I can see Pennsylvania from here! A crew of Scouts star-poling at Crater Lake

The tough hiking began as we left Crater Lake. We slogged our way seven miles up a narrow canyon, soaking our boots crossing and recrossing a raging creek. A warm monsoon rain descended, and Sean started singing, "Phil-mont sucks... I hate Phil-mont..."

The next day, a hailstorm broke over our heads, followed by freezing rain. Corey wouldn't get his raingear out of his pack, so he ended up drenched and shivering. Kevin slipped and twisted his ankle, and the other Scouts whispered that he'd tried to come down on it harder so that he could get sent down to base camp. Then, as the rain poured down, the boys realized they were lost. "This sucks," said Phil, whose thick red hair was matted down with water. "I'll tell you one thing, I'm never coming back here as long as I live."

Somehow, though, the team was coming together. Jeff had been pretty quiet for the first several days, hiking out in front with a small American flag—the camp's traditional badge of leadership—pinned to his pack. But even lost in the middle of a downpour, the Scouts deferred to him. He studied the map as they gathered quietly around, ignoring Phil's and Ken's loud demands to keep moving. Jeff had told me he wanted to study law enforcement when he graduated high school next year, and he already seemed like a solid cop.

In fact, most of the kids seemed solid—more like products of the 1950s than the 1990s. Their lives back home revolved around hunting, soccer, and Scout meetings, which the troop held every Tuesday night in the basement of Howard's Methodist Church. They almost never cursed. Like typical teenagers, they were endlessly charmed and disgusted by any substance issuing from their own or any other creatures' bodies—cow pies, no matter how many times we passed them crossing the pastures, rarely failed to draw comment—but they barely talked about sex. And they scarcely argued with their fathers, even during their biggest challenge: the assault on Mount Phillips.

As we climbed its flanks, the adults kept dropping behind. We'd hike for ten minutes and then Jeff would call a halt until Ken, Sam, George, and Phil caught up to us, panting and red-faced. Toward the end, Greg picked up his father's pack and hiked with it in his arms. When we came up the final stretch, a steep and rocky uphill with no switchbacks, Corey was in the lead. He'd stop every few minutes, look back, and shout, "This is nuthin'! I'm not even tired!"

At last we emerged onto the summit, a Martian sweep of reddish-pink gneiss. It was late afternoon, and clouds were coming out of the west in slow procession like alien battle cruisers. The boys looked out over the rows of distant peaks.

"I'm on top of the world!" yelled Corey, scrambling up onto a cairn.

"No, you're not," responded Kevin and Phil, in near-perfect unison.

That night we celebrated with a campfire—our own now, fed with dry branches of firs and junipers—and stretched out on our backs to watch for meteors. All of us except two, that is. Jeff had gone off with Corey after dinner and hadn't come back yet. Everyone wondered what they were talking about.

Still, it took a few minutes after Jeff returned, alone, before anyone asked him. "I just sort of thought I should talk to him about the last time I was here," he explained. "I was the youngest kid on the crew then, and I remember what it was like. I remember how cool I thought it was when the crew leader would talk to me."

After the conquest of Phillips, the rest of the hiking seemed almost easy. The last morning was a Sunday. The troop camped below the Tooth of Time, and one by one the boys straggled from their tents for an early-morning religious service. But as the Scouts gathered on the cliffside, their crew leader was missing. Jeff had left his tent before sunrise—against Philmont regulations—and gone alone up the Tooth.

So the rest of Troop 353 sat down together along the edge of the cliff. Far below, the brightening plains raced out toward the horizon, glinting here and there with sunstruck water. Corey, as chaplain's aide, led the service out of little paperbound prayer books they'd issued us back at base camp (Eagles Soaring High: Trail Worship for Christians, Muslims, and Jews). When it was over, Greg and I walked back to the tents a little bit ahead of the others. "Look to your left," he whispered. There was a doe grazing just off the path. She stood for a minute, oblivious to us, until the troop caught up and she cantered off into the woods. Sean and Ryan raised their arms at the shoulder and started pumping out imaginary rounds in her direction.

Then Jeff showed up. "Hey," Ryan said to him, "you missed the church service."

"I had my own church service up there," he replied.