At 4:30 a.m. on the morning of his Eagle Scout Project in late March, my son, Ethan Oh, a North Tahoe High senior, revives campfire embers 100 feet away from Kooyooe Pa’a Panunadu, also known as Pyramid Lake.
He had almost quit Scouting America thinking he didn’t have time to complete his Eagle badge before turning 18. Only 4% of scouts become an Eagle Scout because many procrastinate until their senior year when they are juggling school, activities, and college applications. Eagle Scout project requirements are extensive: planning, developing, and giving leadership to others. To ask volunteers to drive two hours away from home to camp out the night before volunteering from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., he needed to convince them there was a good reason.
In 2022, when Ethan was a freshman and his older sister, Kyra, was a senior, she dedicated her Girl Scout Gold Award (equivalent to Eagle) to Pyramid Lake. They cofounded a flyfishing club at North Tahoe High School to raise awareness among their peers that the Truckee River watershed empties into Pyramid Lake, which means that whatever we do in Lake Tahoe impacts everyone downstream.
That year, Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe member and guide Marvin Racine, of Native-owned fly-fishing guide service Paba Pa’a Pakwega (Big Water), began hosting a free fishing clinic every third Saturday from October to April. “I wanted to give back to my community and show the kids that there are other things in life than cellphones and video games,” he says. “Fishing is good for everybody’s mind, body, and spirit.”
By 2023, Racine, the NTHS Flyfishing Club, and Matt Heron, Truckee/Reno regional director of Cast Hope, a nonprofit that empowers kids to flyfish, started annual flyrod giveaways for indigenous youth every third Saturday of March. Tahoe City-based Troop 266 will gift 30 of the 175 flyrods distributed so far.
Raised by his grandmothers to respect nature as relatives, Ethan offers the lake a turquoise stone that Grandma Ursula had instructed the boys to gift before recreating on or using a natural resource. He made a note to remind his younger sisters, Tenderfoot Scout Riley and Cub Scout Webelos Logan, to show the girls how to offer a piece of white shell. Ethan hopes the scouts will continue this practice of reciprocity and gratitude beyond today.
Since 2018, Scoutmaster Katrina Smolen has transformed Troop 266, founded in 1960, into the only coed troop in Tahoe/Truckee. Scouting accelerates “developmental assets” such as empowerment (service to others), boundaries and expectations, and social competencies (planning and decision-making; peaceful conflict resolution).
Dominic Antonucci, activities manager at Palisades Tahoe who eagled in 2014, says “Scouting gave me experience leading a group and making decisions before the stakes were raised.”
The Retzlaff brothers are what I imagine my kids might be doing one day. All badass adventure athletes because of their mother, Sonya Retzlaff-Huggins, who still races and coaches at Palisades Tahoe.
Sonya enrolled her boys in Cub Scouts because she wanted to “raise my sons to be fine young men” during a difficult divorce while she was working three jobs. She started as their den leader, her second husband served as Scoutmaster, and made sure her three boys always finish what they start. Her son Stein eagled in 2012. He built an ADA-compliant ramp and viewing pad at Truckee High School. Thor eagled in 2013. He built a table, bench, and mile-long trail in memory of a friend that passed away from cancer. Wulfe eagled in 2014. He made trail improvements for volunteers to walk and exercise sheltered dogs at the Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe. Sonya is also an executive of Scouting America, an unpaid volunteer position.
In 2021, Thor cofounded Wasted* PBC, a venture-backed climate tech startup advancing a circular sanitation economy (did you know the nutrients in your pee could grow 320 pounds of wheat per year?), and in 2019 Do Good Sh*t, a nonprofit that installs sustainable waste solutions in backcountry environments and remote communities. “We almost always hire Eagle Scouts,” Thor says. “And more often than not, they turn out to be our best employees.”
Wulfe, an aerospace engineer who works for Naval Air Systems Command analyzing air-to-air combat, says, “Successful outcomes rarely happen by accident. Behind every strong result is planning, coordination, resource gathering, and people willing to follow through. It also showed me that even the best plans will face setbacks, and that preparation combined with adaptability is what turns challenges into success.”
“Dream big, then go do the work,” says Stein, an adventure filmmaker and reality star. “I live by ‘dream big and dare to fail’ — that’s a mantra of mine — and Eagle is where I learned the back half of that sentence. The dream part is easy. The 363 hours is where most projects die. That’s the part nobody talks about, and it’s the part that actually builds you. Cast a vision people want to be part of. Do the unsexy work. Finish.”
Christopher Henry, a Cast Hope volunteer from Arizona, attends our annual rod giveaway every year no matter how far he has to travel. As we start registering rod recipients, I realize that he is not the only one. Word is spreading. Rod recipients now come from 10 different tribes, as far away as Pascua Yaqui in Arizona.
“Ethan’s decision to name Cast Hope as the beneficiary has been nothing short of transformative,” Henry said. “He brought real leadership to Troop 266, showing his peers what meaningful service looks like while introducing scouts to Cast Hope for the very first time. We had a fully prepared team thanks to scouts camping and setting up ahead of time. The alignment between Scouting values and what we do at Cast Hope is undeniable, and Ethan has helped build a bridge that will continue to create future leaders.”
That evening, all Ethan wants to do is climb in bed and pull the covers over his head, but he realizes that he needs to do one more thing. “A good leader doesn’t forget to thank each person who helped me finish what I started,” he said.
No one in our troop, our family included, had ever witnessed a sunrise at Pyramid Lake. When the sky brightens into strands of copper, then gold, and the lake shifts from gray-green to violet turquoise, when you hear people inhale sharply in awe, that’s a moment of clarity. Stein and I believe Scouting teaches “that the best life is one lived with great people on this awesome planet, with purpose, with a story worth telling.”
For more information about Troop 266 and Pack 266, contact scotttahoe@gmail.com.
~ Leslie Hsu Oh is an award-winning writer and photographer who writes for National Geographic, Travel +Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, Outside, Vogue, and more. Read her work at lesliehsuoh.com or @lesliehsuoh.
