Kyle Mountain

I just did a hike of Kyle Mountain. Kyle Mountain is a very special place. There are few places in Texas where a scout can climb up and look down upon a valley. The journey up Kyle is rocky and the last pitch is rather steep, but you are rewarded once you make the climb. It is a wonderful view.

If you are in Troop 5 for any amount of time, you will spend the night up on Kyle and be read to out of "Palo Pinto Campfires". However, one boy's journey up Kyle from Troop 5 gives me goose bumps as I think about it.

Joel Mauro was one of my many fine Eagle Scouts. He passed away a couple of years back of Muscular Dystrophy. He crossed over into Troop 5 in 1998. At the time, he could walk but by the time he was in high school, he was bound to his wheelchair. Joel and his mom Alice were a fixture of Troop 5. Alice made sure that Joel got the full scout experience. They camped with us all the time, summer camps and weekend camping. Even the Order of the Arrow. Joel went through his Ordeal at Sid, with the boys of Troop 5 helping on the way. He got his brotherhood at Worth in the place you are supposed to get it. Yet he had not been on top of Kyle.

The PLC voted that one fall campout that they wanted to get Joel up on Kyle so he can be a member of the sunrise club. I thought that was a marvelous idea.

On that fateful Saturday, in glorious Troop 5 fashion, we did not have our act together in buttoning up the campsite to prepare for the hike. So by the time we began our journey, the sun was setting. The boys figured we could just roll Joel in his wheelchair up to the final pitch and we would carry him the rest of the way. We soon discovered that was not going to work. Every rock and root stopped the wheelchair. It was beginning to occur to me this was a very dumb idea as darkness surrounded us.

The boys found two long branches and ran them under the wheels of his wheel chair and began carrying him like a Roman Emperor up the mountain. It was a lot of work, but they did not quit. When we reached the final pitch, I slung Joel over my shoulder and got him to the top. I sat him down with his legs dangling over the side. One of the older boys put his arm around him and started showing him the valley. I turned around to find Alice broken down in tears.

The boys that carried Joel were laying flat on their backs on rocks with their fist in the air, shouting "YES".

I cannot come to Worth and not climb Kyle Mountain. Every step of the way I think of Joel. He is missed.