Troop 204 · Cumberland Island · Saturday, November 7, 2026
11 Miles. 2 Hot Meals. 3 Minutes to Spare.
Five Troop 204 Scouts and three adult leaders hiked across Cumberland Island, cooking hot meals on trail stoves along the way to complete Cooking merit badge requirement 6. Floodwaters, wild horses, four miles of open beach, and a dash for the last ferry home.
Cooking merit badge requirement 6 can’t be done in a church kitchen. Scouts have to plan, pack, cook and clean up real meals on the trail, carrying everything on their backs. So we took it to Cumberland Island.
What the Scouts had to do
Plan it. Carry it. Cook it. Carry it out.
Plan the menu
Each Scout planned his own hot trail meals ahead of time and had the menu approved before the hike.
Pack it all
Food, stove, fuel and cookware went into each Scout’s own pack. No coolers, no camp kitchen, no resupply.
Cook on the trail
Two hot meals on lightweight trail stoves: breakfast at Dungeness and a late lunch at Stafford.
Pack it out
The rule on Cumberland is the rule of the trail. Every wrapper, fuel canister and scrap of food came back off the island with us.
Photos & video
The day, start to finish
How the day unfolded
From the church parking lot to the last boat home
Roll out
Scouts and leaders left First United Methodist Church in Brunswick.
All aboard
We boarded the Cumberland Island ferry.
Boots on the island
We stepped off at Dungeness Dock and started hiking.
Hot breakfast at Dungeness
Scouts fired up their trail stoves and cooked a hot breakfast just outside the Dungeness ruins, with wild horses grazing under the live oaks nearby.
Inland on the Dungeness Trail
We hiked inland toward the beach, until flooding cut off the route.
Through the maritime forest
We detoured through the forest to Sea Camp for a trail snack.
Through the water
The boardwalk to the beach was flooded, so the troop waded across and climbed out onto the sand.
Up the Atlantic shore
We hiked about four miles north along the beach to Stafford. Somewhere along the way, a lone concrete block on the sand became the most popular seat on Cumberland Island.
Second hot meal at Stafford
Scouts cooked their second hot meal of the day on their trail stoves, then cleaned up and packed out.
The race south
Back down the trail toward Sea Camp Dock, with an armadillo rooting through the palmettos beside the trail.
Made it
We reached Sea Camp Dock and the 4:45 p.m. last ferry with three minutes to spare.
The route
Eleven miles on Cumberland
Dungeness Dock, the Dungeness ruins, the flooded Dungeness Trail, a forest detour to Sea Camp, four miles up the beach to Stafford, and back south through the woods to Sea Camp Dock.
Eleven miles, two hot meals and three minutes to spare. That’s how Troop 204 earns a merit badge.
