(3 of 3)
Just after a hailstorm, Mike Downhower, 17, leads the troop down a mountain trail and suddenly notices a strange tree root. It rattles! Downhower skids to a panicked stop and gives the alarm. The rattlesnake simply slithers into the bushes. At a 19th century "Mexican" village whose cantina is stocked with root beer, Dennis Meade, 18, finds a rare gas-fired outdoor shower in a meadow. He also notices a barrel-shaped relocation trap on rubber wheels awaiting an especially pesky local bear. In the shower Meade hears a noise. The bear has walked into the dressing enclosure; he and the animal stare at each other for a tense moment until the bear leaves. In a narrow valley by a trout stream, Tim Anderson, 13, is asked to describe his favorite trekking moment. "The tall white trees ((aspens)) make me think of fresh air and a clean world," he says. At a lunch break, crusty former scoutmaster El Rey Ensch, 51, holds up his wrist for everyone to see the butterfly lighting on it.
A fat porcupine waddles along the wooded trail ahead, perhaps wondering why humans make such a delighted fuss when he encounters them. The mood has changed since that wet first night; 501 has come together. Eric Johannesen, 14, once desperately homesick and moody, has been asked to lead, and he sets a rugged pace: "This feels like a family relationship now. I'll get home eventually." Estelle Light, 42, a troop leader who happens to be a nurse, has tended sore feet and wounded egos all week. Assistant scoutmaster Don Browning, 51, hobbled by a sprained knee, finds that the scouts around him walk as slowly as he does. Crew leader Jason Servatius, 16, once an aggressive prankster, moves among the hikers, offering advice and checking equipment. It is raining again; nobody minds.