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I know there are a few of us on here. I thought I would share plans for an unusual expedition year...
All will carry full bags, including overnight gear anyway, and cook hot meal every day at lunch or evening.
Practice
Bronze & Silver - all having practice expeds local to Dunblane (basically we are within 10km all the time!), stay at home over night. They will erect tents and cook a full meal at lunches.
Qualifying -
Bronze will do two long day hikes again on edge of Trossachs, away from our usual and busy routes (with shared 'wild' campsites).
Silver - will do a two day practice hike, sleeping at home, on edge of Trossachs. Qualifying is up around Rannoch and Ericht to get away from crowds. We plan to schlep in on an eBike with extra tents so they all have individual tents, but still only carry a tent between two.
Gold -
This is my challenge. I need some big routes with some relatively easy access camp sites so we can provide individual tents without the group having to carry too much. I am busy messaging some folk at the moment to see if some estates might play ball with both permission to camp / and / or a vehicle or eBike and trailer in with tents. Normally our camps are pretty out there (end of Glen Tilt, Gaick etc. Any thoughts welcome...
I don't think this helps you Matt, but I'll share it anyway.
Our Gold groups do their expeditions on canoes, in normal times the practice is on Windermere and the qualifying is in Scandinavia. This year the practice (June) will be on canals local to home, putting up camp but going home to sleep. Qualifying (July) will be on canals and a river in the next county, with some substantial portaging, one commercial campsite at the canal side, one semi-commercial ditto and the third night we will need to minibus them to a camp and back. This depends on the change of rules in England from 21 June.
Also no help, but our teenager is mentioning bikepacking.
My work is almost done.
Eldest has Gold practice scheduled for first week in June in Peak district, and final 2vweeks later in Yorkshire Dale's. Hopefully.
Initial plan appears to be kids carrying individual tents but individual cooking kit being transported to the camp sites by the providers
We're now nearing the end of our trips.
So far we've completed bronze age silver - including unusual local route around Dunblane with no overnight camps.
One gold assessment back out tomorrow for attempt 2.0 after been rained out a fortnight ago.
I'm just back from midge hell and threading between rain around Rannoch on silver assessments.
I used to run them in and around glen trool. Every camp area had access (one I asked forestry). Probably too far away for you
We’re doing MTB practice & expeds soon. Are going to do the usual routes/logistics, apart from them not sharing tents & we’ll transport the additional kit between campsites.
Our canoe group Gold Exped has been completed. As a school group, they were in a year-group bubble and shared tents. One was pinged by the school system two days into the Exped, having been tagged by a classmate he had lunched with 4 days earlier and who had tested positive. He had to abandon and isolate, but after some debate with the school it was agreed that the rest of the group could continue.
Well done on keeping these going. Our local scout group has not been quite so successful (I think their issue is appropriately qualified supervisors who were due to be trained during lockdown). Where the participants seem to be struggling most though is volunteering opportunities - understandably most were curtailed during the lockdowns, and some still don’t have clear plans to get back to normal even now we are “less than level zero”.
Where the participants seem to be struggling most though is volunteering opportunities
The focus on our group was to get the Expedition done before they left school and dispersed, as it has to be a group activity. The volunteering can be done individually and they still have a few years to do it.
Ah sort of makes sense - the scout group get over subscribed with people for expeditions who never actually go on to complete the skill/volunteer/physical sections, so have historically made it a condition of going on the exped that you had to show you had started each of them.