11/27 Alum Rock Hike

At the start of the hike, we had some miscommunication issues with where and when to meet up. There were 4 different parking lots, and it was confusing to find everyone and coordinate. There were also some issues with the timing of the outing. The time on Trooptrack had changed to 8:30 instead of 8, which led to confusion on when to arrive. After we had everyone together, it was a challenge to find the trailhead. Two people had not shown up on time, which also delayed our start. We eventually figured everything out, and started our hike.

The first part of the hike was relatively flat, and we passed through a park with an owl sanctuary and native plants and trees with information signs. After the park, the hike began to steepen and the trail became rockier. During the entire hike, many people were taking frequent breaks which slowed everyone else down. We noticed that there were some parts which we had trouble figuring out which way to go, so a touch-up on our navigation skills would be helpful.

Quite a few scouts did not have the proper hiking shoes for this hike, so some people did slip a few times, especially on the descent which was quite tricky without proper hiking shoes.. There were also some scouts which did not bring any snacks or lunch (which were both listed on trooptrack). Water is important to any hike; it was specified, on trooptrack, to bring 2.5-3 liters of water for this hike. Some scouts did not bring enough water and had to have some from other people. The rule on using phones during outings may need to be more strict. There were a few scouts using their phones during times when they shouldn't have. Also, we ended up doing 7.2 instead of 8.2 miles because of lack of time and an issue with navigation.

Overall this was a pretty good hike, and we definitely found some areas where we need to improve on.

(Leaders - Ritisha and Adhuna)

(Only Ritisha was present at the hike, and the blog post was written by Ritisha and Padma

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