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Local Boy Scouts find adventure in the Pacific Northwest by Andrew Keshner Far from the many concrete vistas in Washington Heights, 17-year-old Lixmer Ventura witnessed an orca flipping in the water after lunching on seals. Meanwhile, 14-year-old Jason Correa braved the chilly Pacific Ocean waters that could leave a swimmer numb in seconds, and 15-year-old Nelson Orozco endured steep hiking trails while trudging with a 40- to 50-pound backpack.  This all happened during an early August trip on the Juan De Fuca Marine Trail in Canada’s Pacific Northwest region with Venture Crew Troop 729. For the past 11 years the local Boy Scout Troop has made all sorts of far-flung trips to places like Yellowstone National Park and the Petrified Forest in Arizona, focusing on themes like stewardship and sustainable restoration.
With this year’s “cities of the future” theme, members of the 20-person trip relied entirely on public transportation throughout their two-week itinerary. Members flew to Seattle and then took a ferry to Victoria. They hiked the almost 30-mile Juan De Fuca trail on the western shoreline of Southern Vancouver Island for a week and returned to Victoria for sightseeing before a three-day train ride from Seattle to New York City with a stop in Chicago. “It was actually a great experience,” said Correra of his first trip with the crew. It was tough dealing with the heavy backpack at first, he admitted, but things got better by the third day. And, besides, he said, all the camping helped him appreciate the amenities of modern-day living. “That first car makes you so happy,” he laughed. Scott Simpson, Venture Crew’s scoutmaster and the assistant crew advisor, said it was difficult to compare trips, but he said Juan De Fuca’s terrain made it one of the most challenging adventures in the past four years – something Simpson conceded only after the crew got back. “No matter how hard it gets, Scott says it’s always too easy,” said Orozco. In a room at the Ft. Washington Collegiate Church, which sponsored the trek, the teenagers are all smiles and jokes; they playfully argue over who cooked better meals with the freeze dried camping food and laugh at unlucky episodes like someone’s fall in the mud. They remember how they cooked 40 pounds of mussels the size of a fist, which they fished just hours earlier. Troop members also went whale watching, which brought them up close and personal with a humpback whale that used its back fin to temporarily stand in the water. The group also spent some time in the city of Victoria, Canada meeting up with scout units based there. The experience opened their eyes to what city life could be outside New York. Orozco was struck by a mall in the city’s downtown. “If I had Canadian money, I’d go back for that mall,” he said. Ventura marveled at the safety and trust within the city. “Victoria was amazing. People leave cars unlocked. They don’t do that here,” he said.  A high school senior, Ventura now wants to go to college the University of British Columbia or the University of Victoria.
Venture Crew members will not rest for too long before hitting the trails again. The troop is scheduled to hike New York’s Harriman State Park this month and travel to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in November. Next summer’s big trek will take place along Hadrian’s Wall in Scotland, the northernmost boundary of the Roman Empire at one time. “I always thought I’d just stay in New York,’ said Ventura. “But now I know there’s better cities. I can’t just stay here now. I know there’s other beautiful places and interesting people.” The Manhattan Times is the bilingual newspaper of Washington Heights and Inwood.
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