The dangers of being an outgoing Scoutmaster in the 21st century. Please give me your thoughts on this or better yet, comment on the original article (or both). I am very interested yet very skeptical of the modern professional Scouter.
Joe has no idea who reported him. It’s difficult to imagine anyone in town doing that. More than likely, some well-meaning visitor to the campground saw the empty kayaks floating downstream, and called 911.
As everyone in town knows (who has not been comatose, away all summer, or boycotting Facebook) that incident led the Boy Scouts of America to suspend our long-time Scoutmaster, Joe Brandl. The BSA has now denied his appeal.
It was a routine outing last May, a typical outdoors training exercise for the troop that Joe headed for many years. The Wind River was predictably high with the late-spring runoff of snowmelt, and some of the boys were tipped from their kayaks.
None of the scouts was hurt or even (in the other sense of the word) upset. This had happened before, and was hardly unexpected. Thanks to Joe’s guidance, they already knew what to do. In…
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Preindustrial Craftsmanship 
Hi George,
I’m really not sure where to start…I’m not really sure what you mean by, “…skeptical of the modern professional Scouter…” so would only be guessing at that perspective. I think I know, but would like to know more about your “skepticism,” if you don’t mind sharing that publicly?
I have worked (subcontracted) to the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) a few times in one of my “careers” as an Outdoor Guide. It was more a paycheck than anything else, as I only ran some of there Top Rope Rock Climbing, Natural History, Rigging, and related programs back in the late 80’s. I liked then (and now) private programing much better.
I personally do not care for the BSA that much and feel my skills go to better use with private clients and other Wilderness Experiential Programs. As to what has happened to Joe, that does not surprise me one bit. BML Managers can really be hideous at times and in this day and age of rampant litigation, it hardly is worth the effort dealing with some of the red tape and hoops one has to jump through. As to the public jumping to conclusions…no surprise there either. When working both as a Wilderness Guide and as a Wild Life Control agent I can even beging to talk about the number of times I have had the “Law” called on me by some bleeding heart, ignorant, busy-body, dogooder, that whats to force there view or perspective onto a situation…I have had ropes cut, traps destroyed, red dye poured on my vehicles, physical confrontations (them confronting me…PETA) and the list goes on…
Joe should cut his losses and just go into private guiding for the topics he is qualified to facilitate…