Scouts planning Grand reunion
Troop 13 members want to revisit 1960 Canyon hike
His hair is edging toward all white these days and his skin is tanned and weathered by the sun, physical indications that Jim Pinter is probably on the mark saying he's made about 21 hikes into the Grand Canyon.
“I kind of lost track there for a while,” he said. “I didn't think it was important to number these things, but now as I've gotten older I kind of wear it as a badge of honor and started keeping track again.”
It was during his last Grand Canyon hike in February that Pinter began thinking how much he'd like to share the experience once more with the same guys who were on the first trip into the massive hole in the Arizona desert.
It happened 47 years ago this month.
On July 23, 1960, Pinter and two dozen other Boy Scouts from Troop 13 at First Presbyterian Church embarked on a 25-day trip in an old school bus that was hand painted silver with red trim and a back window decorated with a poster of Mad magazine's Alfred E. Neuman and his catchphrase, “What, me worry?”
They traveled through 13 states with stops at the National Boy Scout Jamboree in Colorado Springs, Colo.; Petrified Forest National Monument in Arizona; Bryce Canyon, Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks; Devil's Tower in Wyoming; and Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.
“But the highlight of our trip was the hike across the Grand Canyon,” Pinter said.
Starting from the south rim, the Scouts and their adult leaders descended Bright Angel Trail, dropping almost 4,200 feet in just under 10 miles to spend the first night camping on a beach where Pipe Creek spills into the Colorado River. The next morning they hiked to Phantom Ranch and over the next few days eventually made it to the north rim via the North Kaibab Trail.
“We ended up hiking a total of 24 miles,” Pinter said.
Decades later, memories remain vivid of a grueling experience, especially for a pack of young boys.
“It was hot and hard,” said Doug Welch, who now lives in Churubusco. “Coming out was the roughest part.”
Temperatures in the canyon shot well past 100 each day, eventually forcing the Scouts to hike at night to avoid the oppressive heat.
“We were all spread out across the bottom of that canyon,” said Gil Haynie, now a Fort Wayne attorney. “Everybody was just walking to survive.”
Everyone did, but it required some resourcefulness.
“Most of the kids were so distressed in the heat and by the ordeal itself that they started leaving things behind like sleeping bags and cameras,” Pinter said. “I had one of the biggest packs, an old Army rucksack with an external frame.
“That meant I had to carry all the camp cook gear because I had the only pack big enough to hold the nesting pots. Other people got saddled with No. 10 cans of dried eggs and all sorts of camping food. At the time I hated eggs, and powdered eggs were the worst.”
To this day, Richard Stamats said the slightest whiff of powdered eggs cooking and “I'm immediately transported back to that point in time.”
Food became the focal point of the outbound trek.
Stamats remembers hiding from the group to take a nap and finding himself alone by a stream eating from a 5-pound brick of Velveeta cheese and 5-pound bag of sugar to restore his energy. Welch's mother, Doris, one of the adult chaperones, said other Scouts resorted to scavenging the discarded lunch boxes of mule-train riders.
“All I could think about that last 4,000 feet or so was a hamburger and a tall Coca-Cola because we knew there was a soda fountain at the top,” Pinter said. “We got up there so late it was closed.”
Doris Welch says that before the hike she advised one of the adult leaders, a doctor, to just keep singing “The Happy Wanderer.”
Four days later, as the man emerged from the trail, she was there to greet him and the others after helping shuttle vehicles the 220 miles around the canyon to the north rim.
“The first thing he said was, ‘Doris, all I could think to sing was ‘Nearer My God to Thee' because I thought I was going to die,' ” she said.
As arduous as the hike was, it was a transformative moment for Pinter, who was smitten by the West. After graduating from North Side High School in three years, he hopped in his World War II Jeep and drove - at a top speed of 45 mph - to Arizona for college and eventually a 30-year career with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Phoenix.
Decades later and now retired, Pinter found himself walking the same trails in February and wondering whether any of his fellow Scouts would share his interest in a reunion hike.
Almost simultaneously, Stamats was sifting through a stack of old pictures at his photography studio in Colorado Springs and found one of Troop 13 lined up in front of the silver bus. Putting names to the faces took some effort, but with each connection came a memory.
“I thought, ‘Here's a good sign,' ” Stamats said. “Then out of the blue Jim contacted me. It was like, wow.”
As Pinter and Stamats stitched together anecdotes from their 1960 adventure, what once seemed like drudgery to a group of kids took on a nostalgic tone for a pair of adults interested in reconnecting with their past.
A 50th-anniversary hike in 2010 was the answer, especially since it will coincide with the 100th anniversary of Boy Scouts of America. Pinter is promising a less strenuous spring hike that follows a shorter route to Phantom Ranch.
“I thought it would be fun right off the bat,” Doug Welch said when he heard of the plan.
Tracking down the rest of their fellow Scouts, many of whom they've not seen in years, is the next challenge, but the larger challenge may be persuading them to come along.
On a recent visit to Fort Wayne, Pinter and Welch were telling a friend who didn't go on the first trip about the reunion plans.
“His wife said she couldn't believe we were doing this,” Pinter said. “ ‘Look at you,' she said, ‘Three old men.'
“Well, I don't think of myself as old. In my mind, I still consider myself a 13-year-old boy.”
pbloom@jg.net