“We were backpacking at China Camp, and it started pouring rain. Everyone’s gear started falling apart, people were arguing, we didn’t have food, it was cold, and it was really hard, but we kept going. The first night was just terrible,” said senior Cole Cuthbert, recalling a particularly emblematic Boy Scout camping trip. “But by the second night, we were really a team and everyone was working together. When you’re lifting 80-pound packs in the pouring rain going up a mud hill and then you finally reach the top, it’s just a fantastic feeling.”
Cuthbert, who spends his weekends earning merit badges and backpacking around California with his local Boy Scout troop, is one of a few elite Boy Scouts who has “Eagled out,” or achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest possible ranking in Scouting.
A scout starts working towards his Eagle ranking upon joining the Boy Scouts.  For Cuthbert, that was in the sixth grade.
“I started because I grew up in a family that was very outdoorsy, we did a lot of family camping,” Cuthbert said. “And by the time I’d reached high school, I’d devoted so much time to it and I’d put so much effort into it, that I thought it would be kind of a waste to just stop because I was so close.”
Cuthbert Eagled out last summer after fulfilling a series of requirements, including holding a leadership position in a troop and organizing and facilitating a community service project.
For his project, Cuthbert, along with the assistance of other boy scouts and some involved adults, pulled out non-indigenous plants and landscaped the hill behind the Tiburon Peninsula Club.
Senior Daniel Geloso, another Eagle Scout, organized a vastly different community service project when working towards his rank. He planned and built a shed for Joe Wagner baseball field in Larkspur to house a pitching machine and other equipment.
Geloso, who joined Cub Scouts in the third grade and became a Boy Scout in fifth grade, became an Eagle Scout rank during his sophomore year.
According to junior Karl Menzel, being a Boy Scout has helped to form who he now.
Menzel is currently working towards becoming an Eagle Scout. Although he isn’t yet, Menzel recognizes the prestige that accompanies an Eagle ranking.
“It really just tells a lot about your character. It says that you’re really committed and you know what you’re doing,” Menzel said. “I really think it’s going to make a huge good impact on my life. It’ll be something that I’m always going to be proud of.”
According to Cuthbert, being an Eagle Scout is more than just gaining a high ranking.
“Becoming an Eagle is basically making yourself better, rounding yourself out.  It’s teaching you how to do things you didn’t know before and how to teach other people things,” Cuthbert said. “And those things will never leave you. The common motto is, ‘Once an Eagle, always an Eagle.’”
Cuthbert said that the path to an Eagle rank is a very personal experience.
“Becoming an Eagle Scout is different for everyone because everyone’s better at some things and worse at others,” Cuthbert said. “But everyone has to do things that are hard. And doing something that’s really hard, getting through really tough terrain, overcoming things that you think you can’t, and then getting to the top and looking down is like being an Eagle.”
For Cuthbert, being a Boy Scout provides him with a sense of achievement.
“You get to the top of Boy Scouts, metaphorically and literally. You get to the top of the hill and you look down and you get to see all that you’ve done and all that you’ve accomplished and all that you’ve learned, I think that’s the core of what Scouts is,” Cuthbert said.