Hawaiians on ice

Headnote

Climbing mountains in Alaska, Island Scouts learn to COPE with the cold.

While hiking the closest thing resembling a trail in Alaska's Chugach State Park, Life Scout V Kevin Doo suddenly stops and stares at a patch of strange, cold, wet white stuff.

Picking up a ball of the odd substance, he realizes there's only one thing he can do.

Kevin drops his pack and has a snowball fight with 16 fellow Scouts. Hey, when you're from Hawaii, you don't get to play in the snow every day-or any day, for that matter.

"When you use your bare hands to play in the snow, after about 30 minutes it begins to hurt," Kevin says, stating the obvious to someone from, say, North Dakota.

But when you're a Hawaiian in Alaska, it's just one lesson 36 Scouts and 11 adults from Honolulu's Troop 42 learned in August 1998 on a wilderness adventure. But don't think hiking up rugged mountains is all fun and games. "It was very long, hot and strenuous," Life Scout Franklin Sam says. Adds Kevin: "You have to be overprepared."

Basic Training

"Be Prepared" is more than a motto. It could be the difference between life and death. So the Hawaii Scouts prepare. And prepare some more.

After arriving at the Western Alaska High Adventure Base's Camp Gorsuch, the Scouts spend two days on a Challenging Outdoor Personal Experience. The COPE course teaches leadership, communication, trust, self-esteem, problem-solving, decision-making and teamwork as well as rope skills.

It also gets the Hawaii Scouts used to the strange climate. The average temperature at Camp Gorsuch in August: 60 degrees, with much colder temperatures and a blanket of snow and ice in the mountains. Back home in Honolulu? A balmy 81 with a blanket of hot sand on the beach.

Trust on the Trail

On the COPE course, Star Scout Andrew Sung, 14, learns the importance of trust when he and other Scouts are blindfolded. One...