, spouses, and the family dog along. As the adults most trusted by the boys, you can probably also have more success than a Pack event in teaching them how to treat nature with respect and the ideals of Leave No Trace.
As the Den Leader you will have to plan the hike yourself. This means you will need to find a GPS unit to use, select a hike location, and identify caches to look for. Also, Den Treasure Hiking will not qualify your Pack for the National Summertime Pack Award or fulfill that component of the Outdoor Activity Award.
Entire Pack
A Pack Treasure Hike that is treated as a Pack event will require more organization and planning . A number of volunteers will need to be recruited and more than one GPS unit will likely be required. At the same time, this is a great opportunity to hold a Pack picnic and host other outdoor events for the boys. Holding a Pack event will also qualify the Pack for the National Summertime Pack Award.
You will need to determine how many boys (and accompanying siblings and adults) will be attending. From this you can divide them into groups to go on Treasure Hikes. You can then "stage" the groups by incrementing their start times by 30 minutes. Sequence the group start times by age, having the groups with older boys go first and those with younger boys go last. This way you will reduce the risk that groups will meet up along the trail and form larger groups.
Pack Optional
This is a great alternative the Den and entire Pack approaches and provides a happy medium between the two.
Schedule one Treasure Hike per month during the summer. Make the program "optional" vs. expecting every boy to show up at each event. Have them sign up for the dates that work best for them. Get the count of boys/siblings/adults that are expecting to attend and create groups appropriately. Last minute additions can also be accommodated via this method.
This will provide your boys the opportunity to participate in Pack activities over the summer and qualify for the National Summertime Pack Award while not creating the overhead of 3 full-on Pack events.
We feel this method holds true to KIS and focuses on getting the boys out into the wilderness hiking and practicing the ideals of scouting.