Weeding the Inner North Fork Road in Glacier National Park is quite monotonous for teenagers, despite the thrilling wildlife (we didn’t see any), gorgeous sights (it was raining), and community time in the car (they all fell asleep). When they were awake, all they wanted to do was get through the day so we could stop by the gas station and get a Dr. Pepper and a bag of salt and vinegar kettle chips. In order to keep the stoke up, my co-lead and I decided to introduce challenges and games to keep our youth entertained. Our prize was one drink and snack paid for by us, from the glorious St. Mary’s gas station.

We decided to put together relays, where the kids would group off into teams of two, and race to see who could (safely) lop more tree branches the fastest.

Other competitions included finding the longest taproot of Spotted Knapweed, a noxious weed threatening much of Montana, filling up a bag with weeds first, and asking a stranger to pick a weed for them.

During the week, they racked up point after point until the two teams were tied. Our final challenge was to spin twenty times, weave in between some trees, and jump up and down three times screaming “I’m a star, I’m a star, I’m a star!”. The winning team barely scraped by to first place going only two seconds faster than the second. Luckily, they were the only two without any money left.

On our final morning, we packed up camp quickly and ate a small breakfast of granola bars and fruit. We hurried into the car and drove to our heaven, the St. Mary’s gas station. Yes, it was overpriced and dimly lit, but it was glorious to us. All of the work we had done during the week was worth it, and we chugged merrily along back to Lawrence Park, sodas in hand.