All 4 high-adventure bases now qualify for Triple Crown

I jumped the gun last week, but now it’s official: The Summit Bechtel Reserve is now a part of the Triple Crown of National High Adventure Award.

And a new honor, the Grand Slam of National High Adventure Award, recognizes Scouts who participate in qualifying high-adventure programs at all four national high-adventure bases. That’s Northern Tier, Philmont, Sea Base and the Summit Bechtel Reserve.

We get our first look today at the redesigned patches for the Triple Crown award. Now that there are four different qualifying combinations of high-adventure bases, the award needed four different patches:

  • Philmont, Sea Base, Northern Tier
  • Summit, Sea Base, Northern Tier
  • Philmont, Summit, Northern Tier
  • Philmont, Sea Base, Summit

The patches include animals to represent each national high-adventure base: a bull for Philmont, a loon for Northern Tier, a dolphin for Sea Base and a black bear for the Summit.

The Grand Slam award patch design will be unveiled soon.

Applications for both awards are being accepted now, but because the new patches will take time to produce, processing won’t begin until November for those who attended the Paul R. Christen National High Adventure Base at the Summit.

More about the Triple Crown and Grand Slam of High Adventure awards

A group of awesome volunteers from the Charles L. Sommers Alumni Association created the Triple Crown of National High Adventure Award in 1996.

The goal? To recognize adults and youth “with a thirst for high adventure.” The award gained additional notoriety in 2012 when the patch was depicted in Joseph Csatari’s 100 Years of Eagle Scout painting.

Youth and adults who participate in qualifying high-adventure programs at either three (Triple Crown) or four (Grand Slam) national high-adventure bases are eligible for the awards.

Obvious question: What’s a qualifying high-adventure program? Glad you asked.

The Sommers Alumni Association offers this guide (PDF) that tells you exactly what is and what isn’t a qualifying program.

You’ll find that information, an award application and more answers to your questions at the award’s official website.

Triple-Crown-four-patches

 


About Bryan Wendell 3282 Articles
Bryan Wendell, an Eagle Scout, is the founder of Bryan on Scouting and a contributing writer.